NOVA Online | The Vikings | Secrets of Norse Ships

Secrets of Norse Ships
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The most striking discovery was the biggest longship yet found, 119 feet long, with room for at least 72 oars and a crew of 100. With its draft of only about three feet and a huge, 2,175-square-foot sail, the ship must have been swift and formidable. The excavators speculate that this ship, like the others in Roskilde harbor, may have gone down in a severe storm, then become hidden in silt. Tree-ring analysis of the high-quality oak used for its timbers suggests a construction date of around A.D. 1025.

"The blue water, smitten by many oars, might be seen foaming far and wide" wrote a medieval monk who watched a Viking fleet set sail. Above: Detail from the Bayeux Tapestry, which commemorates the Norman invasion of England.

Countless sailing experiments with replica ships continue to confirm the excellence of Viking ship design. Much less is known about Viking navigation methods on the high seas, although one of the Icelandic sagas—narratives of Norse history and legends written in Iceland in the 12th and 13th centuries—includes sailing directions from Norway to Greenland that rely on distant landmarks and the presence of birds and whales to signal the position of land. The Vikings had no compass but undoubtedly steered by the sun and stars.

Did they have other aids? The sagas contain intriguing references to a solarsteinn or 'sunstone' used for navigation. Scholars believe it possible this stone was feldspar, a mineral found in Iceland that polarizes light. Theoretically, a polarizing stone might have helped indicate the direction of the sun when clouds obscured the view. Its practicality is doubtful, however, since it would require some blue sky to work and would thus have proved useless in total overcast.

Did the Vikings, as the sagas suggest, really use a sun compass for navigation? If so, what form did it take?

The evidence for a so-called "sun compass" is equally shaky. Some have viewed a fragment of a small wooden disk found in a Greenland monastery as a kind of bearing dial for finding north and south. The disk has a hole in its center, and the theory suggests that it originally fitted over a central pin or gnomon to cast a shadow. Markings around the edge of the disk could then have helped the navigator determine north-south. While similar modern devices do work successfully (as seen in the NOVA program "The Vikings"), many have questioned if the Greenland disc was actually used in this way. It is less than three inches across and the markings around the perimeter are so crudely carved as to make the interpretation doubtful.

"The towered ships"

The impression that a Viking fleet must have made under full sail can scarcely be imagined today, but a rhapsodizing monk at the monastery of St. Omer, France, tried his best to evoke the sailing of the royal Danish fleet in A.D. 1013:

When at length they were all gathered, they went on board the towered ships...On one side lions molded in gold were to be seen on the ships, on the other birds on the tops of the masts indicated by their movements the winds as they blew, or dragons of various kinds poured fire from their nostrils...But why should I now dwell upon the sides of the ships, which were not only painted with ornate colors but were covered with gold and silver figures?...The blue water, smitten by many oars, might be seen foaming far and wide, and the sunlight, cast back in the gleam of metal, spread a double radiance in the air.