The Northern Ships |
| The ships of Torvaldsland differ greatly from the ships of the south.
Ships in the south are of carvel construction while the ships of Torvaldsland
are clinker built. Clinker built ships are constructed with overlapping,
flexible planking. Tarred ropes and tar serve as calking. The outside
planks are also coated with painted tar to protect them from the ravages
of the sea and from ship worms. Carvel ships are built with planking that
is flush and does not overlap. Though clinker ships leak more, requiring
more frequent baling, they are more seaworthy in the rough waters of the
north. In Torvaldsland, the custom is to bail your ship once a day if it needs it or not. Bailing is also known as "drying the belly of the serpent." A ship that must be bailed three times in two days though is seen as unseaworthy. Realistically, many of those ships are still used, especially late in the year after the ship has loosened some after months of being at sea. In the spring, these ships will be recalked and tarred. The bailing scoop is a wooden tool with four sides. It is about six inches wide with a straight but rounded handle. You must check the scoop for snails so they are not thrown overboard. Snails are edible and are also good for for fish bait. Torvaldsland ships are often not well suited for cargo. Their decking is loose though and can be removed to increase cargo space. To protect their cargo and men from rain or sun, a large boskhide may be hung over the deck. At night, the men will sleep on the deck in waterproof bags, sewn from sea sleens. Their ships also do not carry lateen sails but have a single, square sail. They cannot sail as close to the wind but they also only need a single sail. They simply take in and let out the canvas with the reefing ropes. Each ship has a helmsman who seeks the best wind for the ship. He examines the waters ahead and also the sky. There is usually wind beneath clouds. He also tries to avoid areas of little wave activity. There is in addition a lookout whose function is to watch for other ships and any dangers. The lookout stands on a broad, flat wooden ring, bound in leather and covered with sea sleen fur. This ring fits over the mast at the top so he can see over the sail. The mast is about thirty-five feet Gorean high. He can thus see out to about ten pasangs. The ring has a diameter of about thirty inches. The lookout does fasten himself to the mast. He reaches the ring by climbing a knotted rope. One common ship is known as a "twenty bencher" or a "serpent" ship. This means there are twenty benches to each side. These benches are for the rowers and there are two men to each oar. Their oars are longer and narrower than oars on southern ships, allowing the oars to sweep the water faster making the ship move faster. The keel to beam ratio is one to eight and is also designed for swiftness. With a good wind, their ships can cover 200-250 pasangs in a day. Most northern ships do not have a rowing frame. Instead, the rowers sit in the hull, facing aft. Raiding ships are often painted with red and black in irregular lines. At night, such ships moving inland on a river would harder to detect. These ships have two anchor hooks, one fore and one aft. They resemble grappling hooks and are attached to the ship by tarred ropes. They each weight about one hundred pounds. Some of these ships may have a small longboat tied up on the decking of the after quarter. There had been much fear in Kassau when the ship of Ivar Forkbeard had entered the inlet. But it had come at midday. And on its mast, wound and painted and of painted wood, had hung the white shield. His men had rowed slowly, singing a dirge at the oars. Even the tarnhead at the ship’s prow had been swung back on the great wooden hinges. Sometimes, in light galleys, it is so attached, to remove its weight from the prow’s height, to ensure greater stability in high seas; it is always, however, at the prow in harbor, or when the ship inters an inlet or river to make its strike; in calm seas of course, there is little or no danger in permitting it to surmount the prow generally. that the tarnhead was hinged back, as the ship entered the inlet, was suitable indication like the white shield, that it came in peace. The ship was a beautiful ship, sleek and well-lined. It was a twenty bencher, but this nomenclature may be confusing. There were twenty benches to a side, with two men to each bench. It carried thus, forty oars, with two men to each oar. Tersites of Port Kar, the controversial inventor and shipwright, had advocated more than one man to an oar but, generally, the southern galleys utilized one man per oar, three oars and the three men on a diagonal bench, facing aft, the oars staggered, the diagonality of the bench permitting the multiplicity of oars. The oars were generally some nineteen feet in length, and narrower than the southern oars, that they might cut and sweep with great speed, more rapidly that the wider bladed oar, and the lightness of the ship, this would produce great speed. As in the southern galleys the keel to beam ratio was designed, too, for swiftness, being generally in the neighborhood of one to eight. Forkbeard’s ship, or serpent, as that are sometimes called, was approximately eight feet Gorean. His ship, like most of the northern ships, did not have a rowing frame, and the rowers sat within the hull proper, facing, of course aft. The thole ports, I noted, had covers on the inside, on swivels, which permitted them to be closed when the ship was under sail. The sail was quite different from the southern ships, being generally squarish, though somewhat wider at the bottom. The mast, like that of the southern ships, could be lowered. It fitted into two blocks of wood, and was wedged in the top black by means of a heavy diagonal wooden plug, driven tight by hammers. The northern ship carries one sail, not several sails, all lanteens, of the southern ships, which must be removed and replaced. It was an all-purpose sail, hung straight from a spar of needle wood. It can be shortened or let out by reefing ropes. At its edges, corner spars can hold it spread from the ship. I doubted that such a ship could sail as close to the wind as a lanteen-rigged ship but the advantage of being able or shorten or let out sail in a matter of moments were not inconsiderable. The sail was striped red and white. The ship, like most of the northern ships, was clinker built, being constructed of overlapping planks, or strakes, the frame then fitted within them. Between the strakes tarred ropes and tar served as caulking. Outside the planks, too, was a coating of painted tar, to protect them from the sea, and the depredations of ship worms. The tar was painted red and black, in irregular lines. The ship at night, mast down, with such colorings, moving inland on a river, among the shadows, would be extremely difficult to detect. It was a raider’s ship. Another feature of the northern ships is that they have, in effect, a prow on each end. This permits them to be beached, on rollers, more easily. They can be brought to land in either direction, a valuable property in the rocky, swift northern waters. Furthermore this permits the rowers, in reversing position on the benches, to reverse the direction of the ship. This adds considerably to the maneuverability of the craft. It is almost impossible to ram one of the swift ships of the north. (MoG Pg 32, 33) |