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""Chapter IV: The Ship""
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CHAPTER IV THE SHIP THE Sutton Hoo ship was a great open rowing boat, some 80 ft. long as traced in he ground. Its greatest bean was 14 ft. and its depth amid ships 4 ft. 6 in. The prow rose to a height of at least 12 1/2 ft. above the level of the keel-plank amidships. It drew 2 ft. of water when light. It was clinker-built without permanent decking and there is no indication of a mast or other provision for sailing. The hull was stiffened with twenty-six ribs and the boat was driven by thirty-eight oarsmen . 1 The stern may have been blunt or squared off and the ship was old when buried, as the hull showed traces of repair. It has not been stove in or deliberately damaged by the funeral party. The lines of the ship, taken during the excavation by the late Lt. -Commander J.K.D. Hutchinson of the Science Museum, are shown in Fig. 12. Fig. 13 shows Mr. Phillip's suggested reconstruction of the gunwale and upper strakes, seen from the inside. The ship was probably steered over the stern by a large paddle. The ribformation hereabouts has been strengthened to take extra strain on the starboard side. The steersman probably stood on a small platform here and controlled the steering oar by means of an athwartship tiller stepped in its upper end. There was a similar arrangement for steering the well-known Nydam ship (about A.D. 400) found in Schleswig in 1863 in a peat bog with timbers preserved, and until the war exhibited in the Museum at Kiel. 2 A technical advance in the Sutton Hoo ship as compared with the Nydam ship is that the strakes are made up of several lengths of timber riveted together at overlapping joints. This shows an increased confidence in technique for the Nydam builders had used in the primitive manner continuous pieces of wood 73 ft. long (the length of the ship) so that the whole of the hull of their vessel, excluding the internal framework, consisted of only seventeen pieces of wood. In the Sutton Hoo ship, however, as in the Nydam ship, strakes are broad and few, In the later Viking vessels (which were propelled by sails as well as oars) strakes are narrower and almost twice as numerous 1. Following C.W. Phillip's account, Antiquaries Journal, vol. xx, no. 2, April 1940 2. The museum at Kiel is now destroyed, but the ship is reported to be safe. 37
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CHAPTER IV THE SHIP THE Sutton Hoo ship was a great open rowing boat, some 80 ft. long as traced in he ground. Its greatest bean was 14 ft. and its depth amid ships 4 ft. 6 in. The prow rose to a height of at least 12 1/2 ft. above the level of the keel-plank amidships. It drew 2 ft. of water when light. It was clinker-built without permanent decking and there is no indication of a mast or other provision for sailing. The hull was stiffened with twenty-six ribs and the boat was driven by thirty-eight oarsmen . 1 The stern may have been blunt or squared off and the ship was old when buried, as the hull showed traces of repair. It has not been stove in or deliberately damaged by the funeral party. The lines of the ship, taken during the excavation by the late Lt. -Commander J.K.D. Hutchinson of the Science Museum, are shown in Fig. 12. Fig. 13 shows Mr. Phillip's suggested reconstruction of the gunwale and upper strakes, seen from the inside. The ship was probably steered over the stern by a large paddle. The ribformation hereabouts has been strengthened to take extra strain on the starboard side. The steersman probably stood on a small platform here and controlled the steering oar by means of an athwartship tiller stepped in its upper end. There was a similar arrangement for steering the well-known Nydam ship (about A.D. 400) found in Schleswig in 1863 in a peat bog with timbers preserved, and until the war exhibited in the Museum at Kiel. 2 A technical advance in the Sutton Hoo ship as compared with the Nydam ship is that the strakes are made up of several lengths of timber riveted together at overlapping joints. This shows an increased confidence in technique for the Nydam builders had used in the primitive manner continuous pieces of wood 73 ft. long (the length of the ship) so that the whole of the hull of their vessel, excluding the internal framework, consisted of only seventeen pieces of wood. In the Sutton Hoo ship, however, as in the Nydam ship, strakes are broad and few, In the later Viking vessels (which were propelled by sails as well as oars) strakes are narrower and almost twice as numerous 1. Following C.W. Phillip's account, Antiquaries Journal, vol. xx, no. 2, April 1940 2. The museum at Kiel is now destroyed, but the ship is reported to be safe. 37
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