Viking Boat Racing - another Traditional Race

by Rob Bristow on 23 Jul 2006 Rowing World has brought you details on a number of traditional rowing races that are still held in Europe and beyond. Classic matchracing at Henley, Erging at the North pole, Barge driving, Bumps racing and now Viking Boat racing.

It seems that the Oxford and Cambridge crews have had another 'Boat Race'. This taken place between Denmark and England. Read on.....


For 300 years, the Vikings plundered their way across Europe, striking fear into all those who encountered them. Their revolutionary longships enabled them to dominate the northwest seaboard of Europe, and explore as far away as North America and the Black Sea. But what was it really like for these Scandinavian warriors crossing the cold and hostile North Sea? And are their modern-day equivalents capable of the same courage, stamina and brute strength?

In an experiment that dramatically brings long-lost history to life, Viking Longship Race pits two teams of rowers from Oxford and Cambridge against one another, and against the elements, to find out. The race is held over a series of stages before a final sprint down a river estuary in East Anglia. They may be happy cruising down the Thames, but can the crews cope with 350 miles of open sea from Denmark to England?

The modern crews each have a 13-metre replica boat made to Viking designs, and there are nine rowers on board, including women on both teams. But while the boats may have been cutting-edge technology in the 8th century, they are a world away from their modern equivalents and the teams need to learn a completely new rowing technique. The 21st-century Vikings also spend time in a ‘living village’ to understand the society from which these people came, and experts help to dispel some of the myths associated with them. Did they wear horned helmets? And were they only interested in rape and pillage?

In the website accompanying the programme, you’ll find a concise account of the Vikings, which asks whether they were truly warriors or actually colonists. There is also a timeline of their fascinating history, and details of the marvellous longships that took the Vikings so far afield.

Now for something about the boats and the people...

Viking ships

A key necessity of any expansion by a tribe or nation is transport, and it's in this area that the Vikings truly excelled. Their broad and flat longship was wonderfully efficient at tackling the harsh conditions of the open sea.

Shallow draft

Rather than cutting through the waves like a traditional deep ‘V’-shaped hull, the flat-bottomed boat simply sat on top of the water and rode the swells and dips of the waves. The shallow draft was remarkably versatile as it allowed the ship to travel along inland waterways with ease – a fully laden boat needed a depth of only a metre in which to float.

It also enabled the ships to land directly on to beaches with no requirement for docks or other structures. This meant that the warriors travelling in them could attack suddenly and without much, if any, warning.

Tough and flexible

In the 1990s, the well-preserved remains of five Viking ships were discovered at Roskilde, west of Copenhagen, which had been the capital of Denmark from the 10th to the 15th century. Scuttled to block part of a fjord, their final resting place on the sea bed, covered in silt, guaranteed their preservation. It is because of these vessels, together with other examples such as the knarr and Oseberg ships discovered in Norway, that we know so much about Viking ship construction.

Made of seasoned oak and pine, the hull of a Viking ship is lap-straked, where planks are overlapped and then riveted together. Internal ribs are attached after the lower parts of the hull have been formed, to force the hull into its familiar shape. The upper planking, or laps, are then added.

Wet wool

The Viking ships were powered by both oars and sail. The oars were constructed of pine, with fairly shallow blades, while the sails were made of wool treated with oil – a remarkable achievement considering how heavy a woollen sweater gets once it's wet!

Although the vessels all had a similar design, the Vikings made them in a variety of sizes. They ranged from 25- to 30-metre (82-98-foot) longboats to longships over 40m (131ft) in length that could carry 100 warriors across the sea at an average speed of 15mph.

The Viking design was both tough and flexible, with the added advantage of being relatively light. This last enabled the ships to be carried overland by their crews between bodies of water, as required.

It is interesting to note that the each of the Oxford and Cambridge rowers who appeared in the Channel 4 boat race experiment required 6,000 calories a day to perform effectively. For the students, this was provided by high-carbohydrate expedition food packs. For the Vikings, the necessary energy would have been eked out of dried fish.

Modern reconstructions have proved how manageable and seaworthy the Viking designs were. This didn't go unnoticed by the Anglo-Saxons, who built their own ships to a similar pattern. An icon of the Vikings, the longship was a vital tool that enabled the 'people of the north' to establish themselves from North America to Russia and Norway to Africa.


The postscript...

After researching this racing we have found that there is a lot of racing in Europe, mainly northern, and in Canada where there are a series of races building to the Viking boat marathon (42km) at the end of September check out http://www.vikingboatraces.com/faq.html about the Canadian regatta series.

Now about a series of corporate races in the Viaduct basin using Viking boats? Any starters? The Double 'V' Challenge?

Source; www.channel4.com