Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Rowing this Viking boat

What would make rowing this reconstructed Viking boat difficult?

5 comments:

O Docker said...

Having to listen to all of that Wagnerian music everyone plays whenever Vikings are mentioned today, even though Wagner apparently never wrote an opera about Vikings.

No wait, you probably mean all of those shield things sticking up.

Chris Partridge said...

Last night's prog about the Vikings featured Neil Oliver trying to row a repro Viking ship. My dear, the timing!

bonnie said...

My first guess this afternoon was shields, but i thought that was far too obvious. HAS to be what O Docker says!

Tillerman said...

I vote for Neil Oliver's timing too. But what a great program! I miss the BBC.

JP said...

Yup, its the shields. For some reason they are placed exactly where they'd block the rower's oars.

This isn't a mistake in reconstruction - that's how the boat was found, scuttled in Denmark.

It might be it was chosen to be scuttled because it had this design flaw or the shields weren't often placed on the boat's side.

I was wondering about that Viking program - I've been too busy to watch but there is of course iPlayer.