Hobbies And Interests
Materials
Typically, every part of a Viking boat was made from wood, even rivets. Skilled Viking boat builders, called shipwrights, picked the right trees for each job from the expansive Nordic forests. Native woods, especially pine, ash, larch and elm were used extensively. The strong oak was used sparingly unless the shipwrights were building warships because it was believed to be sacred to the Viking God of War, Odin.
Tools
Vikings used axes to chop down trees and wedges to make them fall in desired directions. They used bark spades -- blade-like tools with long handles -- to scrape the bark off trees after they were cut. The Vikings understood that wood that was split in the direction of the grain was much stronger than any piece of wood cut using a saw. Therefore, all boat building wood was split by a combined process using axes, wedges and mallets.
Process
The Vikings started each boat with the enormous wooden keel or spine cut from one continuous log. Planks were then overlapped and built up on either side using a caulking made with the hair of animals to prevent leakage. This process is called "clinker building." There were no metal rivets. In areas were a joint was needed, they used the natural joints between tree limbs and branches, realizing that these natural joints were much stronger than any man-made creation.
Result
The last step in building a Viking boat of war, called a Drekar, was to add the fierce dragon heads on the front to scare off evil spirits and sea monsters. It was removed once the boat docked at land again so as not to scare friendly, helpful earthbound spirits. These impressive boats gave the Viking civilization a formidable advantage over their competitors on the open seas and have earned them admiration and respect from modern ship builders worldwide.