Louie da fly

I must have missed this earlier ; Eorl, actually in English - though all the Godwinsons were half Danish on their mother's side - she was a relative by marriage of King Cnut. Nope, though I did visit Stamford Bridge in 2000. The bridge is no longer the same one (surprise, surprise!), and is probably now in a different place,a little downstream from the original one. A lot of streets in the town are named after the battle, and there'sa pub called IIRC the Swordsman. It's all but certain that the English army rode back south, just as they'd rode north - which they did in something like four days - must have all but killed the horses - I expect they would have left those ones behind and grabbed replacements from York and surrounds. As far as I've been able to discover there's no evidence at all that they were - both Harald Sigurdssen and William the Bastard decided "England's ripe for the taking - I'll take it." Harald was persuaded to invade by Harold of England's brother Tostig, who was in a snit with him for getting him removed from the Eorldom of Northumbria when Edward was king. He first went for refuge to his brother-in-law the Count of Flanders, and got him to provide a fleet with which he raided the south of England, but left when his brother arrived with an army. The he went up to Norway and did a fantastic sales job on Harald Sigurdssen and persuaded him to invade. There's more to the story, but once I get started . . . Almost certainly. Harold lost many of his best warriors at Stamford Bridge. Hastings lasted all day - and it was what Wellington later called Waterloo - "the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life." It's a bit pointless to speculate after the event, but I think Harold Godwinson was just plain unlucky. He saw off a Norwegian invasion. If that hadn't happened, he probably would have been able to see off the Norman one.

Thanks everybody for the feedback. Unfortunately the combination of old script and old language make it very difficult. Lacking anyone who can read the old script we're reduced to guesswork. So farit seems to say something like "They stood (have stood) [stundge . . ssen?] for (i.e. towards) Modon someone said eight hundred [mo. . g?] of the Turkish [ship?]" - so to m this means they wanted to go to Modon and were charged 800 of some monetary unit . I'd like to investigate this further, but at least I'm pretty sure that the answer to my original question as to whether this is a Turkish ship is yes. Jaager, you're right - those are rubbing strakes - they were quite common on carracks before 1500. The "circular attachments" look ball-shaped to me - I'm pretty sure they're not shields, but I have no idea what purpose they would serve, except perhaps for signalling or something of the sort - like the black ball that is dropped down the mast at noon on land to tell ships what the time is. Normally that netting is to deter boarders, but I can't see it being used that way at the top of a mast . . . They usually put netting over the decks in case of attack, but that's not shown here (maybe not installed in normal times?) The "stitched supplement" is a bonnet - removing it was how you decreased the area of your sail before reef-points came into use. I think this is an artist error - if you look carefully you can see at the far left (i.e. port) side of the sail there's just a bit of the seam between the mainsail and the bonnet. I think the artist just forgot to put the rest of it in. I agree about the seagoing abilities of the Turks at the time. They had been a steppe race and the sea was a bit of a mystery to them, at least at first. I seem to recall that during the siege of Constantinople (I think one earlier than their final conquest of 1453) their fleet was cobbled together from whatever they could lay their hands on, and reinforcements from one of the Italian republics were able to get past because of the inability of the Turkish ships to stop the big, modern ships coming to Constantinople's aid. However, they seem to have learnt fast -or employed people wit the knowledge and technology. I know of at least two other pictures from about the end of the 15th century showing big carracks in Turkish use - the Piri Reis map of 1513, and the picture of the Battle of Zonchio of 1499. By 1565 they were certainly in use by the Turks - the Knights of Malta captured one belonging to a high court official - possibly one of the reasons for the Turkish invasion of Malta that year. A lot of other interesting details in this picture - you can see the wedges of the mainmast, either sheaves or scuppers in the hull, at least two of them are sheaves - one for the maintack and one for the main sheet - lots of interesting rigging details including topping lifts, showing the shape of the blocks in use, the shrouds seem to be tied directly to a side rail, there'saladder to the quarterdeck which doesn't seem to quite make it all the way up, and what are those sort of grating things next to it, with "blobs" on top of the uprights? Perhaps something similar to the openwork sides of the poop superstructure? Fascinating stuff . . .

From the photos it doesn't look bad. Perhaps it looks worse in real life, I don't know. But we're always our own worst critics. Keep in mind that the deck furniture will break up the look of the deck,and it may cease to be a problem as you progress further into the build. If you're really unhappy with it and can't do anything to change it, I suppose the best thing to do is put it down to experience. But I'd say proceed with the build and see if the glaring fault that's so obvious to you now doesn't fade into the background as you go on.

I think this must be what it's all about - the clinker is supposed to hold it all together, as a shell-first ship. But I don't understand how the planks are supposed to stay in line at the join. But keep at it - I'm sure you'll sort it out.

Well, modern German for"ship" is "schiff", and we have the word "skiff" in English. I can see the bit you mean, and the first line seems to say "sie haffen stund (something) vor Modon sagt man (something something) argt hundert (something something) so al von den turken skafft(?) which seems to they were heading for Modon and it cost eight hundred something to board the Turkish ship (maybe?). Unfortunately renaissance blackletter handwriting is not my strong point. But I do think you're right that it refers to a Turkish vessel. Perhaps I should wait for Captain Hook to get back and clear it all up . . .

Looking good. I think the walnut colours look better than the mahogany, and if i had to choose, I'd probably go for Walnut A, with Walnut pot 2 coming a very close second. I'm looking forward to seeing how the veneer works.

Yes, that's the trouble. Difficult even for someone whose native tongue is modern German. Yes, Thanks for that, Captain Hook. I knew that much from my earlier reading, but I couldn't read whether it said where the ship came from. Is it stated in the text that this ship is Turkish? I just wanted some firm evidence for the nationality of the ship. If it's definitely Turkish, it's evidence for how widespread carracks were.

Can anyone help with translating the accompanying text for this picture, of a carrack used in a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1487? I'd always thought the crescent flag meant that it was a Muslim ship, but it seems the crescent was in fairly common use in Western heraldry, and the text might give a clue to the nationality of the ship. I learnt German for a short time when I was in school, but the elapsed time, the script and the Renaissance German make it impossible for me tomake any headway. I've managed to work out a few words, but the overall meaning is far beyond me.

The difference in religion was never a barrier to trade or even to diplomatic relations. The Byzantines, for example, made treaties with their neighbours regardless of religion - Muslim, Zoroastrian etc. It's howyou got along. And of course trade was the same. Whatever turns a profit. That the ship was built shell-first is not a surprise for the 7th century, but the size certainly is - 25 metres! That was a very big ship for the time. The "preserved length" of the 7th century Yenikapi wreck of the merchant ship YK11 (a model of which is currently being built by Woodrat) was only 9 metres.

Looking very good! Have you sorted out the deck colour yet, or are you leaving it to "percolate" in your head for a while?

Welcom to MSW, Paulo. Make sure you start a build log - it's a great way to get encouragement, help and advice. The instructions on how to start a log are here:

Welcome to MSW, Resoian. With that list of projects ahead of you, you're not going to get bored for a long long time. (Oh, and apparently taking on new things is a great way to avoid Alzheimer's ) Starting of with a half-model submarine sounds very good. I always think a timber backboard with an attractive grain is a good way to go.

Thermocles - he was the hottest member of the crew . . .

Very good idea. I don't know if there's a real risk of warping, but doing it this way will head it off if there's a chance of it happening. Also a good idea. The only suggestion I'd make is to offset the joins so they don't all land on the same set of frames.This is how it was done in the day and I think if you search "Planking shifts" (I think that's the term)you'll probably find more info. Normally there was a repeating pattern of three strakes, so every fourth strake was the same (if that makes sense). And it might be possible to make scarph joints between the planks instead of butt joints. However, I'd be wary of doing that - Because of the overlap in scarph joints, they might shorten your strakes so they don't fit the ship. You're going well, despite the confusing instructions. Keep up the good work.

Very nice work.

Just returning to this build after a while. You're doing beautiful work -getting very close to complete.

A slight change in technique for the arms has made my job a fair bit easier. I had been mass-producing the arms, sawn to a rough outline (NOTE: The letters on the arms stand for "Starboard Left/Port Right" and "Starboard right/Port Left". As the figures are effectively mirror images of each other, the same arm can be put either on the left side of a figure on the port side of the ship, or the right side of a figure on the starboard.) Once I had cut enough for 4 oarsmen I glued them onto all the figures at once. After that I'd dissolve the glue that held the oarsmen to the benches and take them off. Then I'd (as outlined in an earlier post) drill a hole linking each arm with the oarsman's body and insert a bamboo pin. Next I'd get the arms to swivel around the pins and glue the figures back on their benches. Finally, I'd take the arms off the figures and one by one I'd trim the arms to shape and glue them into their final positions on the figures. A few things wrong with this. First, doing four figures at once starts getting frustrating - like working on an assembly line it gets boring pretty quickly. It takes forever for anything to actually be complete. Second, I found the pins were often in the wrong places, because the arms were so roughly shaped when I attached them, Third, it was inefficient use of labour - too many steps involved. So, what I'm now doing is - still gluing the figures to the benches four at a time; that hasn't changed. But then I cut out only one pair of arms - for a single figure at a time. And I just hold an arm up against the body and see what trimming is needed for it. I gradually carve it to shape until it's exactly right, down to the fingers, the cuff of the sleeve and the folds in the sleeve at the elbow. Once that's done, I glue the arm into its final position at the shoulder. And repeat the process with the second arm for that figure. Once all that's done, only then do I unglue the figure, drill and insert the bamboo pins. The arms don't need to be pivoted or shaped - they're already in their final configuration and position. And then I move on to the next figure. This saves several steps which I have discovered are completely unnecessary, and maintains my interest better, because each figure is complete ready for filling, final trimming, and painting before I move onto the next. And in fact I can add the filler and wait for it to dry while I work on the next figure, so I have four figures at different stages of development (keeping me interested), rather than having to wait till all are done before I can move on to the next step. I've discovered I really have a "thing" about repetitive work. Who knew? A small thing, perhaps, but this hobby is supposed to be fun, not a drag.

Wonderful photos! As far as I'm aware, both Gokstad and Oseberg ships are accepted as "pleasure craft", or perhaps "yachts", rather than warships. The Gokstad ship's shields were the real thing - holes around the rim indicate that at one time they'd had a rim reinforcement, probably of leather, probably sewn on. The shields were thinner at the rim than at the centre (making them easier to manoeuvre but strong where it mattered), and the bowl-shaped protective metal "boss" over the handgrip was for use, not for show - see http://members.ozemail.com.au/~chrisandpeter/shield/shield.html . So they were not just knocked up for decorative purposes, as they probably would have been if the ship was purpose-built for the burial. It appears that the Gokstad ship at least was a working ship, though perhaps their trips were not long distance or of long duration. That doesn't solve the issue of what happened to the seats, though. I've always thought that trying to row while sitting on a chest on the deck would be very difficult. Surely the chest would rock back and forth as you pulled on the oar, making it hard to get a proper purchase. Back in my re-enactment days I made a replica of a Viking chest (the Mastermyr chest http://www.angelfire.com/wy/svenskildbiter/Viking/vikchest.html for those who are interested - those drawings are by me). I wouldn't like to sit on it and have to row.

Nice jig. I should think you'll be able to get quite a bit of planking done before the supports at bow and stern get in the way. That should certainly stabilize the shape of the hull.

Andrew, the kermes beetle is a different breed from the cochineal beetle, but it's likely the dye is the same substance. I was under the impression that cochineal was from the New World and didn't come into use until after the conquest of the Americas. Apparently during the American Civil War Garibaldi was offered the status of Major General by the Union but he wanted to be in overall command of the army. Nothing came of it. The murex also lives on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean so it's possible that Tyre had a flourishing industry as well as Crete. The amount of work (and shellfish!) to make the dye is why it was restricted to the Imperial family. Yes, the urine had to be stale, and the best was apparently fom young male beer-drinkers. I have no idea how they worked that out. But apparently traditional tweed is still dyed that way, and does smell (slightly) of stale urine.

That was at the re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings in 2006, on the actual battlefield. As I'd been to the previous Big One (and because I'm a shameless self-promoter) I got to play King Harold's brother Leofwine.These guys are members of my hearth troop, which I recruited in Australia (and elsewhere) before I went. Not so much a skaldborg - the battle captain of the English right wing described them as "having your own personal SAS". He used them as shock troops. And though the Franco-Bretons were scripted to break and run, I think the Aussies gave them a good reason to do so. The Australian method of re-enactment fighting is somewhat more vigorous than the English, and I don't think the enemy knew what hit them. See http://www.oocities.org/egfroth/Hastings2006.html Yes, the Bayeux Tapestry shows the great majority of the English with kite-shaped shields - only a few with round ones, which seem to have been going out of use at that time. The mail is made of iron rings - the most recent re-enactor stuff is closer to the original in that the rings are closed with tiny rivets. Mine is old-(re-enactor) style with the rings butted closed, but made of spring steel which is a lot stronger than mild steel and resists the attack of the dreaded "mail moth". The stuff is prone to rust. It would probably be kept in an oiled leather bag. Not many Vikings had mail - it was pretty expensive - and swords were just about as rare. A spear, dagger and perhaps an axe would be what most Vikings had unless they were rich. The swords would have been taken care of even better than the mail, as they were invested with all kinds of manly mystique. I doubt very much that a sword would have been stored under the floorboards.

That seems to be a good solution to the problem, Balclutha. I think it will be visible only to you when all's said and done.

Aaaargh! BTW, even the cleanest and shiniest of mail doesn't shine from a distance - it just looks grey. I puzzled over this for a while, then realised it's the combination of the shine and the shadow -sort of pixillated in very small bits of black and white/silver - looks grey from anything more distant than very close up. So much for Tolkien's "shining mail". A bit of a disappointment, really. That's me standing third from the right, with my hand resting on the head of the Big Axe (TM).

I think it was my misunderstanding of how things worked, not a fault with the site. Sorry for the fuss, but thanks for the help.

Welcome to MSW, Richard! I'd agree with Mr Bluejacket about starting a build log. A great way to get help, encouragement and advice. Though I can't offer a 10% discount on anything, unfortunately