Louie da fly

Like this? Hellenic ship, mosaic (ca 1st century BCE-CE). Steven

Starting to take shape nicely. Steven

Looking good, but I think the ram looks a bit small. Check out the rams at (which are, admittedly Roman and/or Carthaginian) and also do a Google image search on the Athlit Ram, which is Greek (they think!). Steven

Sounds like a good plan, Antony. I find that when I don't do that, I end up regretting it. Main problem is not a broad enough scope of imagining what could go wrong - nature always seems to find an extra way . . . Steven

And here's what Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge, has to say about traverse boards - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_board Looks like the same thing. The "renard de présence" is a fairly common item in businesses etc, but I have no idea what its right name is in English. But I'm assuming the "renard" part is just a sort of carry-over from the name of the traverse board. Steven

Yes, probably - though the Ijsselcog had what looked like grain that had been in sacks. However, (if I read the archaeological report correctly) they found "ceiling planks", which I think means there was a deck above the hold. And also slots for deck beams within the hold that indicate the hold was actually on two levels (page 476 of the archaeological report I linked above). Of course a cog is a lot deeper than a nef, and I'll be happy if I just get a single level in the hold. Steven

That's beautiful work, Antyronnen. A clever solution to the carved stem, and I like the way you've organised the joint between the keel and stempost. Looking forward to further progress! Steven

Thanks for the input, Chuck. I think we must have been writing at the same time as each other. I don't suppose they have to be on what is in effect an open boat, especially as they can be removed to bale her out. I really don't know if pumps were in use at this time - though Woodrat put them on his near-contemporary Venetian Round Ship, I don't know of any evidence of them being used in the Atlantic. Time to have another look at the archaeological reports on cogs - nah, no mention of pumps at all. Yes, this is confirmed by the windlass barrel from the Ijsselcog. The Bremen cog has not only a windlass but a capstan as well, and though the best photo I've been able to find is a bit equivocal, it looks like the holes go all the way through on this one too. An easy way to stop it unwinding without ratchets and pawls. Oh, and I've found some earlier representations of cogs - dating back to 1267 and 1280 - exactly contemporary with the Winchelsea nef. Steven

Just going through some more info. The evidence whether nefs had a raised deck (level with the top of the through-beams) is a bit contradictory. I've already shown the Winchelsea nef in my previous post, and the crew certainly seem to be standing on a raised deck. This is supported by the seal of Yarmouth St Nicholas and an illustration from the Bestiary of 1225-1250, MS Bodley 764 supports this idea. However, another illustration from the same source contradicts this, as does an illustration fro BL Egerton MS 3028 Unfortunately, most of the other town seals could be interpreted either way - plenty of crew members shown, but their feet may or may not be standing on a raised deck. Here are the seals of Sandwich and San Sebastian. It's quite possible that both types existed. In any case, I'm still going with the raised deck for my model, as it's pretty evident that the ship on the Winchelsea seal has one. Steven

I've added some extra frames; the next one in sequence will incorporate the second through-beam. But I've come across a problem that is going to plague me unless I do something about it. With the crossbeams the way they are, the hold of the nef isn't going to have enough vertical room in it. The knarr I'm taking most of my structure from seems to have its hold open to the sky - there's no evidence of deck-beams above the hold - but the town seals of nefs show figures obviously standing on a raised deck. And the combination of this deck and the crossbeams below restricts the height available for cargo to an unacceptable level. In the real world if a person was standing on the crossbeams, the deck would only be up to his waist. I'm looking more and more at cogs for a model to work from with this. Yes, they're a later vessel, but as I've found from looking at town seals, not that much later. Though the Bremen cog dates to 1380, there are contemporary representations of them as early as c. 1310, only 36 years later than the Winchelsea seal. The construction of a cog doesn't have these crossbeams down in the bilges - in fact they are quite lightly constructed. In fact, checking on the Ijsselcog find, (see https://www.academia.edu/40371597/The_IJsselcog_project_from_excavation_to_3D_reconstruction ) I've found my suspicions about the construction method confirmed. The frames are made up of three futtocks, connected simply by scarph joints - one of which is at the sharp corner at the turn of the bilge, though there is a knee there to reinforce it. And I think this is why they have those hefty through-beams; they're needed to compensate from the lightweight construction. I note also that at least some of the through-beams are reinforced with hefty knees (see fig. 23 above, and the photo of the Bremen cog in an earlier post). In the Ijsselcog these knees are fixed through the planking to wales on the outer surface of the hull. This form of construction allows for a very considerable amount of room for cargo, whilst being strong enough to cope with wind and wave. I'm not going to change what I've already done - apart from anything else, the upper deck will hide the through-beams I've already put in. But I think I'm going to follow the cog construction as far as I can for any future frames. I also need to consider those great big knees used on the cog, and see if they are appropriate to the nef. As it appears to be flush-decked apart from the small fore and after decks, I may have to compromise with smaller knees, to allow access fore and aft. Still a work in progress. On another subject, and getting a bit ahead of myself, I'd been wondering about the function of the windlass and whether it was used to raise the sail, and if so, whether there was anything in between (such as a bollard) the halyard was tied to once the yard was raised. I found some video of sail being raised on the Viking reconstruction Harald Fairhair - So yes, if this is any guide, the windlass is specifically to hoist the yard, and the halyard runs directly to the windlass and is held there by it, without any bollard or whatever. Steven

I know what you mean - we've all been there. Fear not - it does get better as you gain experience. By the way, planking one side at a time can result in warping the shape of the model. I've done it once and got away with it, but I wouldn't recommend it as a usual practice. Steven

I've just changed the way I do the frames - instead of assembling the frame and then putting it in place, I've just started making the frame in its constituent pieces, making sure everything fits properly dry fitted, then gluing it in piece by piece. I find this allows the frame pieces to fit more tightly inside the planking. Hardly any extra work, and a better result. And it's probably the way they did it back in the day (but with nails/treenails instead of glue, of course). Steven

Sorry to hear you've been sick, Bill. I hope the pictures on the pinterest page are helpful to you. Unfortunately the archaeological record is fairly sparse, and a lot of the technical information we need is only available from contemporary pictures, which often incorporate a fair bit of artistic licence. Matthew Baker's pictures are perhaps the most reliable for this period. It's a pity there are so few of them. Best wishes, Steven

I've cut the holes in the planking for the central through-beam. First frame finished and in place. It's the central one with the through-beam, and the mast will be immediately aft of it. And second frame in place. The first one I made won't be put it in immediately - I'm using it as a sort of template to keep the spacing etc correct for the following ones. Now that I've got into my rhythm, they are coming together fairly smoothly and without too much time taken for each one. Steven

Oh, I'm not disputing the Viking influence, and we must keep in mind that there were plenty of Viking descendants in England in the east and north (the Danelaw) and had been since the 9th century. Still 250 years is a long time, even allowing for carryover. Anyway, it's a moot point - we don't know how nefs were built, and knarrs seem to be the nearest equivalent. For a comparison, see the construction of the Bremen cog of c. 1380 - certainly a very different kind of vessel - but one thing is very plain; those through-beams were absolutely vital with this kind of construction - It's a bit hard to be sure with all the damage of the centuries, it looks very much like the joins in the frames are at the turn of the bilge with no knees to reinforce the join. And even if not, that's a pretty frail form of construction for the size of ship. And no stringers or wales, either. Very interesting. Steven

True, true. But did that extend to shipbuilding? Two hundred and fifty years is a long time, and England had its own shipbuilding traditions. Who knows what developments occurred in that period? All I've observed tells me one thing - shipbuilding technology never stands still, and there are any number of ways to solve the same problems. All right, two things . . . Steven

Well, after a lot of experimentation and a certain amount of waffle and head-scratching, I've ended up with a framing structure that will be fairly easy to mass produce. Funnily enough it turns out to be the framing structure used in the Hedeby knarr - but before you say I didn't need to do all that work after all, there are a few points I should make. Firstly, I didn't want to just assume nefs would have the same framing as a ship type from a different part of Europe 250 years earlier, and in fact I still don't think they necessarily would have. Secondly, and following from the first point, I wanted to do some experimenting with other methods to see if anything came up that would work. I seriously considered the framing technique used by Byzantine ships - but of course they were even further away and just as separated in time. Thirdly, though the bent-wood technique looked very promising, I found the bent wood kept on straightening out again after a while - not a lot, but enough to change the shape. And repeating the bending still didn't seem to overcome the problem. This may have been a fault in my technique - I did it without wetting the timber - but it was very fiddly, and more important I didn't want to take the chance of the frames straightening out again once the frames were glued in place and deforming all my nice planking. So, back to the knarr method. I had to carve single V-shaped floor timbers with a slot for the keel (there's no slot in the knarr's floor timbers, but I needed one because I'd already committed myself by having the keel sticking up above the bottom of the planking - as an interesting side note, knarrs didn't seem to have keelsons). I tried an earlier version of the frame with two individual floor timbers joined at the keel. Didn't work well - too flexible - so I discarded this method. But here it is dry fitted to see if it would work. The final versions of the frames will fit the same way. The "bites" (a combination of knee and futtock) also had to be carved. A bit of a problem here, as I didn't have any wood made from a forked tree-branch, so the grain didn't follow the line of the knee, and I had to be careful of splitting the wood. I'm getting better at it, but it still splits now and then and has to be glued back together. And a cross-beam between the floor timbers and the "bites". Yes, the slot is off-centre - this is because in carving the wooden plug for the planking I didn't manage to get it perfectly symmetrical. But (a) I was already committed and (b) I'm sure they were fairly rough and ready back in the day (possibly not that rough and ready, but what the hey.) I had a cunning plan to get the floor timbers and the bites perfectly in line with the shape of the hull, . Having cut the plug into transverse slices, I used each slice as a template to carve, shape and assemble the pieces of the frame. The frames with the through-beams will be the same construction, but altered somewhat to incorporate the through-beam. Only 26 frames to go! Steven

Coming along nicely, Mark. Looks good. Steven

Very nice, Dick. I'm looking forward to the next instalment. It's a fascinating subject. Steven

Yep, just a shame that no nefs have been found, so we have to extrapolate from Viking finds. Ah well. If they'd found a nef I probably wouldn't want to make one. I like the speculation. Steven

One thing that occurs to me is that a merchant ship is subject to forces that don't apply with a Viking longship, because of the weight of the cargo. I remember reading somewhere that unlike conventional vessels, it was found from practical experience with a replica that a longship is so flexibly built that rather than smashing through waves it flexes to accommodate them. A longship is effectively built like an open boat, with no upper crossbeams to reinforce it sideways. But with a merchant vessel the extra weight of the cargo subjects the ship to forces a longship doesn't have to deal with - forces that push her downwards, and coupled with the pressure of the water outside, tend to squeeze the sides inwards. Looking at the two knarrs and the Karby ship we can see that most of the frames are fairly light in construction but there are three frames which are structurally very solid indeed (circled in blue on this pic of Hedeby/Haithabu 3 - BTW, the reason for the two names is that Hedeby is the Danish name for the town and Haithabu is the German name - it has variously been part of Germany and Denmark at various times in history) - almost built like a roof truss - one amidships and one each end of the open hold - and these provide the stiffness that keeps the sides apart. A couple of other interesting things about the knarrs is their framing. I seem to have been correct in thinking it was made up very differently from what we would consider conventional framing practice. First, at the bottom are floor timbers made rather like a boomerang - a single piece of wood with two arms angled to follow the line of the hull each side of the keel (green circle). The following photos are of the knarr Skuldelev 1. Above these is a horizontal beam, forming a triangle with the floor timbers (white circle) Above them again is something called a bite - a sort of cross between a futtock and a knee (red circles), which carries the framing right up to the top of the planking. Between them these three items make up the main frames. Then between them are intermediate frames which seem to run between the top of the planking and the turn of the bilge. This doesn't tie in with Zimmerman's reconstruction, which seems to be based more on the Gokstad ship. But that's ok - there's more than one way to skin a cat (or as my maths teacher in high school used to say "There's more ways of drowning a cat than strangling it, you know!"). The Karby ship also shows two stringers within the hull and a wale outside to further reinforce the shape (see post #133 above). It seems to me the through-beams of a nef are a different means of providing structural reinforcement of the same type as the "roof trusses" of the Hedeby ship, in an area where there really isn't anything else to prevent the sides from being forced inwards, but with the advantage that they provide access to the area below the decks. Maybe that's the whole point. So, I've been doing a bit of experimenting - with balsa, which I can afford to waste, because I have a very limited supply of walnut the right thickness. So far I haven't duplicated the knarr construction because I've only just finally figured out how it works. But it looks like a good way to go - unless I come up with something better. So here are some ideas for the frames for the open hold (top) and the decked area (bottom - at the point where the through-beam is situated) And here's a bite made of walnut, to see if I can make one without breaking it because of the problems with the grain (I couldn't - it broke and I had to glue it back together). Also rather wasteful of wood. Of course in the real world, timbers would have been carefully selected from forks in trees with grain which parallelled the shape of the floor timber. So I decided to experiment with heat-bending a straight strip of walnut to form a futtock/frame piece. I used a little soldering iron clamped in a modelling vise. A bit clumsy, but it worked. And here's the result. Seems to work pretty well. Still thinking it through . . . . Steven

Thus speaks a man who knows what he's talking about. Steven

I hope not, and indeed I don't believe so. It's true that one needs to learn to walk before trying to run, but I certainly haven't found any "looking down" on people who are just starting out, or who choose to build simpler models - at least not on this forum. MSW covers the whole gamut of skills, and in my time here I've found that despite my own ignorance of many aspects of ships and ship-modelling, people have invariably been polite and helpful. Steven

Well, rocs do it too, but it's in a picture, so it's got to be true. Of course, the male gryphon has no wings, so it can only be the females that carry elephants . . . According to Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge: "In British heraldry, a male griffin is shown without wings, its body covered in tufts of formidable spikes, with a short tusk emerging from the forehead" I hadn't previously known about the tusk on its forehead, and this one seems to be without one - maybe it's an immature one, or perhaps it broke off in a fight? Tenniel is all very well, but he probably never saw a real gryphon (they were very scarce in Victorian England - probably the pollution from all those dark satanic mills). Which reminds me, I had a friend whose surname was Mills . . . Steven

Thanks, Dick. I've been sort of tending in the direction you've suggested, and your ideas confirm my own opinions. Rather than hatches, removable sections of deck with catwalks either side (but not as narrow as on the Hedeby knarr - those Vikings must have had very good balance). The Winchelsea seal seems to show a higher through-beam at each end, which I interpret as supporting a raised foredeck and afterdeck. And of course the gryphons are in case you want to do a bit of elephant hunting. (Is that a hulc I see in the background?) Steven