Hjortspring Boat Replica
http://www.vaee.net/bul/pdf/061h.pdf
(Translated from the German by James Young, linguist, librarian, inspired needleman and friend, RIP)
[Sadly Werner himself died in 2008 and his work on replica artefacts and Living History was outstanding, from making chariots to long distance marches in full kit he was exceptional. I never had the pleasure of knowing him except through his writings but the world and historical research are poorer without him]
The Stag
Werner BodensteinerDedication- This essay I first and foremost dedicate to my friend Guntram Modrey who fell victim to a stroke on May 21st 1999, six days before his 42th birthday. His death was completely unexpected and well before his time.
Without his readiness to help and friendship I would never have begun this project for I could see that would need the help of an energetic and skilled craftsman. He joined me cheerfully in partnership in the work and when our "Deer" took to the water we were moved to shake hands again to celebrate our success.
The Stag
After some 3,000 hours of work, the boring of 5,000 holes, the sewing and knotting of 800 metres of hempen cord and caulking the same 5,000 holes inside and out making some 10,000 holes in all, 60 metres of cord tarred 3-4 times only, friendship brought often to snapping point, our neighbours brought close to screaming with the noise of our work, was the price of three years work on a replica of the Danish Hjortspringboot.
...about the group who did the building... We have accomplished:
1. An eight-day march in in former Czechoslovakia in historic costumes with weapons and equipment.
2. The crossing of the Septimer Pass (2650 meters) in Switzerland with similar equipment
3. Various smaller enterprises such as ancient iron-smelting, pottery,-making and so on.
4. (The latest info I have is that Werner and chums built a working chariot in c2001 and took it on a tour of German Iron-Age forts. )
...history of the Hjortspring boat...
Our small group could never hope to equal the normal crew of 20-24 men in the original so we agreed that our replica should be scaled to half-size of the original. A number of voices amongst us urged that we should not build too large a boat, say 6-7 metres long, but after some calculations, I held to my original opinion of its proper size. With a total length of 9.5 metres and breadth of 1.06 metres there would remain but 6.00 metres of useful inside length. On this I insisted in order to accommodate six rowers (paddlers) and the steersman/captain in the boat (but see actual capacity later).
Moreover, as the work and the costs of the enterprise would fall effectively on two persons it seemed that this was the best size which we could manage in practice.
The project included not only the question of obtaining our materials and its cost- no simple matter- but also the erection of a boat-shed. Obviously many of our crew members helped with the project but the lion's share of the work remained with the authors of this paper. Rich members or sponsors we had none so we stayed within our own limits.
Nor was there any question of using tools of the ship's era to make it but it was all constructed by hand using the original species of timber, lime, ash, hazel and oak. Chisel and mallet are after all not too different even today. One or another tools that we needed in the course of the work we had to make. Electrically driven tools were not to be used, we held to this throughout the three years it took to build the boat. No, we were not going to produce a model boat to live in a museum's showcase: this boat would float in its element, to make certain whether it was as unreliable as it was alleged. Guntram did have two adzes made, one broad and one narrow, as a precaution, but we made little use of them because we worked at hip height not on the ground. The tool of which we were to make most use was to be a chisel some 10cm broad which of course we made ourselves. With this we performed over 80%v of the work. We made many boring irons of different sizes, iron sewing-needles and a variety of stretching and supporting devices.
Originally we had hopes of obtaining the trunk of a lime-tree, say 8 metres long, 50-60 cm diameter and of course without knots. With that we expected to make the keel plank, bow and stern in one piece. We quailed at the thought of the necessary work but, thanks be to God, preliminary calculations by our timber merchant resulted in a minimum price so far above our heads that we declined the offer. We decided therefore to attach the bow and stern with pins (treenails). That is to make a separate assembly of the parts of the bow and stern and to secure it to the rest of the boat with carpenter's joints and sewing. Upon the exact method used in these parts of the construction the opinions of the “experts” differed as to why our solution to the problem should not be correct but the original's methods is incomplete and subject to hypothesis.
Planning the work ruled my life; how to build this replica lived in my mind for at least five years. Day and night I wrestled with elevations, sections and line drawings and put them all eventually aside but this continual engagement with the theory of building our ship had its use while we built it.
How the work went
Beginning is always difficult!
In front of us lay the keel 6.80 metres long 30 metres broad and 10cm deep. Of lime-wood 20 years in the storehouse and the finest available, or not!
Our first attempt at defining the centre-line and the starting points for the frame collapsed in chaos after five minutes . At this point there were five or six people working together with the same purpose. Those who had the least idea of ship-building behaved most craftily. But had any of us such knowledge, of course not!
Guntram Modrey, dental mechanic; Andreas Brauling, archivist; Marcus Klapfer, baker; Dirk Foeynmann, student of Roman Bavaria; Werner Bodensteiner, clerk in a merchant's office. How did they all find themselves working together?
Our plan: To draw out a "DIN" A4 sheet with elevations using pocket calculators and slide-rules. Every measurement had to be on the slide-rule, multiplied by a factor of 25 and marked, with more or less, allowance on to the board . Do that calculation once and you will understand our problem. We followed this line of work until the boat was completed. The sole 1:1 measurement appeared in a very expensive photographic reproduction of the plan form the bow and stern sections which we had needed to clarify the curves in the horns. In constructing the curves it did not in the end satisfy any of us.
Our aim after all was to build a boat. Remember "too many cooks spoil the broth." Our next step was to cut four wedge-shaped pieces off the ends off the keel-piece in order to shape the form of the ship. Sawing with the grain of the wood is never easy, in 10cm thick (lime-wood) it was downright miserable (the reason that lime is normally worked green perhaps?-ED). There were early calls for electrical assistance "we should otherwise be at it for weeks". I did my level best to discourage such methods. If we started by using a Bosch zigzag saw, we should undoubtedly finish with an electrical plane and miller/router. So every 10cm would be sawn by hand and behold - after 35 minutes the first cut was finished. Three more times and it was all done; it wasn't so bad after all.
The first summer I spent in shaping the keel with the chisel. That meant all Saturdays, Sundays and four weeks leave on the job. This so far unformed lump of timber had first to be formed into the shape from which all later developments would follow. The plank was worked from both ends towards middle so as to taper from 25cm at the edges. I followed that along the whole centre length with a 2.0cm groove in order to hollow out the surface from the sides to this groove as the deepest point. You can imagine the mountain of shavings that resulted!
Only the timber intended to support the clamps and cleats?) (kuaggnveiken) on the topsides of the keel was left uncut ( these are the rib positions to which the hazel rods are lashed-ED). The clamps and cleats on which later the frames and paddlers places or their supports would lie on these parts of the keel and be sewed/lashed to them. The cleats we were to have prepared separately and to have plugged into the keel. It was fortunate that we worked on them together with work on the keel, few things were more important than that at these points no timber should be removed, such a part held firmer within the whole assembly when all grew together.
So the first summer grew to an end, much had not happened, a deep disappointment. Guntram and I had perpetrated one bad planning error. Spoilt by six or seven years without winter, temperatures up to 20 degrees centigrade at Christmas, we had planned 6-8 months of work but finished up with three or at the most four months from the end of May to the end of August. For the rest of the time we suffered 88% humidity ; on May mornings we began at 8.00 with 18.1 and reached the greater figure at 11.00 or 12.00. Lime-wood reacted in this temperature like a sponge. No chisel work, no sanding was possible and the saw stuck fast. Although we watched the the thermometer and hygrometer closely we noticed the condition of out timber by the feel of the tools at work. You may believe it or not as you please! The more we worked on our lime-wood the more we gained a feel for our material. The sound of our tools on the wood showed us the course of the grain and whether the wood was hard or soft. Of course we had not the previous experience and the touch of the shipbuilding years before Christ but little by little we began to acquire both.
As in the original the lower bow and stern-post were scarfed together and pinned.
We had a healthy respect for these parts of the boat, not to say fear. We were nevertheless astounded at the ease with which we were able to complete them. Indeed care and fear were our constant companions throughout the building of the boat. Processes that at first seemed at first difficult turned out to be easy to complete; those that looked easy turned out to be very tricky. Our Number One rule in building the boat was to move slowly and carefully and to take careful thought before undertaking the next step so that we should not lose our way upon it. With child-like joy we chose an early day in summer to bring the keel-plate out onto the lawn to fix the stern assembly to it with a screw-clamp and to take our first photos of the work. Perhaps you may understand out delight at what we saw. Proudly we surveyed our "skeleton"; we could not take our eyes off its noble length of nine and a half metres. Though we were a long way from seeing it as a ship.
In the second summer we wanted to begin building from the keel. Yet we had still a long way to go. Guntram who came regularly from Wurzburg to our weekend dockyard drove as often back again in a mood of frustration as once again we had not completed the quota of work that we had set ourselves to do beforehand, due mostly to the weather and the cussedness of our "object". Consequently A, G and I took a week's holiday at Easter; the chips would fly if we took a break! We had again chosen the rainy season to begin work. Out of sheer frustration we used the shelter of the garage to make up seats for the paddlers and their supporting framework. It was done as on a production line, by agreement and to match, but each one working by himself to make the same or similar parts. Of course, this produced too many pieces, even at an early stage.it became clear that only half these parts could be used. In building their wooden boats the shipbuilders of old learned to make only those parts which they needed and could fit in immediately. We had learned our lesson!
During this summer we shaped the two first side-planks that fit onto the keel. They caused us noticeable difficulty. These planks were made out of boards of 3cm thickness. At about 6 metres length and 30cm breadth they were brought down to an overall thickness of 6mm. Again the original full thickness was retained for the rib cleats, each 12cm wide at 50cm centres along the board. The sets of cleats/klampfen at five a set were given the required shape with gouges. In the next stage we occupied ourselves burning 6mm holes for cords to join the planks which form the carcase (hull) of the boat and the holes for securing the framework of the boat and for binding the supports to the paddling benches. As you can see from the photographs we altered the arrangement of the paddling benches from the original. (unable to obtain the original article’s photographs, sorry-ED)
Our efforts at drilling holes with hot irons in the planks of the boat were notably successful. Five or six irons were kept in the charcoal stove and we managed to bore three or four holes at a time in the thinner planks but with the thicker cleats it could take three or four heatings with thinner irons. These thicker parts had to be burnt from both sides with irons bent at an angle allowing less force to be used on each occasion. The burning period could be shortened appropriately. The smoke came out of our drill-holes in clouds with a biting acid smell. Lucky that our shed was open!
A visit to the Danish National museum in Copenhagen was to have provided information about details still in doubt but we did not draw all that much profit from the journey. We were overwhelmed by the size of the original but we did not clarify as much as we had hoped. An additional call on the library of the museum did not have much luck either. We were able to confirm that the forward oak panel which joins the horns of the bow carries carving in herring-bone pattern but so many other important questions remained unanswered. We were struck by the quality of the finishes that had been preserved but overall it is clear that only parts of the boat have been preserved and the longest remaining lengths of plank are only about 1.5 metres each. Best preserved are some paddler's benches and their supports and hazel ribs as well as the steersman's bench at the stern. Those parts made in ash of which the paddles are the most notable display a very marked shrinking. One would understand that the softer parts between the annual rings of the grain would have become noticeably narrower while timber cut with the grain would show very little change in length. Such long thin paddles that are far too thin present a curious contrast (later experiments have shown the efficiency of narrow paddles-ED). The numerous well-preserved shields present similar features 70cm/55cm shields apparently shrinking to 70/25cm (Um!-ED).
In our excess of zeal we had already prepared some of the paddles before we had had a chance to see the originals. A scratch test with a kayak's two-bladed paddle gave the answer that good forward thrust from a relatively modest outlay of power spoke well for our modern paddles. In our smaller replica they would serve us well. Meanwhile we had learned that a Danish group had been formed to make a full-size replica of the original boat. They enjoyed a membership of at least 150 some of whom were wealthy enough for the group to imagine spending DM 20,000 on buying a quantity of lime-trees in Poland. It was said that the first trunk had already been discarded due to an attack of disease in the heartwood. The unfortunate people had discovered this disease after they worked on the timber for a year. It was also said that they had secured the help of a number of professional boat-builders and were receiving every assistance from the National Museum. We put on a spurt in our work for we were anxious to be the first to put their boat on, or even under, the water!
Guntram's curiosity was so great that at the end of the year he went off to Denmark to find out how far our competitors had reached. He brought back good news They had the advantage of a heated workshop but they were 11/2 years behind us. The Danes had the disadvantage of thicker and heavier timbers to work on. Besides their workshop must have been even more chaotic than our improvised dockyard.
Next, back to OUR boat. On returning home we got down to work with double energy. We two "sewing-masters" spent at least three hours discussing how the boat should be sewn. When we had brought out the cord we began our first attempts at sewing with home-made iron needles. After the cord had been led through 3 or 4 holes the needle broke. Timber is much less flexible than cloth or leather. Should we burn the holes wider before we split the boards by pressing too hard to force the needle through the holes? In some parts of the work we had to pass the thread 3 or 4 times through the same 6mm hole. We should explain that our attempts at obtaining enough of our original choice of thread (lindenbast, fibre from Linden tree bark-ED) had collapsed and we were compelled to fall back on tarred hemp cord. Our sewing went more smoothly when we made use of a thin wire loop. Guntram pushed the loop down and I returned it from below. Weeks later Guntram learned the best dodge with the wire in a paper setting out how the Lapps in Finland built their rowing-boats. The journal containing this paper was already in our possession. (see link on website-ED)
In the third summer 1997 we began to prepare the last planks and to put all the parts together. On the uppermost planks we fitted a capping piece fastened both sides of the plank (to form a gunwale-ED). Those who have seen the original will understand this addition. No-one could show that the original boat had five planks worked up from one piece of timber. Consider, each would be 14-16 metres long and 50-60cm broad. Even if one accepted the image of the "Giant Lime-Tress of the Iron-Age" it would not have been sensible to have worked on such long pieces. In boatbuilding terms, shorter timbers enhance the stiffness and firmness of the hull structure. There are enough examples extant. In those Viking ships that remain which are far bigger than our boat the longest planks are 8-12 metres. In one of the Godstad boats, the biggest, which is as long as our replica (9.5 metres) we have to do with planks of 2, 3, 4 and 5 metres. On the other hand we must agree that our choice was due to the restraints of cost and supply.
In the final assembly, by the fitting of the hazel ribs and the paddler's benches, our boat acquired a quite unexpected stability. During the first binding of the ribs we achieved an unsteady shaky structure which we put down to inexperience during the building of the boat. Now we were prone to serious doubts as to whether we had sewn everything too firmly. But, we had in fact done everything just right. This assertion is not exaggerated for a week's journey up-river and in which we coped with shallows and rapids told its own tale in a boat that returned quite unharmed. This boat had "Beginner's luck"
The description of the original characterised the caulking of the sewn parts as a resinous mess. Neither the materials used nor the way they were put together were described. We sought our own solution with tar which has been known since the Stone-Age and is used in boatbuilding up to the present day. Three applications of thinned tar on the inside and about five to its outside gave the lime-wood, not often used in boatbuilding today, a certain protection against mildew and rotting for lime-wood, admittedly very light and exceptionally pliable, is particularly prone to both. A light decorative strip fixed centimetres below the gunwale gave an attractive appearance, The weight of our boat at about 110kg is about right. Two strong men can lift it to carry it about 30 metres distance. If it were not so awkward and bulky it could be carried further.
The Launch
No problem for six to bring it. Eight men and women took a hand and she was in the water. We all hurried to the slipway. The boat lay marvellously well in the water and it had no list. We were very proud and happy.
It was christened “The Deer” or “Stag” in honour of the place where the original had been found.
Hjortspring in the Island of Als.
After two or three minutes some drops of water seeped in though weak places in the sewing of the keel-plate. What are a few drops that ooze through the fastenings as against 5,000 holes that are waterproof. ( our mathematicial Dirk Nowak had counted every one)? Accepting the leak we all climbed in and quickly climbed out again! With six bodies aboard we had no more than 8cm freeboard. After a short, unsteady, lap of honour we came back to the quayside. At every movement of a crew member we took in half a basin of water. The next attempt was made with five in the crew and lo, it went, it went very well. When we planned to make a half-size replica we did not reckon with the fact that it would reduce everything by a quarter. Beside we could not reduce the weight of an adult. Could we have manned the boat with youths or children?
After the first disappointment, joy and satisfaction were evident of everyone's faces. We enjoyed the weekend here on my home lake in Nurnberg crossing and re-crossing from coast to coast. Our numbers soon settled down to 8-12 regulars and everything then fell into place.
Performance of the boat on long journeys
The boat is not at all as slow as previous calculations seemed to show. Rather the opposite, it can even be exceptionally fast. A quarter hour's competition with a canoe of the same size and crew gave an advantage of 50 metres to the Deer, of course with the boat’s crew digging in well together. Forward speed is particularly good; though at high speeds the boat reacts poorly not to say sluggishly to turning (full-size replica has to use a steering paddle to get decent turns-ED). It needs a turning circle of 30-40 metres in fact. We noticed that the boat pushes against a turning movement, seamen say it yaws, that is although the crew have started a turn it is obvious that the bow takes a long time to come round. The bow and stern plates that stand nearly vertical in the water act as built-in brakes under water. Let us here not forget that the boat was devised for work off the sea-coast and in that quick changes of course are not expected (not so but never mind-ED). At a low speed the boat responds surprisingly easily to the helm. When approaching a mooring the steersman can bring the boat to the quay within inches of its place.
We were pleased that the little ship could be managed without difficulty by two people and even with a single paddle it was possible to manoeuvre the boat very well. It was not as stubborn as it was, it can swim on the surface, the bows come up and it is possible to turn it in its place (in its own length?-ED)
The rest of its movements on the water I have described as shaky. As we gain more experience of the idiosyncracies of our construction the confidence and trust of the crew in it approaches the immeasurable. While changing seats on a journey our steersman Guntram, a real giant, stood upright in the boat and we completed this exercise without capsizing. This experience brought us to doubt the theory that this type of boat was prone to capsize, Top-heavy, yes so it is for we sit 30cm above the waterline but with the right trim and a measure of ballast it is a handy ship!
After renewed caulking of the holes in the seams of the boat we embarked on a week's journey up-river. It was a real baptism of fire for the boat and crew. Strandings, encounters of bow or stern with rocks lying across our course, negotiation of fast and slow patches of river, our boat survived it all without harm. Apart that is from some scratches and scrapes. The boat survived a broadside fall of 1.5 metres down an unexpected weir. The boat threw us all out at the ledge at the top: we fell out first and the boat fell after us onto the concrete and a mass of sharp-edged rocks.
After its first day in its natural element, water, we sailed in an absolutely watertight ship weighing about 40 kilos. Throughout its construction we handled the parts and the part-built hull like raw eggs but now we know from our experience how robust a vehicle the Hjortspring people had encompassed. Practical experience had shown again how far theoretical calculations and surveys can be from reality. But, it was not our purpose to fix blame on someone but once more to tell a lively story and by an experiment to put ourselves in the way of finding a solution from the European past to questions hitherto without explanation.
Now, as I am writing this I hear that our Danish colleagues completed their replica two years later than us, that is on the weekend of June 5-6th, 1999, their boat took to the water for the first time. (see the Guild of the Hjortspring Boat for current details. Werner hoped that one day the two teams wouldl meet-ED)
Here I must give thanks to all the members of our syndicate, whether this one or that one contributed more or less to the project as they were able out of his or her free time and means and with act or word they have contributed to the boat building.
