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| Plan of Gokstad Viking Longship from Ancient and Modern Ships |
For generations, the sight of a Viking longship sail on the horizon sent chills of fear down the spines of Medieval Europeans. However, Viking longships were used by Scandinavian mariners for everything from commerce to exploration in addition to warfare. Vikings used them to discover new lands to settle in Iceland and Greenland, and it appears they reached the shores of North America hundreds of years before Christopher Columbus.
Our Viking longship plan comes from Ancient and Modern Ships by Sir George Charles Vincent Holmes, published in 1906. Holmes Took from Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects, Vol. xxii, from a paper by noted naval architect Colin Archer. This particular smaller Viking longship was discovered in 1880 in a grave at Gokstad near Sandefjord at the entrance of the Fjord of Christiana. Built entirely of oak, she was 77 ft. 11 inches in length, extreme breadth 16 ft. 7 inches, depth from top of keel to gunwale 5 ft 9 inches.
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