We are now lying in Lowestoft for the 11th day, waiting for a good fair wind for crossing the North Sea. Today we again have a light easterly breeze here at the coast, but out at sea it is almost calm with light breezes from changing directions and it looks as though we will be here for another couple of days in ‘changeable to calm’. A summer high pressure area has latched on to the North Sea and is giving perfect holiday weather on both the Danish and the British side of the sea. On the Sea Stallion, the holiday mood has captured the whole crew and everything is taking place in slow motion in the sultry but pleasant summer heat.
While we can’t really say that we’re accustomed to warmth on the Sea Stallion, we are accustomed to waiting... Last year we had several long periods of waiting, for example in Båly on Lindesnes in Norway, which we didn’t get away from until the tenth day, and later at Islay in the southern Hebrides in Scotland, where we didn’t cast off until seven days had gone.
But what is it actually that we are waiting for? Why don’t we simply row? Isn’t it a rowing boat with all of 60 oars? Or, if there’s too much wind for rowing, why don’t we tack? We ‘boast’ all the time that the Sea Stallion is good at tacking... Would they also have waited so long in the Viking Age?
Answering the last question is of course difficult in relation to our specific situation. Reading the sagas tells us time and again that they lay waiting for fair winds when sailing up and down the Norwegian and Icelandic coasts. The stories are often about how they are received and lodged with various large farmers and lords of the manor, but what is interesting in our eyes is that they often seemed to wait just as long – sometimes even the whole winter – until it was possible to sail in the following spring...
In rather more recent accounts of fishing in the 1800s, for example, in Norway and the Faroe Islands, where they used open, clinker-built, square-rigged boats, one can also read about occasional very long periods on land, waiting because of the weather. So these long waiting periods are not some new phenomenon...
But again: Why don’t we just row if there’s no wind?
Well... that can vary from situation to situation. In our situation, the distance is quite simply too great and the weather forecasts are too changeable and uncertain for planning a long journey. As it looks now, it would take over five days to reach the Dutch coast. Under ideal conditions in smooth waters and no contrary wind, we can row the ship at a speed of about 2 knots. However, this is unrealistic over longer distances and we must calculate with about 1.5 knots. But a stretch across the North Sea would be so demanding because of the distance and the swell on the open sea that, even in unrealistically good conditions, we would not be able to maintain an average speed of more than 1 knot.
At that speed, the trip to Thyborøn of about 360 nautical miles would take 15 days....
The same applies to the question of why we don’t tack across the North Sea. Under ideal conditions we can tack at 58 degrees to the wind, but our speed to the objective would not be much higher than when conditions are good for rowing. To this must be added that, when tacking, we take in a lot of water, especially over the fore- and midships, which does not do much for increasing our speed, comfort or staying power.
For comparison, I can say that on the eight-hour trip from Wicklow to Land’s End we baled almost 11,000 litres of water out of the ship – and that was just with the wind across the beam, which is not as wet as tacking...
The problem is not the pumping but the continual chilling of people who furthermore can find nowhere to rest.
And as mentioned, with 58 degrees to the wind we are talking about ideal conditions. As soon as factors such as waves, tides, the dark of the night and reefing down play a role, the tacking properties are sharply reduced. That we are so very many people on board with very little room per person also plays a role. This gives relatively poor comfort and thus poorer staying power.
These considerations apply to longships on longer voyages. On shorter voyages or in battle the conditions must of course have been considerably different. The conditions on one of history’s large, ocean-going merchant ships, such as the knarr, must also have been very different. A knarr is, of course, still an open ship, but it is much broader, has a higher freeboard, is more spacious, and is therefore in many ways more suited to long voyages on the open sea.
There are also other conditions that will have made it more difficult to sail a longship. We must assume that, unlike us, they will not have sailed with just one ship but, on the contrary, with a whole fleet of ships consisting of both longships and supply ships. To keep such a fleet together must have been extremely important for having the best chances in battle and it is my guess that they will have given this factor very high priority in relation to decisions about whether to sail or wait for better weather.
When tacking, it can be very difficult to keep close together without losing sight each other – especially over longer distances, when sailing at night, or with various ship types with different sailing properties.
The logistics of accommodating and feeding up to more than 100 longship crews alone must have caused even the best of strategists to think twice before a possible change of camp...
Even with our crew of ‘only’ 60 people, finding overnight accommodation for everyone in all the harbours we call at is always a challenge.
My conclusion in our situation is therefore that the most sensible thing is to remain calm, arm ourselves with patience, and wait until the southwesterly wind comes, sooner or later.
Furthermore, it isn’t certain that we will sail all 360 nautical miles in one stretch. Good options for suitable harbours on the route could be Den Helder, the West Frisian Islands, Helgoland, Fanø, etc. Rowing and tacking are, of course, options for shorter distances.
There can be various perceptions, opinions and strategies with regard to our current situation. One thing is quite certain, however – as skipper, the decision is mine.
See you in Roskilde on Saturday 9 August.
– at 2.00 pm!