Boats that Vikings Used: Beyond the Longship

Longships get all the glory. But no Viking rowed thirty of his mightiest friends out just to check the fishing nets. Across Scandinavia, where mountains, bogs and winter made roads a misery, water was the highway, and people built a whole fleet of boats to travel it: one-person dugouts, family rowing boats, broad-bellied cargo ships, and the ocean-crossing knarrs that carried settlers to Iceland and Greenland. The famous shallow-draft longship was only one boat in the harbor.

Most Popular Viking Boat

Comparatively easy to make, dugouts were the most common boats that Vikings used. A dugout would be carved from a single log and provided access for almost anyone to communication and trade routes. The largest dugouts topped about 30 feet in length and could accommodate people and cargo. The smallest would hold one person.

Other Small Viking Boats

A step up from the dugout was the row boat. Also called a skiff, more prosperous people, like fishers and important farmers, likely owned this type of boat. It would have made getting to the market with farm goods or large catches easier.

Larger Boats that Vikings Used

In 1962, archaeologists drained a cofferdam in Roskilde Fjord, Denmark, and raised five ships now known as the Skuldelev ships. Around 1070 they had been filled with stones and deliberately sunk to block the main sailing channel, protecting Roskilde from attack by sea. The five were:

• A small warship, known as a snekkja
• A 90-foot-long warship that could carry 80 people and had a shallow draft of three feet
• A small coastal trading ship and a small fishing boat
• An ocean-going cargo ship of the knarr type, built in western Norway

Before Skuldelev, most Viking ships known to archaeology came from grand burials like Oseberg and Gokstad. These were ordinary working ships, and they showed for the first time how varied the fleet really was.

The Viking Knarr

Knarrs were “the workhorses of Viking-Age maritime power,” according to author Neil Price. These were the ships that would carry settlers across the rough North Atlantic Ocean and haul the most cargo for merchants.

Viking Byrding

The byrding were smaller and more maneuverable than their Knarr counterparts. They were used for hauling goods in places that required smaller boats with shallower drafts.

Viking Boats in Alaska

One of Asgard Alaska’s dreams is a working Viking-style boat on Alaska waters, so that one day visitors can feel an oar bite the water the way a Norse crew did. You can help us get there with a donation to the mission, or by picking up something from Odin’s Offerings, where 100% of proceeds support our work.