Billings Boats Oseberg

Treehugger
Interesting, and nicely done. I had no idea there was a wooden kit for this subject.

This was called a 'longship' (translated to English), it had a shallow keel for shallow waters and iirc could twist on the ocean waves (but I might be wrong about the latter). I honestly don't know how many variants there might have been, presumably there must have been a few different ones.

Gary Dahlström
Yes, I believe on oceangoing longboats the lapstrake planks were fastened to the hull using some kind of flexible root. After I completed the hull the bow and stern would easily flex an inch or so off-center, even though I nailed those planks down to the bulkheads. You had to have brass cannonballs to ride this thing out onto the North Atlantic. To the Swedish Vikings headed east, the longship was more of a river vessel, light enough for portage between rivers or around obstacles. Carrying a boat always seemed counter-intuitive to me, but ya do what ya gotta do.
If you had some status in the community, the ship was also your coffin.

Al
Nice bit of history; I had a chance to visit the Viking museum in Denmark in the 80s and saw the genius and the labor involved in this ship. Building it as you did in wood is seriously impressive, also making the castings.