from the deck up: using rig analysis to trace the origins of the scottish sgoth

8/9/2019 From the Deck Up: Using rig analysis to trace the origins of the Scottish sgoth

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From the Deck Up:

Using rig analysis to trace the origins of the Scottish sgoth

Louisa W. Pittman

Photo: Ian Stephens

A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with therequirements of the degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts

Maritime Archaeology and History, Department of Archaeology and

Anthropology

September 2009

Word count: 14,943 words


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Abstract

The sgoth is a coastal fishing vessel unique to the Western Isles of

Scotland. Like the nineteenth-century boats fishing in other parts of coastal

Scotland, it is a lug-rigged open boat that could be rowed or sailed, and it wasmanned and equipped to fish offshore for short periods of time. Unlike many of

the other luggers, though, the sgoth rig is extremely minimal, with a single

unstayed mast and a single dipping lug sail. The origins of this craft might be

hard to determine by just looking at the hull, it looks quite a bit like many other

small wooden fishing boats, but a close look at the rig gives more clues to itsprobable Viking origins.

This study takes a different approach to an archaeological analysis of the

origins of the sgoth. Rather than hull design and construction, the research

focuses on individual parts of the rigging to try to find survivals and similarities

between the Viking longships, which frequented the western coast of Scotland at

the end of the first millennium, and the distinct Western Isles fishing boats thatsailed out of local ports almost one thousand years later. Since a large gap of

several centuries exists between the Viking occupation and the appearance of the

sgoth, a third vessel that frequented the area has been analyzed alongside these

two, the Dutch fishing buss. Since it also carried a single square sail on eachmast, it is used as a contrast to the others. The aim of the study is to show rig

analysis as an effective way to provide an explanation of origin for this little-

known Scottish vessel.


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To my family, a group of scholars who never fail to challenge me

and

In memory of Captain David W. Hiott IV, the best sailor I have known


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Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to Ian Stephen of the An

Sulaire Trust for his contribution of photos and his extensive knowledge of the

sgoth. His patience and enthusiasm for the subject were greatly appreciated. I

would also like to thank the staffs of the National Archives and the NationalLibrary in Edinburgh for help in my research. I am grateful to John for

contributing equal measures of accountability and coffee. I am also grateful to

my research assistant and twin sister Charlotte for her help with my fieldwork

and her unfailing enthusiasm. Finally, I would like to express deepest gratitude to

my parents Lester and Clare, who have never ceased to support and encourageme in my every endeavour.


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About the author

Louisa comes to the field of maritime archaeology with several years of

practical experience in the maritime industry. Her interest in historic ships started

during her first year as a cadet at the Maritime Academy at Texas A&M

University in 1994, where she joined the volunteer crew of the 1877 barqueElissa. Though her training at the academy was aimed at producing merchant

marine officers for the larger ocean-going commercial vessels, she found her

interest really lay in the deepwater tallships. Upon leaving the academy, she

chose to pursue a career in the tallship industry.

From 1998 to 2004, Louisa sailed almost continuously, serving aboardseven sail ships over 100 tons: three schooners and four square-riggers. In 2000,

she was made full-time boatswain and second mate of the early seventeenth-

century replica pinnaceKalmar Nyckel, and was responsible that year for a

complete downrig and overhaul of her approximately six miles of standing and

running rigging. In 2001, she was promoted to chief mate aboardKalmar Nyckel.

She served as a watch-standing officer and occasional relief captain on all of hersubsequent vessels, and her sea-time was mostly spent in deep-water travels up

and down the east coast of the U.S. She earned her first sailing masters licence

in 2000, and ultimately ended up with an ocean sailing masters licence for 200

tons by 2004.She decided to return to university after her season aboardNiagara in

2002, and chose archaeology as a field in which she could continue to study

these historic sail ships and to which she could bring some practical experience.

She continued to sail the summer seasons during her time at university, and took

a job as assistant shipwright building the nineteenth-century replica pilot

schoonerSpirit of South Carolina to support herself during her studies. She

graduated from the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina in 2006

with a BS in Anthropology. She left the schooner project after planking had been

completed to start work in field archaeology, spending the next two years

working for contract archaeology companies in the southeast U.S. as a fieldarchaeologist and eventually as a crew chief on all phases of survey and

excavation.

Louisa was able to move into her chosen field of maritime archaeology in

2008, when she was granted a place at the University of Bristol and won a

scholarship from the universitys American Alumni Association to complete an

MA in Maritime Archaeology and History. She has since been accepted to

continue on to do a PhD in the same department, and is receiving full fundingthrough the University of Bristols Centenary Scholarship. Her main interests liein early colonial Dutch and English shipping and experimental archaeology as it

pertains to rigging and sails.


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AUTHORS DECLARATION

I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordance with theRegulations of the University of Bristol. The work is original except where

indicated by special reference in the text and no part of the dissertation has beensubmitted for any other degree.

Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author and in no way

represent those of the University of Bristol.

The dissertation has not been presented to any other University for examination

either in the United Kingdom or overseas.

SIGNED: DATE:


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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction.Page 1

Chapter 2: Theory, Methodology and Literary Review....Page 3

Chapter 3: Historical BackgroundPage 8

Chapter 4: Elements of Rigging, Pt. 1 Spars, Sail and Standing

Rigging............................................................................................Page 16

Chapter 5: Elements of Rigging, Pt. 2 Running Rigging.....Page 31

Chapter 6: Research Analysis and ConclusionPage 42

Appendix: Glossary of Terms..Page 47

Bibliography....Page 49


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List of Figures

Figure 1: Birlinn carving on Rodil tomb (Photo: Louisa Pittman)..............Page 11

Figure 2: Sketch of birlinn carving from Rodil tomb (MacAulay, 1996:

1)......................................................................................................Page 17

Figure 3: Print by Jan Porcellis, 1600 (Cees)..............................................Page 18

Figure 4: Parrel from Wood Quay excavation, Dublin (McGrail, 1987:

233)..................................................................................................Page 19

Figure 5: Illustration of eighteenth-century Dutch buss (Steel, 1794:

239)..................................................................................................Page 20

Figure 6: Earring lashing over cleats (Lever, 1819: 53)..............................Page 21

Figure 7: Seventeenth-century Dutch parrel (Anderson, 1927: 141)..........Page 21

Figure 8: Sgoth yardarm with earring fairlead (Photo: Ian Stephens).........Page 22

Figure 9: Jointed iron traveller of the sgoth (Photo: Charlotte Pittman).....Page 23

Figure 10: Sling of sgoth yard with eyebolts for traveller hook (Photo: Charlotte

Pittman)............................................................................................Page 23

Figure 11: Thirteenth century Dublin seal (McGrail, 1987: 238)...............Page 24

Figure 12: Model of Vigelantie c. 1800 (Cees)...........................................Page 25

Figure 13: Seal of Dunwich, 1199 (McGrail, 1987: 231)............................Page 26

Figure 14: Carving on eighth-century gravestone, Gotland (McGrail, 1987:

237)..................................................................................................Page 26

Figure 15: Seal of Hulkesmouth, c.1295 (McGrail, 1987: 256)..................Page 27

Figure 16: Thirteenth-century seal of Winchelsea (McGrail, 1987:257)..................................................................................................Page 28

Figure 17: Sketch by Pieter Vogelaer, late 1600s (Cees)...........................Page 29

Figure 18: Standing end of halyard on replica Sebbe Als (McGrail, 1984:

119)..................................................................................................Page 31

Figure 19: Running end of Dutch halyard (Anderson, 1927: 179)..............Page 34

Figure 20: Running end of sgoth halyard (Photo: Ian Stephens).................Page 35


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Figure 21: Wooden model (36 cm), thirteenth-century site, Dublin (McGrail,1987: 237)........................................................................................Page 36

Figure 22: Sgoth detail Tack boarded on the starboard side (Photo: Ian

Stephens)..........................................................................................Page 38


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outside maritime influences could have affected the development of this vessel,

making it easier to match rigging traits to particular traditions and time periods.

There were two main maritime forces with which the developers of the sgoth

would have had frequent and direct contact. The first were the Viking raiders

and, eventually, settlers from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries. The longship

of these Norse invaders led to the first large-scale Scottish ship, the birlinn. Not

long after the Vikings were defeated and driven out of Scotland, the first of the

massive Dutch fishing fleet appeared off the coast of the Western Isles trawling

for herring. Unlike the longships, these ships were decked and had multiple

masts, but they still sailed under a single squaresail on each mast. Dominating

the western Scottish fishing grounds for the better part of three centuries, these

outsiders might also have influenced what would later become the sgoth.

Since individual types of evidence for details of rigging are scarce, the

approach of this study is to combine several different elements in an attempt to

piece together a picture of the rig of each of these three types of vessels.

Examples from iconography, material remains, written documents, and even

experimental archaeology in the form of replicas have all been layered and

compared, and the key elements of spars, standing rigging, and running rigging

have been highlighted for comparison. This piece-by-piece breakdown results in

an emerging pattern of survivals and similarities that serve as a convincing

argument for the Norse origin of the Scottish sgoth.


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Chapter Two:

Theory, Methodology and Literary Review

Theory

There is a tendency in maritime archaeology to focus more on the

analysis of what can be found from the deck to the keel of historic ships and less

on the analysis of what would have been found looming far above the deck. This

is understandable, since most material evidence recovered from ship remains,

especially sites which pre-date the early modern period, tends to be the most

resilient parts of a vessel, primarily in the lower hull. Little, if any, rigging parts

are usually recovered from early sites, so an analysis of rig design and use isoften only a small part of the interpretation of a vessel. The importance of the rig

cannot be ignored, though. Until very recently, sail was the most popular and

widely used way to propel all kinds of watercraft, and the rig was the complex

engine that drove the vessel. With such a variety in sail types and usage, a ships

rigging could be just as diagnostic to the archaeologist as the type of wood and

construction techniques found in the hull. For example, the experienced eye of a

seventeenth-century rigger can tell right away if a ship is Dutch or English just

by looking at the way the bowsprit gammoning is led and seized. The ability to

distinguish region and time from hull design is a well-established practice in

maritime archaeology, but the same ability should not be overlooked when

considering the analysis of the rig.

This study is an attempt to establish a link in maritime traditions, not by

an in-depth look at hull structure, but by just such an approach of a detailed look

at rigging. There are many survivals of traits in the rig that continue long after

construction techniques have evolved, and these little details can last for

centuries unchanged. In order to recognize the traits of one vessel in another, in

this case the Viking longship echoed in the rig of the Scottish sgoth, it is only

necessary to compare the details of fairleads, belay points, and so forth. As a

contrast, another intermediate vessel, the Dutch buss, has been analyzed beside

the two of primary interest. This is because the buss was fishing the same waters

in coastal Scotland that the sgoth would later occupy and because the Norse also

may have influenced the Dutch in their early maritime traditions. It is a


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possibility that the buss, being so prevalent in Scottish waters and in the

intermediate time period between the use of the longships and the creation of the

sgoths, might have influenced the design of the sgoth. Each of these three ships

has been broken down by individual parts of the rig to be compared and

contrasted. By comparing these individual points, it is then possible to identify

trends and survivals in the overall rigging scheme.

Methodology

Since archaeological evidence of rigging is not easily obtained, an

analysis of rig components must rely on a variety of sources to supplement

physical remains. For this study, I consulted a mixture of archaeological,

historical, iconographic, and experimental sources and sometimes supplemented

these with my own practical experience with square-rig technology. Where

possible, a detail has been interpreted by comparing more than one type of

evidence, but in cases where no clear evidence can be found, I reached some

conclusions by consulting the results of experimental archaeology in the form of

replica and restored vessels.

When looking at ships of the Viking era, I have looked at details of two

similar types of vessels, the Viking longship and the equivalent Scottish birlinn.

Since most of the rigging traits of these two vessels are essentially the same, I

have used them interchangeably as representatives of this time period when

comparing them to the other two vessel types, but continue to identify them as

individual in their design. Archaeological studies have produced a small amount

of material evidence of rigging in the Viking longships, most notably the finds of

the Oseberg ship, the Gokstad ships, and the Skuldelev ships. Additionally, a fair

amount of iconography exists depicting details of rigging, though much of it

dates to the later periods of Viking influence and into the medieval period. Much

less remains of the Scottish birlinn. No physical remains have been found of this

particular type of vessel, so evidence is limited to iconographic and the historic

record. The symbol of the birlinn is widely used in clan emblems and family

crests, especially in the Western Isles and West Highlands of Scotland. The best

detailed evidence of its rigging, though, comes from just two sources. The first is

a 1528 carving of a birlinn under full sail on the tomb of Alasdair Crotach

(Alexander Macleod), eighth chief of the Macleods of Harris and Dunvegan,


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found in St. Clements church on the south end of the Isle of Harris (see Figure

1). The second is a Gaelic blessing of unknown date that was translated by Dr.

Alexander Nicolson and published in The Gaelin 1877 and that provides

extraordinary detail of the operation of a birlinn.

The Dutch buss is well represented in the historical record, but a rig

analysis relies heavily on common usages on various types of ships at the time.

Since no material remains can be attributed specifically to the buss, I drew

conclusions by comparing contemporary illustrations and models to what is

known to be common practice on Dutch ships of a similar style and tonnage of

the time period. This is a fairly sound approach, since rigging at the time was

becoming somewhat standardized and was showing distinct characteristics based

on region rather than vessel type. Manuals of rigging for this time period often

distinguish, for example, between different types of leads or lashings on ships of

different nationalities, but rarely make a distinction in vessel usage or tonnage

(see, for instance, examples set in Levers rigging manual, 1819: 51, 67). No

experimental archaeology exists for the Dutch buss in the form of a replica ship,

but there are contemporary replicas of equivalent tonnage for reference, and the

one in particular referred to in this study is the seventeenth-century Dutch

pinnaceKalmar Nyckel, upon which I gained considerable rigging experience.

The sgoth is the one vessel in this study that has been operated within

living memory. This means details of the rig can be defined without speculation

or interpretation of iconography. Unfortunately, it is not very well represented in

the historic record, since it is a craft operated within a relatively short time period

in a very limited geographic region. In order to gain enough information to

compare the rig of the sgoth with other vessels, I have drawn quite extensively

from the knowledge gained by those who continue to sail restoration and replica

sgoths in the Isle of Lewis today. The insight gained by their day-to-day

operations has been extremely valuable in understanding the practical

considerations of single-masted small vessel operations in coastal Scotland.

Literary Review

There are quite a few works written about the vessels used by the Vikings

for long distance raiding and settlement. Many of these focus on the more

famous archaeological finds: the Oseberg ship and the Gokstad ship in Norway,


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and the Skuldelev ships in Denmark. Greenhill (1976) gives a thorough

breakdown of the construction methods and finds associated with each of these

ships in his work. McGrail (1987) takes a more theoretical approach to these

ships, including calculations on sail efficiency and more detail on material

remains associated with rigging inAncient Boats in North-West Europe. He has

also compiled some reports on experimental archaeology tied in to the Viking

ships that outline varying degrees of success in attempts at rig interpretations as

part of an overview of maritime archaeology (McGrail, 1984). The only work

that has dealt specifically with the Scottish birlinn is a small publication by John

MacAulay (1996) in which he has published the previously mentioned Gaelic

blessing and its translation in their entirety.

Since the Dutch fishing buss is a fairly marginalized ship for the time

period, not much published information deals specifically with this vessel. Unger

(1978) devotes only a few pages to it in his well-known work on early Dutch

shipbuilding. However, since rigging by that time had become fairly

standardized across vessels of similar tonnage and originating in the same areas,

other works that deal with rigging of smaller Dutch vessels of the time can be

reliably consulted. The main work used by riggers for seventeenth-century

vessels of this type is Andersons The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the

Spritsail Topmast, 1600-1720 (1927). For details of later rigging methods, the

English publication by Darcy Lever (1819) is preferred. Several paintings and

models can also be found in places such as the Nederlands Scheepvaart Museum

that usually include enough detail to give insight into the particular rigging

methods employed on the buss in particular.

There is even less published about the sgoth as an individual vessel type.

Donald Macdonald (1984) gives an excellent description of fishing operations in

the Tolsta townships of Lewis and lists many of the local sgoths along with

individual crew and vessel names. He includes accounts of beaching, extreme

conditions, and wrecks, but does not mention particular details of the rig.

Modern-day examples of the vessels can fill in these details, though. Since

sgoths were operated well into the twentieth century, there are is an accurately

rigged restoration and several replicas still sailing out of the Isle of Lewis which

can be reliably referred to for the finer point of individual rigging parts. The


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original half-sgothJubilee and the replica full sgothAn Sulaire have been used in

this study as examples of the type.


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Chapter Three:

Historical Background

Four centuries of Viking rule

The earliest outside maritime influence in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland

came with the Viking invasion at the end of the eighth century. Originally, the

visits of the iconic Norse longships were limited to brief raiding runs, working

their way through all of the islands from the Shetlands to Ireland. Throughout the

ninth century, the sight of the single square sail of the warship became quite

familiar to the residents of the Western Isles (as the entirety of the Hebrides is

known today), and by the latter half of the century, this region was conquered byNorway and settled with Norsemen from the unfavourable west coast of Norway,

who were attracted by the freedom of the newly-acquired land to the west. For

the next two centuries, the kings of Norway ruled relatively peacefully in the

Western Isles, but, by the end of the eleventh century, the Norwegian kings were

forced to continue to reassert their dominion in this area as the Scottish kings and

lords started to become more powerful. In the middle of the twelfth century,

Norse rule started to disintegrate as Lord Somerled claimed one region after

another in western Scotland, posing an open threat to the distant Scandinavian

rulers. The Somerled dynasty continued to gain power over the next century,

until King Hakon the Old of Norway responded with a full-scale attack with his

impressive fleet of warships on the Hebrides and the Somerled rule. His attack

was unsuccessful, and the Hebrides were ceded to Scottish rulers by 1266.

The ships the Vikings brought over to the British Isles were built for

long-distance voyaging, though completely open to the elements. Much of what

we know of these vessels comes from archaeological finds, and these show a

variety of designs, indicating that vessels were probably purpose-built to fill

specific roles. For instance, finds such as the ninth-century Oseberg and Gokstad

ships show us wide, shallow-drafted ships with very low freeboard, which are

not ideal for ocean voyages. This was more likely a design suited for carrying

cargo in the sheltered fjords of Scandinavia (Greenhill, 1976: 209, 212). On the

other hand, the tenth- or eleventh-century Ladby ship is probably a good

representation of the type of vessel suitable for ocean voyaging and coastal


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the Gokstad ship were found to have a block of wood fixed to the forward side of

the mast with indentations on it that have been interpreted as a resting place for

the heel of a tacking spar (McGrail, 1987: 239). This was wooden crutch that

extended forward of the weather bow and either provided a forward lead for a

bowline or was fixed into the weather luff itself. Either way, the intention would

have been to keep the luff stretched to windward to allow the ship to sail on the

wind. These early experiments with technology to press a ships windward

ability date to around the tenth and eleventh centuries, during the height of

Viking power and influence in Scotland, so it is likely that this sailing capability

was exploited as much as possible in order to make longer voyages more

efficient and give them an advantage in conflicts.

The birlinn: a Scottish adaptation

As the Scottish kings started to rise in power near the end of the eleventh

century, a new form of ship was taking shape. When Scottish ruler Alexander III

met the longships of Norwegian king Hakon the Old in battle in 1263, it was

with a force consisting primarily of this newest design, the Hebridean birlinns

(MacAulay, 1996: 13). In Scotland, it is still popularly thought that the defeat of

the Norwegian maritime force was mainly due to the tactical superiority of this

new ship. The design may have had something to do with it, but there is also the

fact that much of Hakons fleet was heavily damaged in a storm, and the

remainder were forced to retreat to the Orkneys, where King Hakon eventually

died of illness (MacAulay, 1996: 13). Regardless of this outcome, the birlinn

definitely showed a step forward in the evolution from the longship of the Viking

era to the medieval square-rigger.

Though a fair amount is known about this unique Scottish vessel, most of

the body of knowledge comes from a very few sources. No archaeological

evidence exists for this type of vessel, since none have ever been recovered.

Some iconographic evidence is available, the most notable and helpful being the

carving of a birlinn on a tomb inside St Clements church in Rodil on the Isle of

Harris (see Figure 1). The tomb was made for Alasdair Crotach, or Alexander the

hunchback Macleod, who was the eighth chief of the Macleods of Harris and

Dunvegan and died in 1546. The birlinn is carved with such intricate detail of

rigging and hull, that it is likely a contemporary example was still in use in the


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mid-sixteenth century. The early representations of birlinns, though, are usually

not so detailed, being mostly small depictions within family crests and clan

emblems. The Somerled galley is one of the most famous examples that can be

seen to this day in all sorts of crests and emblems around the Western Isles. In

fact, the earliest record of a birlinn comes from the seal of Reginald, one of

Somerleds sons, and dates to the late twelfth century (MacAulay, 1996: 2),

supporting the idea that these vessels existed as a distinct design before the

defeat of the Vikings in the mid-thirteenth century.

Figure 1: Birlinn carving on Rodil tomb (Photo: Louisa Pittman)

There are three main differences evident in the illustrations of the

Scottish birlinn from the Viking longships used in the Western Isles at the time: a

deeper draft, higher topsides, and a central rudder. As demonstrated by the Ladby

ship and some of the Skuldelev ships, the typical ocean-going longship was long

and narrow, but had a relatively shallow draft. This allowed them to be beached

quite easily, but was somewhat disadvantageous in sailing to windward, since the

lack of a substantial amount of the vessel under the water would have caused the

ship to make a considerable amount of leeway. The birlinn, by comparison, was

a very deep vessel with what appears to be a fairly deep keel for the time. On the

Rodil tomb (see Figure 2), a faint waterline is visible, which shows that almost as

much of the vessel sits below the waterline as above. The high topsides of the


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birlinn are what have been attributed for its supposed tactical advantage. The

evidence that the topsides sat higher than the longships is mostly taken from the

existence of oarports built into the top planking on the birlinn, whereas a

longship traditionally had oars run out over the gunwales. Higher sides provide a

tactical advantage in two ways: they provide more protection for the rowers and

crew, and they provide a higher vantage point for warriors from which assaults

can be launched down into the open boats of the enemy. The most distinct

difference in the design of the birlinn, though, was the appearance of the central

rudder. This feature is shown so clearly on the Rodil tomb that even the

individual gudgeons and pintles of the rudder assembly can be made out. At the

time this rudder first appeared in the Western Isles, the longships were still being

steered by a rudder mounted on one side (McGrail, 1987: 245-6). Because of the

deeper draft of the birlinn, a central rudder proved to be much more efficient for

steering, and it provided less of the difficulties of a side-mounted rudder

(MacAulay, 1996: 57). Given these technological advances, it is no wonder the

birlinn became a symbol of power for rulers in western Scotland as an emblem of

the height of early medieval seapower.

Dutch fishing in coastal Scotland

With the defeat of the Vikings, a century and half had passed in the

Western Isles with little maritime interference from the rest of Europe, but the

beginning of the fifteenth century heralded the rise of the offshore fishing

industry in western Scotland. Up to this time, fishing had been limited to short

coastal runs, since the fish could only be preserved once they were unloaded

from the boats. This meant fishing industries were comprised of groups of local

fishermen working from small open boats in the near-shore areas. The

technological breakthrough which allowed for offshore fishing came in two

inventions only a year apart: the invention of larger drag nets that brought in

larger catches in 1416 and the introduction of a ship purpose-built for herring

fishing, known as a buss, in 1415 (Unger, 1978: 29). Dutch fishermen had

already been experimenting with methods for onboard preservation of fish since

the fourteenth century, but their curing technique combined with bigger nets and

a larger vessel with more room for crew and cargo meant they could now stay at

sea for more than just a couple of days, and the Dutch herring industry started to


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venture out into foreign territory. For the next two hundred years, the Dutch

herring busses controlled the Scottish fishing industry, and it wasnt until King

Charles I started levying huge fees on the Dutch for permission to fish in English

and Scottish waters in the seventeenth century (Gillmer, 1994: 91) that the local

fishing industry managed to gain any kind of foothold. Even when local fishing

was starting to be encouraged, though, the government favoured the Dutch

design of larger, decked ships like the buss. A bounty was offered for vessels

which fit the type of specifications the buss had introduced, so the older open

boat design still preferred by the local fishermen of the smaller fishing towns in

the Western Isles were not able to benefit from this incentive pay. Therefore, the

larger decked design made popular by the herring buss continued to dominate the

Scottish coast until the nineteenth century (Gray, 1978: 5-6).

Not much is known about the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Dutch

busses. At that time, ships were not ordinarily specialized, so herring busses,

though built for fishing, were often refitted for other purposes such as general

cargo transport and convoy duty in wartime. This makes it difficult to isolate

traits specific to the buss from those of other vessels also performing multiple

duties. By the end of the sixteenth century, ships were becoming specialized, and

this is where we start to see a typology appearing for the herring buss. Unger

(1978: 29-30) gives a detailed description of the typical Dutch herring buss

around the year 1600 as having a rounded stern (typical of Dutch design), a box-

like appearance, a single squaresail on each of three masts, partial or full decking

to provide shelter for cargo and crew, and an unusually high length to breadth

ratio. The length is explained as necessary for maneuvering the massive drift

nets, something not easily done from a shorter, wider vessel. The Porcellis

illustration from 1600 (see Figure 3) matches this description, with the exception

of an older-style square transom, and it also shows the distinct buss feature of an

elevated rack in front of the mizzen mast on which the unstepped main mast

rested during fishing operations. The buss really shows us squaresails being used

efficiently as the only means of propulsion. Unlike the Viking longships, the

Dutch did not use oars as a means of getting to windward, but they were still

relying on a single squaresail on each mast to drive the ship. This meant a

refining of square-rigging techniques to allow them to sail closer to the wind in

coastal maneuvering, but the methods used, such as braces and placement of


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The sgoth was typically about 18 to 24 feet long at the keel, and engaged

in offshore fishing with a crew of about five to seven men for one or two days at

a time (Macdonald, 1984: 105-6). All sgoths were rigged with a dipping lugsail,

meaning the yard is passed aft of the mast and keeps the same luff when tacking,

unlike the square yard that swings forward of the mast and changes luffs by

switching tacks. The lug has the advantage of the fore-and-aft rig to sail very

close on the wind, but, since the mast of the sgoth is unstayed, the yard can be

brought around almost square, allowing for a considerably stable downwind run

as well. Despite the fact that it is a dipping lug, the sgoth continues to have more

in common with its Viking longship ancestors in both hull design and rig than

with the technologically advanced Dutch square-riggers that so easily could have

influenced the Scottish boat builders in the intervening centuries.

Very few nineteenth-century Scottish fishing boats have survived to the

modern day. Most were sacrificed when fishermen converted from sail to motor

in the twentieth century. In the Isle of Lewis, one original half-sgoth,Jubilee,

was restored by John Murdo MacLeod and still sails out of Stornoway,

maintained and operated by the An Sulaire Trust. The same organization also

built a full sgoth replica,An Sulaire, and a handful of half-, three-quarter-, and

full sgoths have since been built or are in the process. The experimental

archaeology of this restoration and rebuilding has provided key evidence for the

practical considerations of rig, which is often so lacking in the archaeological

record.


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Chapter Four:

Elements of Rigging, Part 1 Spars, Sail and Standing Rigging

Rig Components

The Viking longship was really square rig technology at its simplest and

stripped down to the barest of essentials. Two wooden spars were used: the mast

stepped into the bottom of the ship, and the yard from which the sail was hung.

On the sail itself were reef points for shortening sail, cringles sewn in the edges

as attachment points, and earrings and clews sewn into the corners for stretching

the sail outwards along the yard and downwards towards the vessel, respectively.

The rest of the rig consisted of rope used either to stabilize the mast (standingrigging) or to control the yard and sail (running rigging). The standing rigging on

such a vessel was composed of two parts: stays to steady the mast fore and aft,

and shrouds to steady it athwartships. The running rigging moved the yard and

sail in two planes: the halyard to hoist the yard and the tacks and sheets to pull

down the sail all worked together to move the sail in a vertical plane, and the

braces swung the yard in a horizontal plane. Since one can also see the same

basic structure of each of these elements of wood, cloth, and rope in the Dutch

buss and the Scottish sgoth, I will break their analysis down by individual piece

and discuss the use on each type of vessel for a more detailed view.

Mast

Some of the only archaeological evidence of rigging on Viking longships

is related to the masts of these vessels. However, this material is restricted to the

lower portions of the spar and the places where it fit into the keel. The upper

portions have been lost to the material record, and must be conjured up through

interpretation of iconography and the historic record, as with the rest of the rig.

This has led to much conjecture about a standard for length of masts and overall

shape and design. Various known rules have been applied to try to estimate mast

height, ranging from traditional Norwegian to fifteenth century Italian (McGrail,

1987: 226), all with wide-ranging results.

What is generally agreed has been summed up by Christensen (1979) that

longships were pole-masted and the masts were round with a squared-off foot to


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better fit into the mast step. They generally tapered upwards, with the exception

of a thickening of the wood near the top to accommodate the halyard hole and to

provide a seat on which the stays might rest. This can be seen quite clearly on the

Rodil tomb carving (see Figure 2). The length was probably not much more than

the vessels length, since the mast was frequently unstepped and could not be

easily handled if such a heavy spar projected too far over bow or stern

(Christensen, 1975: 266). Most representations of Norse vessels have the single

mast stepped just forward of midships, and the small amount of archaeological

evidence available indicates that they were stepped directly to the keel by means

of an extra brace attached to the keelson (McGrail, 1987: 226).

Figure 2: Sketch of birlinn carving from Rodil tomb (MacAulay, 1996: 1)

It is hard to draw anything more than the most general conclusions about

the mast of the Dutch buss, since evidence is limited to contemporary drawings

and paintings, but the overall design is similar. Unger (1978: 29) describes the

early sixteenth century buss as a three-masted vessel in which all but one mast

were routinely unstepped while fishing. This means that many of the

representations of busses of the time depict them with the masts lowered in the

process of shooting nets. However, the 1600 Porcellis print (see Figure 3) shows

a buss with only the mainmast lowered, which gives us a clear look at the

foremast. It shows a pole mast with a slight taper toward the top. There is no

evidence of crosstrees on which to seat the standing rigging, but there is certainly

some kind of seat. This could be a simple addition of hounds or cheeks to the


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outside of the mast, a common practice of both English and Dutch ships of the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Anderson, 1994: 22-29). Anderson (1994:

47-8) mentions, though, that it was also common in the seventeenth century for

the Dutch to leave an octagonal-shaped thickness at the masthead upon which the

rigging (or trestle trees if added) could sit, a practice very similar to the

thickened masthead of the longships.

Figure 3: Print by Jan Porcellis, 1600 (Cees)

Since the sgoth does not carry separate shrouds or stays, there is no need

on its masthead for a seat, so there is no corresponding thickening at the top of

the mast. However, like its predecessors, the sgoth is pole-masted and the mast

tapers slightly, while just being thick enough to accommodate the halyard sheave

near the top. The mast is stepped in a familiar fashion: a squared-off foot stepped

into an extra brace fixed to the top of the keelson, just like the longship.

Yard

There are essentially two parts to the yard of either a square or a lug rig:

the wooden spar itself and the parrel, or traveller, that holds it to the mast as it

travels up and down. Very few examples of Viking yards have been recovered,

but a handful of complete or fragmented spars were uncovered with the Gokstad

boats, and three were identified as yards (McGrail, 1987: 232). These spars are

constructed of a single piece of light wood, slightly tapered toward each end, and

have a hole drilled through close to the end of each yardarm through which the


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earring lashing for the sail could pass. Contemporary depictions of the longships

and birlinn seem to agree with this construction, though the carvings are not

detailed enough to make an exact match. For instance, the birlinn of the Rodil

tomb (see Figure 2)shows a light spar that is shorter than the sail is tall and to

which the sail is lashed, but it is hard to tell if the spar has any taper to it and the

detail of making fast the earring lashing is not depicted. It is reasonable to

assume that the fairlead holes and taper would have been part of the construction,

though, since the taper is a universal feature of such spars, and some means of

outboard strain is necessary to properly stretch the head of a squaresail.

Figure 4: Parrel from Wood Quay excavation, Dublin (McGrail, 1987: 233)

A small amount of material evidence also exists for the type of parrel

used on the longships. Finds both in the ninth-century Oseberg ship and at the

early thirteenth-century Wood Quay excavation in Dublin (see Figure 4) have

produced virtually identical parrels consisting of a flat semi-circle of wood with

a single hole on each end (McGrail 1987: 232). These parrels were the

predecessor to parrel beads and were designed to sit on the aft side of the mast

with ropes passed through each eye lashed to the yard. This created a closed loop

to hold the yard in to the mast against the pressure of the wind and to serve as a

guide as the yard was raised and lowered. One problem with this simple design is

that the parrel can bind against this mast when there is a lot of lateral pressure,for instance when lowering the sail in a strong breeze. An effective way to


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counteract this is through the use of the braces, which will be discussed further

on in the chapter. Binns (1980: 161-2) experimented with another method on his

boat Odins Raven in which he seized on end of the parrel rope to the yard, but

led the other end over the yard from aft to fore, and then down to deck between

the sail and the yard. By slacking this running end, he was able to open up the

parrel when lowering the yard to keep it from binding.

Figure 5: Illustration of eighteenth-century Dutch buss (Steel, 1794: 239)

Depictions of the Dutch buss are typically only detailed enough to draw

the most general of conclusions about the yards of these vessels. Both Porcellis

seventeenth-century depiction (see Figure 3) and Steels eighteenth-century

drawing (see Figure 5) show a wooden spar shorter than the sail is tall that tapers

slightly towards each end. A parrel can be made out, but not in enough detail to

ascertain its composition. There is also no indication of how the earrings of the

sail are hauled out and lashed to the yardarms. These details can be filled in quite

easily, though, since much has been written about the common rigging practices

of the Dutch during this time period. Unlike the longship examples, the Dutch

yardarms do not have fairlead holes for the earring lashings. By the seventeenth-

century, it was common for yardarms to bear extra cleats that acted as a seat for

the outboard turns of the earring lashing. This technique was still in use well into


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the nineteenth-century and has been neatly illustrated by Lever (1819: 53) in his

description of bending on sail (see Figure 6).

Figure 6: Earring lashing over cleats (Lever, 1819: 53)

As for the traveller, Anderson (1927: 141-2) describes a typical

seventeenth-century Dutch parrel made up of at least two or three rows of

wooden beads threaded upon short pieces of rope with wooden spacers in

between spanning all of the strands and holding them together (see Figure 7).

These rope strands are made fast to the sling of the yard on one side, passed

around the mast, and then passed through a fairlead on the other side of the sling

before running down to deck. I successfully used this configuration on

Figure 7: Seventeenth-century Dutch parrel (Anderson, 1927: 141)

the lower yards of the early seventeenth-century Dutch replica shipKalmar

Nyckel, and it proved particularly useful not only when lowering the yard, but

also when extra room was needed to brace the yard up extremely sharply to sail

closer to the wind.


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The yard of the sgoth, though lug-rigged, is again most similar to the

longship. It is a spar of light wood tapered evenly from the sling toward each

end. The earring lashings are hauled out by means of a fairlead hole (see Figure

8) and tied off or held in place by a pin. The traveller is once more a closed loop,

in this case an iron hoop with a hook on the forward side on which to hang the

yard. To alleviate some of the issues with binding of a closed parrel against the

mast, the iron ring is hinged in the middle (see Figure 9). The yard itself has two

or three eyes at the sling, though it only hangs from one at a time. The extra

hanging points are to allow the yard to stay balanced when the sail is reefed close

by shifting where the traveller attaches to the sling (see Figure 10).

Figure 8: Sgoth yardarm with earring fairlead (Photo: Ian Stephen


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Figure 9: Jointed iron traveller of the sgoth (Photo: Charlotte Pittman)

Figure 10: Sling of sgoth yard w/ eyebolts for traveller hook (Photo: Charlotte

Pittman)

Sail

The evidence for reef points in the sails of the Viking era is poorly

represented in contemporary iconography. The earliest carving to clearly show

this feature comes from a thirteenth-century seal of Dublin (see Figure 11) and

shows three bands of reef points in the lower two-thirds of the sail. This indicates

that the sail was shortened by lowering the yard, bunching up the foot of the sail,and tying the points around the bundled portion. However, there exists an earlier

written record of reefing in the twelfth-century writing of Wace, who describes

in Norman French: ....A dous ris current u a treis. In this case, the word ris is

the Old French forreefs, and the phrase translates literally as ....They run under

two reefs or three (Sayers, 2005). The writing describes a longship with a single

square with at least three bands of reef points sailing in the western British Isles

during the same time period the Scottish birlinns started to make an appearance.

In the case of the birlinns, the only iconography detailed enough to show the


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possibility of reef points is, again, the carving on the Rodil tomb. Three rows of

vertically lines can barely be seen in the photo on the starboard side of the sail

(see Figure 1). The detail of these lines is actually better illustrated by

MacAulays sketch of the carving (see Figure 2). These bands are also in the

lower two-thirds of the sail, which matches the Irish representation, so make a

compelling case for the existence of reef points on the Scottish birlinns as well as

the longships.

Figure 11: 13th c. Dublin seal (McGrail, 1987: 238)

Evidence of methods for shortening sail on the Dutch busses is a little

mixed. Most eighteenth-century representations such as the model of the

haringbuis Vigelantie (see Figure 12) and Steels illustration (see Figure 5) show

two or three bands of reef points near the head of the sail. This indicates a shift to

the eighteenth-century method of reefing described by Lever (1808: 83) in which

the excess sail is taken up at the top and the points tied around the head of the

sail. This allowed for reefing without having to touch the tack or sheets.

Porcellis 1600 illustration, though, shows a buss with a bonnet instead of reef

points (see Figure 3). This was a common feature of the seventeenth-century

square-rigger (Anderson, 1927: 262), and may represent a transitional period

when lower squares had become so large that reefing the foot of the sail was no

longer practical, but reefing at the head had not yet been worked out. The fact

that the bonnet was relatively short-lived is no doubt due to the difficulty of

reattaching this piece of canvas to the foot of the sail when compared to the ease

of shaking out a reef. The sgoth also carries multiple bands of reef points,

ranging anywhere from three on the smaller boats to six on the bigger boats.

Unlike the buss, these bands are once more positioned in the lower two-thirds of


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made a handy support to steady the mast while it was being lowered and to raise

it again when stepping (McGrail, 1987: 226-7).

Figure 13: Seal of Dunwich, 1199 (McGrail, 1987: 231)

Figure 14: Carving on eighth-century gravestone, Gotland (McGrail, 1987: 237)

Evidence for separate backstays is less conclusive. The same images that

clearly show a forestay in use do not paint such a clear picture of a backstay.

Both the Dunwich (see Figure 13) and the Dublin (see Figure 11) seals show a

line leading from near the masthead down to a spot very close to the sternpost,

but only a single line in each case. It is more likely that this line is the halyard

rather than a backstay, since a halyard would be necessary for hoisting the yard,

but could also quite easily double as backstay when it is made fast in the stern.

The slightly later examples of longship-type vessels depicted in the thirteenth


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century seals of Hulkesmouth (see Figure 15) and Winchelsea (see Figure 16),

however, show multiple lines leading aft from the masthead; one has two, and

one has three. In this case, it is likely that one line represents the halyard, while

the other one or two represent standing backstays. The evidence for a fixed

backstay in the birlinn is much clearer. The Rodil tomb carving (see Figure 2)

clearly shows one separate from the aft-leading halyard, and the Gaelic ship

blessing mentions by name the two men assigned to tending the backstays and to

keep them always straight and trim/In the middle (MacAulay, 1996: 99).

Figure 15: Seal of Hulkesmouth, c.1295 (McGrail, 1987: 256)

The lateral support of the shrouds seem to have been one necessary piece

of standing rig for the longships, since all of the iconography already mentioned

plainly shows two or more shrouds. Because these are two-dimensional

representations with a broadside view of the ship, it is typically almost

impossible to tell if the shrouds are made fast to one side of the ship or bothsides, but it may be reasonable to assume that, where an even number of four or

more are shown, they are divided between port and starboard sides. The birlinn,

too, appears to have had shrouds, though the Rodil tomb (see Figure 2) shows a

much simpler design of only one on each side. In all of these cases, the stays and

shrouds are fixed at the top by stacking them on top of the thicker part of the

masthead that held the fairlead for the halyard, but it is difficult to tell how or

where the shrouds are fixed at the bottom. It is likely that they were either tied


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Figure 17: Sketch by Pieter Vogelaer, late 1600s (Cees)

Shrouds and backstays on the Dutch busses are all part of the same unit,

since the backstays are made fast to the sides of the ship just aft of the mast

rather than to the sternpost. Because of this arrangement, the backstays are really

just the after-most set of shrouds, the ones that put more aft tension on the mast

than lateral tension. The top of both are seated at the masthead on the hounds.

The lower parts are tensioned with deadeyes that, like the longships, are made

fast high on the topsides, but in this case are positioned outboard of the hull and

held fast through the frames by chainplates. All of the illustrations show a

number of shrouds, as many as three or four per side, and one or two backstays

per side as well. The heavy lateral reinforcement indicates that the busses

routinely sailed with the wind to the beam and not just with the wind dead astern,

as if often mistakenly supposed of a strictly square-rigged vessel.

The elements of standing rigging on the Scottish sgoth are simplified

considerably, since it has neither stays nor shrouds. The mast is reinforced like

the longship with a brace high up in the boat at the level of thwarts and a mast

step on the keelson, but the rest of the mast is left unstayed. Instead, aft tension

on the mast that would normally be taken by the forestay is countered by the

running end of the halyard, when the yard is lowered, and by the tension on the

luff of the sail (and ultimately the tack) when the yard is raised. The halyard also

doubles as both stay and shroud when the yard is either lowered or raised. With

the yard down, the standing end of the halyard, which normally attaches to the

traveller, is transferred aft and made fast on the weather side. Once the sail is set,


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the mast no longer needs the support of a forestay, so the standing end is hooked

to the traveller for hoisting the yard, and the running end is transferred aft and,

once the yard is hoisted, is made fast aft and to weather (see Figure 20).


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Chapter Five:

Elements of Rigging, Part 2 Running Rigging

Halyard

There can be no doubt that all three vessel types discussed in this paper

had halyards, since it is the only means to haul the yard up the mast. What should

be looked at in the case of this particular piece of rigging, then, is not whether it

was used, but rather its components and how it was rigged. The basic concept is

quite simple: all that is needed is a line leading up from the deck, through the top

of the mast, and back down to the sling of the yard, which will make it possible

to hoist the yard as high as the fairlead through which the halyard runs. The

Viking longships appear to have kept things as basic as this. The fairlead has

already been discussed as the hole through the swelling at the masthead. There is

no evidence that a sheave was used to reduce friction, so it is believed that the

line sat directly on the bottom of the fairlead, possibly coated with tallow or

grease to make it easier to haul (McGrail, 1987: 232).

Figure 18: Standing end of halyard on replica Sebbe Als (McGrail, 1984: 119)

The standing end of the halyard, the end attached to the yard, would have

been attached somewhere in the middle of yard to balance the spar. This has been

replicated in a couple of different ways on the recreated longships. The

Skuldelev 3 replica Skinfaxe has a single standing end around the middle of the

sling, directly in front of the parrel (McGrail, 1984: 122). Bigger warship

replicas, though, such as the Skuldelev 5 replica Sebbe Als (see Figure 18) and

the Gotland Stone replicaKrampmacken (McGrail, 1984: 143) were rigged with

a two-leg bridle on the end of the halyard that spread the hauling pressure out


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along the yard. This arrangement makes more sense on the longer, larger spars

that also lacked lifts to support the yardarms when lowered, so was most like

used for the larger longships. The only piece of iconography that might suggest

this bridle rig for the halyard, though, is the thirteenth century Dublin seal (see

Figure 11), which appears to have two small legs coming from the end of the

halyard and attached to the yard. The running end of the halyard was brought aft

and to weather, as mentioned, and was most likely made fast to a cleat, pin, or

thwart. Since there were no blocks in use on the Viking ships, it is unlikely that

the running end had any kind of purchase, so it was likely just a single end that

was hauled on directly to hoist the yard.

The birlinn had a similar halyard rigged. The Rodil tomb shows the

fairlead hole very clearly and confirms the lack of a sheave to reduce friction

(see Figure 2). What it does not show is the two-leg bridle the replica boats have

rigged, so it is likely that the standing end of the birlinn halyard was made fast

straight to the middle of the sling, as with the smaller Norse replicas. The

running end of the halyard in the carving is led well aft, alongside the backstay,

and made fast inside the boat, presumably on the weather side to reinforce the

lateral stabilization of the single shroud. There is a slightly puzzling passage in

the Gaelic ship blessing that may give a little more insight into how the halyard

end was handled. It refers to the man set aside to tend the halyard (the translation

spells it in the old-fashioned way haulyard), and it instructs:

He wont fix the chafing rope

With a tight knot,

But belay it firm and cunning

With a slip-knot;

Lest when the cry comes to slacken,

It should stop him,

And that it may glide with humming

Off the pin.

(MacAulay, 1996: 93)

The first thing this passage tells us is that the halyard end was made fast

on a pin (though not necessarily the belaying pin so familiar in later centuries),

rather than around a thwart. What is puzzling about this reference is the mention


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more pieces of running rig, the tack and sheet. Both are essentially the same kind

of line, but the tack leads down and forward, while the sheet leads down and aft.

There is both archaeological and iconographic evidence that the Viking

longships had both of these rigged on their squares. Many of the finds, including

the Oseberg ship, the Gokstad ships, and several Skuldelev vessels, had holes in

the topstrake that acted as fairleads for both tack and sheet. Three of these finds,

the Oseberg ship, Gokstad 1, and Skuldelev 3, also had cleats inboard which

were used as belaying points for tacks and sheets (McGrail, 1987: 237). There is

a thirteenth century model found in Dublin which very clearly shows the fairlead

holes for the tacks (see Figure 21), and these are bevelled in such a way that they

are designed to accommodate a line leading from up and forward, the position

from which the tack would lead. The iconographic evidence agrees with the

archaeology as well. The thirteenth century Dublin seal (see Figure 11) is the

most definitive, showing a tack leading for the starboard clew to the bow, and a

sheet leading from the clearly visible eye of the clew to the stern quarter. The

carving does not show separate tacks and sheets on each clew, rather just one line

that appears to switch purposes as the vessel changes tacks.

Figure 21: Wooden model (36 cm), thirteenth-century site, Dublin (McGrail,

1987: 237)

The distinction between tack and sheet are really only a matter of

purpose, and it is possible for one line to be designated for both purposes. If, as it

is assumed, the Viking square sail started out as a strictly downwind sail, the

single line would have been led aft on both sides as a sheet and the yard would

have remained square to the ship. In this configuration, though, the wind cannot

come from anywhere forward of the stern quarter, since the sheet will cause the


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to a kevel or other belay point. The sheet can be seen as a single whip, with the

standing end made fast aft and outboard of the shrouds, from where it passes

through a block seized to the clew, and the running end comes back to a fairlead

through the topsides near the standing end. It is interesting to note that, while this

arrangement seems to be consistent for the main and mizzen sails on most

busses, the foresail probably had a slightly different rig. Because the foremast

was stepped so far forward and the bow is lacking a bowsprit, it is very likely the

foresail was only rigged with the aft-leading sheets and without tacks. The reason

can best be seen in the Porcellis illustration (see Figure 3), in which the foresail

is set on both sheets. The sail is seen to billow so far forward, that, if it was

braced up, there would be no place far enough forward to board the tack. This

may not have been detrimental, though, because the fore was used as a steadying

sail during fishing operations, when it would have only been necessary to keep

the stern into the wind. A squared yard would have accomplished that easily,

since the concentration of canvas would act as a weathervane and keep the bow

off the wind. The mainsail, then, would have been the primary driving sail with

the ability to brace up and board the tack to weather.

Figure 22: Sgoth detail Tack boarded on the starboard side (Photo: Ian

Stephens)


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Though the lugsail of the Scottish sgoth is technically a fore-and-aft

rigged sail, it also retains the square-rig feature of the tack and sheet. Since the

weather side of the sail does not change with tacking, it is not necessary to rig a

separate tack and sheet on each clew like the squares, but the rig of the single

tack and sheet are very familiar. The tack is not permanently attached to the clew

in this case, but is a line belayed just inside the bow and passing out through a

hole in the topsides near the stem. It terminates in a hook, onto which the ring of

the clew is attached (see Figure 22). This simplifies the operation of tacking,

because the clew must be detached very quickly, passed around aft of the mast,

and then reattached to the opposite side. If the tack itself was attached to the

clew, it could easily catch, drag, or tangle on its way around the mast and hinder

the already tricky process. One important note about the tack of the sgoth is that

the clew is made fast on the weather side of the bow with each new tack. This

may seem trivial, as the difference between making fast to weather or lee is only

a matter of inches, but, when comparing it to a square, it is significant that it is

one of the only types of lug rigs to continue to board the tack and sheet on

opposite sides, just like a square. Most other fore-and-aft rigs keep everything on

the leeside, including the tack of the lugsail. The sheet of the sgoth is much more

familiar, resembling quite closely a combination of the Dutch and Viking rig.

Like the longship, it is led aft and belayed close to the stern. Like the buss, it is

doubled with a block fixed to the clew to make a single whip.

Running Rigging Braces

Braces on a square-rigger become necessary when the vessel is routinely

sailed with the wind anywhere forward of the stern quarter. At this point of sail,

the yard can no longer me relied on to brace itself, since its tendency is to stay

square to the wind, but a vessel sailing with the wind on the beam, for instance,

will need to keep the yard closer than square to the wind. Without braces in this

case, it is too easy for the wind to catch the wrong side of the sail, twisting the

yard aback and creating an hourglass-like foul in the sail. Archaeological

evidence of braces on Viking ships would be incredibly difficult to find, since at

that point they were most likely simply a line tied to each yardarm and led aft to

a convenient belay point in the stern or stern quarter. This would very little

physical trace, and most likely any found could not be definitively interpreted as


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belonging specifically to the rigging of braces. The existence of tacks on the

longships makes it likely that braces were in use at some point, though, since

boarding a tack implies a desire to sail in some degree to weather. There is also

strong iconographic evidence of braces in use close to the same time period, as

braces can be made out on the twelfth century seal of Dunwich (see Figure 13),

as well as several thirteenth century sources like the Dublin seal (see Figure 11)

and the seals of Hulkesmouth (see Figure 15) and Winchelsea (see Figure 16).

The birlinn, too, appears to have utilized braces, and these are

prominently shown on the Rodil tomb (see Figure 2). It is a little odd that they

are not attached at the very end of the yardarm, as most square-rig braces tend to

be, to give the most leverage when hauling the yard around. One reason for this

has been suggested that the leverage afforded by tying the braces off at the

extreme ends might actually be too much for a light, flexible spar. This has been

a problem on some square-riggers of my experience that have very light yards on

the uppermost sails. If both braces are hauled taut and belayed, the sling of the

yard pulled tight against the mast becomes a pressure point. If a strong gust

billows out the sail and bows the yard, it can actually snap at the sling. One way

to prevent this might have been realized by the riggers of the birlinn, to move the

braces inboard and even the strain on the spar.

The Dutch buss carried braces as well, a common rig that can be seen in

all of the contemporary illustrations. It consisted of a single pendant attached to

the end of the yardarm, usually seized around the same hounds to which the

earring lashing was tied, and terminating in a block on the free end. Another

single whip was rigged from aft, just like the sheet, with one end fixed to a point

aft and outboard and with the other end passed through a fairlead in the topsides

and belayed inboard. In most respects, this rig was just like the sheet, and this is

not surprising since the lee brace is usually handled simultaneously with the lee

sheet in tacking operations. As for the Scottish sgoth, braces are the only piece of

running rigging for which there is no equivalent, since the yard does not pivot

around the mast in the same manner the square yard does. On the square-rigger,

the downward pressure of the lee brace pulling the weather yardarm up and the

weather tack pulling the clew of the sail down combine to keep the weather luff

of the sail taut, which gives the sail its efficiency to windward. On the sgoth, the

yard of the lugsail is not centred on the mast, instead, a shorter section angles


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Chapter Six:

Research Analysis and Conclusion

Viking longship vs. Scottish sgoth

In almost all aspects of the rig, the sgoth shows similar or even, in some

cases, virtually identical traits to the longship or birlinn. Both are pole-masted

with the same slight taper toward the top and with a fairlead for the halyard cut

into the masthead near the top. The sgoth has only the addition of a sheave in this

fairlead to reduce friction on the halyard, while the birlinn has an additional

thickening of the wood of the mast around the halyard fairlead as a reinforcement

and seat for the standing rig that the sgoth lacks. The masts also are stepped in asimilar fashion into a reinforced mast step on top of the keelson. The yards of

both longship and sgoth are fashioned with the same very slight taper toward

either yardarm, and both have fairlead holes drilled through the ends for the

earring lashing. The parrels of the yards are similar in construction, though not

made of the same material. Longship parrels were a semi-circle of wood lashed

to the yard with rope, while the sgoth parrel is a steel hoop that is jointed at the

middle and connected to the sling by a hook. Both the rope and the jointed

portion are to help keep the parrel from binding on the mast as it comes down,

which a solid hoop will do.

The sails of these two vessels, even though they are not cut the same,

have the same modifications in the form of reef points. Both are reefed by rolling

up the excess portion at the bottom and tying the reef points around it. The sgoth

modifies the sheet attachment point by passing an extra line through the reefing

cringle or simply retying the sheet through both clew and cringle, while the tack

is simply rehooked to a new cringle. It is not clear how the longship sail would

have been modified when reefed, but, since cringles were used at the time, a

similar arrangement is entirely possible.

The two types of vessels show the least similarity in the standing rigging.

Longships and birlinns have shown evidence of all the basic forms of standing

rig: forestays, backstays, and shrouds. The birlinn only exhibited a single set of

shrouds, but multiple sets have appeared on various depictions of longships. The

sgoth, on the other hand, has neither stays nor shrouds. They may have simply


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exposure to a more contemporary form of rigging, but instead show the traits of

an earlier form, this might indicate a stronger attachment to this older design that

was most likely the origin of their boat-building tradition.

The North Lewis sgoth shows us a good example of how this method of

rig analysis can give us insight into its origins. Though it is already believed to

have roots in the Norse tradition of almost one thousand years earlier, the

intervening centuries had left a gap in the record of boat-building and hull design

in the area. Taking a close look at the rig is one way to fill this gap. In an area of

geographic isolation in which conservative tendencies are more likely, it is easier

to identify survivals of Viking traits in the rigging. It is also significant that the

local fisherman in the Outer Hebrides would have been well aware of the newer

trends in square-rig technology used on the Dutch buss, but chose instead to stick

to the stripped-down basics of the Viking rig. This points to an attachment to a

particular origin in rig design and serves to reinforce the speculation of origin in

hull design. What this study has shown, then, is a way to expand the scope of

analysis by not limiting the view to what lies below the deck, but by including

that which is above the deck in order to present a more complete picture of what

it is we are trying to understand.


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Appendix

Glossary of Terms Used

Athwartships: Laterally across the ship, side-to-side.

Bonnet: An extra strip of sailcloth laced to the bottom of a lower squaresail that

could be unlaced quickly and removed to shorten sail.

Bowline: A line fixed to the leech of a squaresail and leading forward. Used to

pull the leech of the sail forward.

Chainplate: The metal fixture through-bolted on the outside of a hull to which

the lower part of shrouds and backstays are attached.

Cheek: Similar to hounds, but generally a wider, flatter set of blocks fixed to theoutside of a mast to add thickness for seating bigger pieces like

crosstrees.

Clew: The bottom corner of a sail upon which the tack and/or sheet are fixed.

Cringle: A small loop sewn to the edge of a sail to which line can be made fast.

Earring: The top corner of a sail that is lashed to the end of the yard.

Gudgeon: A metal loop fixed to the aft edge of the sternpost into which the

pintle of the rudder fits.

Hounds: A set of cleats fixed near the top of a mast or end of a yard usually used

as a stop to seat or lash rigging.

Leech: The vertical edge of a sail; specifically, the aft edge of a fore-and-aft sail.

Luff: The windward edge of a sail, or the forward edge of a fore-and-aft sail.

Lugsail: A four-side sail oriented fore-and-aft in which the luff is shorter than

the leech, similar to a gaff-rigged sail. The yard of the lug-rigged sail

crosses the mast anywhere from one-quarter to one-third of the way up

the forward edge of the yard.

Parrel: A kind of yoke or collar fixed to the sling of a yard used to hold the yard

in to the mast as it is raised and lowered or swung around the mast.

Pintle: A metal spike fixed to the forward edge of a rudder that fits into the

gudgeon on the sternpost.

Pole-masted: Having only a lower mast with no tops or topmast in addition.

Rake: The angle above or below 90 at which a mast is stepped. Also, an angle

finer than plumb that a stem or sternpost assumes.


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Sheet: The line attached to the clew that leads aft and holds down the leeward

clew of a sail, or, in the case of downwind sailing, both clews of a

squaresail.

Single luff tackle: A tackle consisting of a single sheave block and a double

sheave block with a line rove between the two.

Sling: The middle, and generally thickest part, of a yard.

Spar: A general term for a long, round length of wood such as is used for a mast,

yard, boom, etc.

Tack: The line attached to the clew that leads forward and holds down the

weather luff of a sail. Also, a procedure to turn a vessel that puts the bow

through the wind to bring the wind on the other side of the sail.

Yard: A spar that crosses the mast and upon which is bent the head of squaresail

or lugsail.

Yardarm: The extreme end of a yard.

Whip: In the case of a tackle, a single sheave block with a line rove through it.


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Bibliography

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from the deck up: using rig analysis to trace the origins of the scottish sgoth

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