VASA II and The Oseberg Ship

The Oseberg Ship: Reconstruction of Form and Function, by Vibeke Bischoff. The Viking Ship Museum, Vindeboder 12, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark; www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk. Hardcover, 294 pp., glossary, bibliography, index, extensive photographs and technical drawings, and an afterword by Jan Bill. $60 (Amazon or www.casemateacademic.com), £48 (www.pen-and-sword.co.uk).

VASA II: Rigging and Sailing a Swedish Warship of 1628, Part 1, written and edited by Fred Hocker with numerous coauthors and contributors. VASA Museum, Stockholm, Sweden. Hardcover, 472 pp., prolific details including photographs and exploded-view renderings. $115 (www.nordicacademicpress.com, or in the U.S., www.casemateacademic.com).

There was a time—and it wasn’t that long ago—when even technical writings about historic ships seemed hypothetical, sometimes verging on fantastical, often based on contemporaneous paintings or models that could be imprecise or impressionistic. Even nautical archaeology’s early emphasis seemed to be cargo or treasure; the ships themselves seemed an afterthought. Those of us hungry for details about how things were actually built felt very much on our own.

That is no longer the case, as I was reminded by two books published in late 2023. They show beyond any doubt that the close study of ships has come of age. Interestingly, the author of one of these books, Vibeke Bischoff, and the lead writer and editor of the other, Fred Hocker, started off as boatbuilders and sailors. That’s no coincidence.

I know them both a little. Bischoff was the first mate and occasional captain of HAVHINGSTEN FRA GLENDALOUGH, a 98′ replica Viking-age ship that I crewed in 2009 (see WB No. 206). I met Hocker in 2005 at the VASA Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Knowing my interest in archaeological subjects, he generously took me aboard the recovered 1628 warship for the better part of a day.

Bischoff has spent her entire career at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark, first as a boatbuilder, sailor, captain, and later as a specialist in using archaeological remains in re-establishing hull shapes. During an interview on our voyage, she mentioned her research into the Oseberg ship, recovered from a burial mound in 1904 and exhibited at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, Norway (which is closed until 2027, when it will reopen in a new building). She was about four years into what became a 12-year research project that ultimately earned her a PhD and became the basis for The Oseberg Ship: Reconstruction of Form and Function.

The Oseberg ship is spectacular. She is 70′6″ LOA and believed to have been built in 820 A.D. In about 834, two unidentified women, obviously of high status, were buried with the ship in an earthen mound along with an extraordinary collection of goods: objects of superb craftsmanship, sleighs, carts, textiles, even animals. Bischoff addresses those in a single paragraph stating that they have been well documented elsewhere. Mercifully, this book is all about the ship as a ship.

The Oslo museum is much like a cathedral meant to exalt the ships. It’s wonderful, but when I went there in 2005 I found it confounding after a while. I longed to have a walkway at waterline level from which to examine structural and operational details, such as the rudder attachment and the complex mast partner.

Among discoveries of Viking-age ships, the Oseberg ship is exceptional, and unique, for the astonishing carvings on the forward and after stems all the way from the waterline to spiral whorls at their upper extremities, ending in a serpent’s head forward and tail aft. The stems were cut from flat stock, with rabbets to receive the plank hood ends, unlike most others of the times, which were carved to V-shapes in cross section with plank hood ends riveted to the wings of the V (see WB No. 296). The ship had very low freeboard, leading some to believe it had been built only for the burial and was never meant for sea. Nevertheless, it remains the oldest Nordic ship found with unambiguous proof of a sailing rig, and it provided one of the very few side rudders ever found intact.

A replica built in Norway in 1987 capsized and sank in less than 20 seconds in her first sea trial after taking her own bow wave over the side. That got the attention of scholars and especially people building ship reconstructions as a branch of experimental archaeology, which is one of the things that Bischoff’s institution has been doing routinely since the early 1980s, most notably with the five Viking-age ships excavated from Roskilde Fjord in the 1960s. After the Oseberg replica sank, Bischoff took a fresh look at the ship.

To her credit, Bischoff always went back to the extensive archaeological field notes and the original construction, supplemented by photogrammetry. The 1904 reassembly had been extremely challenging. The wood was well preserved in clay soils, but a layer of rock covering the burial mound crushed the ship—the keel was actually found at a higher level than the sheerstrakes. The fragments were in good-enough condition that some could even be steam-bent to restore shape. The details of the excavation come through more clearly in Bischoff’s book than in any other source I’ve encountered.

The field recordings showed the fragments before they were distorted by drying and shrinking. Bischoff made a detailed scale reconstruction of the hull by precisely aligning joints and fastening holes. She discovered that the hull as exhibited was too narrow forward by as much as 35cm (more than 1′) and lacked concavity below the waterline. She concluded that the evidence lined up best when the keel had considerably more rocker than modern boatbuilders in Norway favored in the 1920s, when the ship was reassembled for exhibit. Tank-testing showed that Bischoff’s reconstruction did not develop the fatal bow wave.

That led to a second full-sized replica, launched in Norway in 2012. A first test sail showed her to have lee helm and severe difficulty in tacking; however, in a second attempt with Bischoff at the helm, she ordered the ship anchored and had the crew shift stone ballast forward to frame bays near the mast heel. Her book includes a screen shot of the GPS track. It shows that before the shift tacking was ineffectual, but afterward the ship made reasonable progress to windward on each tack. She came about more readily; lee helm was greatly reduced; when wearing ship, she turned in a tight radius; the rudder built to the shape of the original one proved effective. Interestingly, the lowest carvings on each stem just kissed the waterline, implying that the builder in 820 knew where the load waterline would be.

Dendrochronology showed that the ship was built in western Norway, so it successfully completed a long ocean passage at least once to even get to Oseberg, which is deep inside the Oslofjord. Bischoff identifies various wear patterns and a stout rail installed along the top of the sheerstrake forward, where the rigging chafe would have been greatest.

“It is necessary,” she writes, “for the test-skipper to have a broad base of experience to approach the task in an investigative and open-minded manner, allowing themselves to be guided by the ship, so the ship’s original properties and qualities come to light. The archaeological ship is understood as a messenger that, by virtue of its form and details, contains information on its original use. These traces and details are anchors that determine the framework for sailing.”

Anyone mystified about how this ship was built would have all questions answered in Bischoff’s book. One example: each plank was carved to leave standing cleats in way of each frame—again implying great planning. These longitudinal cleats stood between 3.5cm and 4cm (1⅜″ to 1⁹⁄₁₆″) high, meaning that more than half the original board’s thickness was removed to make them. Each had athwartship holes corresponding to fore-and-aft holes in the frames, and whale-baleen lashings secured the planks to the frames, a detail replicated in the 2012 reconstruction.

In VASA II: Rigging and Sailing a Swedish Warship of 1628, Part 1, Hocker also emphasizes the need for multidisciplinary research. “While this volume makes use of a variety of theoretical viewpoints, it also has a distinctly practical bias,” he writes at the end of Chapter 1. “Far too many learned books are written on technical issues by people lacking practical experience, who believe that extensive reading can compensate for not having held a rope or tiller…. None of the authors of this volume are armchair sailors: most have practical sailing experience on medium and large vessels on inland waters and the open sea, much of it on traditionally rigged ships, and have relevant practical or technical experience….”

VASA II is a serious and encyclopedic work. I was prepared, when I first sat down with it, to say that it isn’t the kind of book you read straight through. Yet I found myself doing exactly that, admittedly over about two weeks. The reason is that the writing is clear and understandable, never venturing into the weeds of academic jargon. I couldn’t put it down.

The chapters address not just what was found—about half of the rig was recovered—but also how it was used and where it stood in the history of seafaring.

I found the chapter on rope, written by Ole Magnus and Annette Seeberg, compelling. Rope is an ancient and often-overlooked marvel of human invention. “I approach this material not just as a scholar but as a professional ropemaker,” Magnus wrote. “My own training took place at a time when the craft had long since been declared dead. Even so, I managed to work alongside nine active ropemakers before the craft effectively disappeared as a trade.” Some of the rope remnants found on VASA were hand-laid of linden bast fiber; hemp was a relative newcomer at the time. Magnus writes that ropewalks, an early example of the factory system, vastly increased production once hemp’s suitability for such mass production became clear. But that came with a noticeable loss in quality compared to cordage hand-laid by a “roper” who could feel the balance of tensions in his hands and even adjust tensions based on the rope’s intended use.

Cringle in the boltrope at the foot of the main course.

“I had never imagined that, as late as 1628, there would be traces of the old-style roper, but there are,” he writes. “He is there, alive and kicking, and what is more, on VASA, the king of Sweden’s finest ship. At the same time, the heavy, unused and very uneven anchor cable found in VASA’s hold was quite certainly laid up on a ropewalk….” Ropewalks depend on long-fiber hemp and emerged later, often with uneven quality depending on the skill of the workers making it. Magnus points out good quality when he sees it but notes wide variability: “Among VASA’s rope, there is some that is so poor that no ropemaker should show his face after delivering such a product.”

Among the great many staggering discoveries aboard VASA, the sails are unique. She was flying only four of her sails when she capsized and sank less than a mile out of Stockholm on her first sail. The other six were folded and stowed below, and the task of unraveling that mass after more than 300 years on the bottom (she was raised in 1961) is well told here. From having absolutely nothing of original 17th-century sails, VASA’s archaeologists have brought us almost a full set. It’s shocking to see how lightly built they were, with puny tabling and lining reinforcements possibly reflecting the ship’s light-air Baltic Sea service. There didn’t seem to be a consistent seizing style. Still, the restored and mounted foretopgallant sail on display in the museum absolutely takes your breath away.

Capstans such as this one on the main deck are shown in the book’s photographs.

Additional chapters cover all of the aspects relating to the rig and sailing: hull furniture for knightheads, massive bitts, kevels, catheads; spars; mast tops; a staggering array of tackle, including 412 surviving blocks and remnants of 143 others; settings for three capstans, two of which survive, and the windlass; anchors and anchor gear; the only whipstaff steering system ever recovered intact; and the bittacle (an early binnacle) and things related to navigation.

VASA I: The Archaeology of a Swedish Warship of 1628, which I have not seen, was published in 2006 and is now out of print (and priced at up to $2,200 on Abe Books). It covered the loss, salvage, and excavation of the ship. The forthcoming Part 2 of VASA II, scheduled for 2025, promises a deeper analysis into what VASA tells us about ship handling in the 17th century, informed by experience aboard KALMAR NYCKEL, a Delaware replica of a Swedish ship from the same period, and by the archaeology; Hocker is hoping for a large-format presentation of the complete rig.

Four more volumes are planned. One for WoodenBoat readers to watch for is Part 3, covering how the ship was built. Subsequent volumes will focus on armament, the remains of crew and their personal possessions, and the lifeways of the crew.

In one poignant editor’s note, Hocker writes that Ole Magnus completed his initial draft of the chapter on rope just before he died in 2009; Annette Seeberg helped with editing until she died in 2017. Such books involve the work of a lifetime, often more than one lifetime. It’s great to know that there are institutions in this world that are still interested in publishing such books. Bischoff’s Oseberg book is Volume 9 of a series called Ships and Boats of the North, and her museum’s Maritime Culture of the North series has four volumes so far. The VASA books represent decades of close study of one of the world’s major archaeological finds. I must note also that it is increasingly uncommon these days to read books that are largely free of typographical flaws; both of these books are well and carefully edited. I found only three tiny errors in the VASA book. One was “crinkle” instead of “cringle” on page 324, to demonstrate just how picayune the examples would be.

These books represent the work of decades, and yet they are deliberately priced to be within range of ordinary people. They’re written by people who care, for readers who are hungry for detail. They’re meant to be read, and they should be. These are books for the ages.

Tom Jackson is WoodenBoat’s senior editor.

Two archaeological histories

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