The Hjortspring Boat

The Boat

The drawings used by the Guild - scaled down to fit the page from a scale of 1:10 (2m) - and drawn by Ing. Fr. Johannesen and published by  G. Rosenberg 1937. Picture, courtesy of (1), Apendix.

This Boat are the Hjortspring Find's most impressive single prize and Scandinavia's oldest preserved plank-built vessel, it's a canoe more than 19 m long and consist of a bottom plank, a side- and a gunwale-plank on each side, whose ends are held together by two stem-blocks. All this gives a keel-less, round-bottomed vessel: at each end, the Boat is given two upward bent extensions, beaks or horns (see image at top of page). The Boat is mostly made of lime-wood, the bottom-plank and stems are locked together by oak-planks, as is the "horns". An arrangement of 10 ribs, made of a lime-wood seat and ash-pillars held together by bent hazel-branch, these rib's are sewed to cleats on the side-planks by rope made of lime-tree bast, as is all the fixing of the Boat, not a single piece of metal have been used!

The Boat's inner dimensions are about 13 m long and 2 m wide, the craftsmanship have been so splendid, that the weight of the vessel has been around 500 kg, with 24 men and equipment onboard, the total weight has been around 2500 kg.