Son of Hel

When the Norse went raiding they did so in some of the most phenomenal ships to ever sail the seas. The ships were clinker-built, meaning they were made from overlapping boards. This was a tough, resilient design that could take the pounding of ocean waves. They were all built with shallow draft hulls. This means they rode relatively high in the water. This design allowed them a number of advantages: great speed; the ability to navigate in as little as three feet of water; the ability to be beached and easily re-floated back into the ocean. There are different categories of longship, though. If you want to read a detailed account of them all I would suggest the site Shipfans which has a thorough article here.

The class of longship I want to mention today is the Drekar, or dragon boat. These are the ones people picture when you…