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I have been looking into this myself for some time now and came up with nothing. What type of ships did the Celts use? Were they any good? How good were Celtic seafarers? If anybody can provide useful links or recommend a good book about this topic please do tell.
The most that I know is that they rowed skin-covered craft. The name escapes me, but it was a wood frame with animal-skins stretched over the frame and waterproofed.
llook up st brendan, he is supposed to have discovered america before the vikings.
Curragh. But that's also the name of a place in Ireland where they filmed parts of Braveheart.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marshal Murat
The classic and most well-known vessel of the "Celts" of the British isles is the coracle (in Britain) or currach (in Ireland and Scotland) Coracles IIRC are mostly of woven wood pieces, circular, and fairly smaller, mostly for rivers etc. while currach are larger, made of hides over a wooden frame and are not necessarily circular. I believe there are also references in Dark Age Irish texts to larger vessels suited for longer voyages. Norse longships were also requisitioned and copied from around the 10th Century.
The most interesting aspect of Celtic seafaring I can think of, though I don't know much about it myself, are the ships of the Veneti, the Gallic tribe from Armorica/Britanny whose fleet is described by Caesar as being composed of very large (to Mediterranean eyes) tall ships powered solely by sails, which strikes me as quite unusual for the classical era. Maybe someone with a copy of De Bello Gallico handy can provide a reference.
Antagonist
Found this on line http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/f...0657/10657.txtQuote:
Originally Posted by Antagonist
Book III, XIII. "For their ships were built and equipped after this manner. The
keels were somewhat flatter than those of our ships, whereby they could
more easily encounter the shallows and the ebbing of the tide: the prows
were raised very high, and in like manner the sterns were adapted to the
force of the waves and storms [which they were formed to sustain]. The
ships were built wholly of oak, and designed to endure any force and
violence whatever; the benches, which were made of planks a foot in
breadth, were fastened by iron spikes of the thickness of a man's thumb;
the anchors were secured fast by iron chains instead of cables, and for
sails they used skins and thin dressed leather. These [were used] either
through their want of canvas and their ignorance of its application, of
for this reason, which is more probable, that they thought that such
storms of the ocean, and such violent gales of wind could not be
resisted by sails, nor ships of such great burden be conveniently enough
managed by them. The encounter of our fleet with these ships was of such
a nature that our fleet excelled in speed alone, and the plying of the
oars; other things, considering the nature of the place [and] the
violence of the storms, were more suitable and better adapted on their
side; for neither could our ships injure theirs with their beaks (so
great was their strength), nor on account of their height was a weapon
easily cast up to them; and for the same reason they were less readily
locked in by rocks. To this was added, that whenever a storm began to
rage and they ran before the wind, they both could weather the storm
more easily and heave to securely in the shallows, and when left by the
tide feared nothing from rocks and shelves: the risk of all which things
was much to be dreaded by our ships."
The Curragh was quite seaworthy, and proved useful for raiding up until the coming of the Vikings and thier sexy longboats.
"llook up st brendan, he is supposed to have discovered america before the vikings."
Supposed- by a very small number of people. It wasn't even until an actual Viking settlement was found in Newfoundland that Scandinavian travel to mainland America gained widespread acceptance, even though the documentary evidence for it was ample.
Some where I thought I ran across something that talked about a larger type used in trade and much like Friesian ships…though for the life of me I can’t seem to locate it now.
It may just be confusion and they were indeed talking about Friesian ships...