OK. You
can’t row a narrowboat along the English canals, so I’m talking about The
Dargon Harald Fairahair; and it sounds as if that is going to be difficult to
row too!!
The
Dragon will weigh somewhere around 80 tons. Most of the time she will be
sailing, and the minimum crew under sail will be about 12 people, though there
will often be more than this aboard. Nearer to shore, along rivers and
estuaries we may well have to row the Dragon. There will be 25 oars along each
side, with 2 rowers to each oar. This means a rowing crew of 100 people. How
will this work? We don’t know yet, but hopefully sea trials this summer will
help us learn how well we can row this ship.
One oar
has been made and we have tried it in a smaller ship. The oar is about 7.5
metres long and it takes two rowers just to lift it.
The oars
will go through holes cut in the third strake (plank) down from the top, and the
oar holes will have wooden covers to keep them closed when the ship is sailing.
A few
years ago the Sea Stallion, another large replica Viking ship sailed from
Denmark to Ireland and back. They had to row too on some occasions. How did
they find the rowing? Very hard, very heavy and very slow.
I have
volunteered to help with the rowing.....not as a rower......I plan to be the
old large man with the drum who beats out the rowing time. I think I can just
about manage that!
I could
also offer our narrowboat for them to practice their rowing, after all, it only
weighs about 17 tons. There would be another problem though. Even though the
narrowboat is only 2 metres wide, if you have 7.5 metres of oar sticking out on
each side you would be wider than most canals and the oar blades would be in
the trees and bushes.
