From the Deck Up:

Using rig analysis to trace the origins of the Scottish sgoth

Louisa W. Pittman

Photo: Ian Stephens

A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with the

requirements of the degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts

Maritime Archaeology and History, Department of Archaeology and

Anthropology
September 2009

Word count: 14,943 words

 Abstract

The sgoth is a coastal fishing vessel unique to the Western Isles of

Scotland. Like the nineteenth-century boats fishing in other parts of coastal
Scotland, it is a lug-rigged open boat that could be rowed or sailed, and it was
manned and equipped to fish offshore for short periods of time. Unlike many of
the other luggers, though, the sgoth rig is extremely minimal, with a single
unstayed mast and a single dipping lug sail. The origins of this craft might be
hard to determine by just looking at the hull, it looks quite a bit like many other
small wooden fishing boats, but a close look at the rig gives more clues to its
probable Viking origins.
This study takes a different approach to an archaeological analysis of the
origins of the sgoth. Rather than hull design and construction, the research
focuses on individual parts of the rigging to try to find survivals and similarities
between the Viking longships, which frequented the western coast of Scotland at
the end of the first millennium, and the distinct Western Isles fishing boats that
sailed out of local ports almost one thousand years later. Since a large gap of
several centuries exists between the Viking occupation and the appearance of the
sgoth, a third vessel that frequented the area has been analyzed alongside these
two, the Dutch fishing buss. Since it also carried a single square sail on each
mast, it is used as a contrast to the others. The aim of the study is to show rig
analysis as an effective way to provide an explanation of origin for this little-
known Scottish vessel.

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 To my family, a group of scholars who never fail to challenge me

and

In memory of Captain David W. Hiott IV, the best sailor I have known

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Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to Ian Stephen of the An

Sulaire Trust for his contribution of photos and his extensive knowledge of the
sgoth. His patience and enthusiasm for the subject were greatly appreciated. I
would also like to thank the staffs of the National Archives and the National
Library in Edinburgh for help in my research. I am grateful to John for
contributing equal measures of accountability and coffee. I am also grateful to
my research assistant and twin sister Charlotte for her help with my fieldwork
and her unfailing enthusiasm. Finally, I would like to express deepest gratitude to
my parents Lester and Clare, who have never ceased to support and encourage
me in my every endeavour.

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About the author

Louisa comes to the field of maritime archaeology with several years of

practical experience in the maritime industry. Her interest in historic ships started
during her first year as a cadet at the Maritime Academy at Texas A&M
University in 1994, where she joined the volunteer crew of the 1877 barque
Elissa. Though her training at the academy was aimed at producing merchant
marine officers for the larger ocean-going commercial vessels, she found her
interest really lay in the deepwater tallships. Upon leaving the academy, she
chose to pursue a career in the tallship industry.
From 1998 to 2004, Louisa sailed almost continuously, serving aboard
seven sail ships over 100 tons: three schooners and four square-riggers. In 2000,
she was made full-time boatswain and second mate of the early seventeenth-
century replica pinnace Kalmar Nyckel, and was responsible that year for a
complete downrig and overhaul of her approximately six miles of standing and
running rigging. In 2001, she was promoted to chief mate aboard Kalmar Nyckel.
She served as a watch-standing officer and occasional relief captain on all of her
subsequent vessels, and her sea-time was mostly spent in deep-water travels up
and down the east coast of the U.S. She earned her first sailing master’s licence
in 2000, and ultimately ended up with an ocean sailing master’s licence for 200
tons by 2004.
She decided to return to university after her season aboard Niagara in
2002, and chose archaeology as a field in which she could continue to study
these historic sail ships and to which she could bring some practical experience.
She continued to sail the summer seasons during her time at university, and took
a job as assistant shipwright building the nineteenth-century replica pilot
schooner Spirit of South Carolina to support herself during her studies. She
graduated from the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina in 2006
with a BS in Anthropology. She left the schooner project after planking had been
completed to start work in field archaeology, spending the next two years
working for contract archaeology companies in the southeast U.S. as a field
archaeologist and eventually as a crew chief on all phases of survey and
excavation.
Louisa was able to move into her chosen field of maritime archaeology in
2008, when she was granted a place at the University of Bristol and won a
scholarship from the university’s American Alumni Association to complete an
MA in Maritime Archaeology and History. She has since been accepted to
continue on to do a PhD in the same department, and is receiving full funding
through the University of Bristol’s Centenary Scholarship. Her main interests lie
in early colonial Dutch and English shipping and experimental archaeology as it
pertains to rigging and sails.

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AUTHOR’S DECLARATION
I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordance with the
Regulations of the University of Bristol. The work is original except where
indicated by special reference in the text and no part of the dissertation has been
submitted for any other degree.
Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author and in no way
represent those of the University of Bristol.
The dissertation has not been presented to any other University for examination
either in the United Kingdom or overseas.

SIGNED: DATE:

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 Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………………………….Page 1

Chapter 2: Theory, Methodology and Literary Review…………………....Page 3

Chapter 3: Historical Background…………………………………………Page 8

Chapter 4: Elements of Rigging, Pt. 1 – Spars, Sail and Standing

Rigging............................................................................................Page 16

Chapter 5: Elements of Rigging, Pt. 2 – Running Rigging…………...…..Page 31

Chapter 6: Research Analysis and Conclusion……………………………Page 42

Appendix: Glossary of Terms……………………………………………..Page 47

Bibliography…………………………………………………………....…Page 49

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 List of Figures

Figure 1: Birlinn carving on Rodil tomb (Photo: Louisa Pittman)..............Page 11

Figure 2: Sketch of birlinn carving from Rodil tomb (MacAulay, 1996:

1)......................................................................................................Page 17

Figure 3: Print by Jan Porcellis, 1600 (Cees)..............................................Page 18

Figure 4: Parrel from Wood Quay excavation, Dublin (McGrail, 1987:

233)..................................................................................................Page 19

Figure 5: Illustration of eighteenth-century Dutch buss (Steel, 1794:

239)..................................................................................................Page 20

Figure 6: Earring lashing over cleats (Lever, 1819: 53)..............................Page 21

Figure 7: Seventeenth-century Dutch parrel (Anderson, 1927: 141)..........Page 21

Figure 8: Sgoth yardarm with earring fairlead (Photo: Ian Stephens).........Page 22

Figure 9: Jointed iron traveller of the sgoth (Photo: Charlotte Pittman).....Page 23

Figure 10: Sling of sgoth yard with eyebolts for traveller hook (Photo: Charlotte
Pittman)............................................................................................Page 23

Figure 11: Thirteenth century Dublin seal (McGrail, 1987: 238)...............Page 24

Figure 12: Model of Vigelantie c. 1800 (Cees)...........................................Page 25

Figure 13: Seal of Dunwich, 1199 (McGrail, 1987: 231)............................Page 26

Figure 14: Carving on eighth-century gravestone, Gotland (McGrail, 1987:

237)..................................................................................................Page 26

Figure 15: Seal of Hulkesmouth, c.1295 (McGrail, 1987: 256)..................Page 27

Figure 16: Thirteenth-century seal of Winchelsea (McGrail, 1987:

257)..................................................................................................Page 28

Figure 17: Sketch by Pieter Vogelaer, late 1600’s (Cees)...........................Page 29

Figure 18: Standing end of halyard on replica Sebbe Als (McGrail, 1984:
119)..................................................................................................Page 31

Figure 19: Running end of Dutch halyard (Anderson, 1927: 179)..............Page 34

Figure 20: Running end of sgoth halyard (Photo: Ian Stephens).................Page 35

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Figure 21: Wooden model (36 cm), thirteenth-century site, Dublin (McGrail,
1987: 237)........................................................................................Page 36

Figure 22: Sgoth detail – Tack boarded on the starboard side (Photo: Ian
Stephens)..........................................................................................Page 38

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 Chapter One:

Introduction

The lugsail is an unusual type of fore-and-aft rig. The yard seems stuck
somewhere between crossing the mast like a square yard and resting its heel
against the mast like a gaff. Like a true fore-and-aft sail, the leading edge of the
lugsail (the luff) is always the same edge, but it cannot change tacks without
moving the yard around the mast, like a square sail. This unusual blending of
traits has led some, including myself, to speculate that the lug rig may have
evolved, in northern Europe at least, as an intermediate step between the single
squaresail rigs made popular by Norse influence and the true fore-and-aft rig so
prevalent in the latter days of sail. This is not an easy premise to prove, though,
since the vessels that carry the lug rig have existed all over the northern regions
of Europe, and they are much more varied in hull design than the original square-
rigged ships of the pre-medieval period. An attempt to trace the origins of a lug-
rigged vessel solely by the traits of hull construction and design would produce,
at best, inconclusive results.
What is rarely attempted as an alternative is an analysis, not of the hull,
but of the rig for clues to origin. A close scrutiny of rigging seems an obvious
approach when trying to determine the origins of a particular type of sail, but it is
often more difficult than hull analysis both archaeologically and historically.
When it comes to material remains, it is rare that identifiable pieces of rigging
are found in vessels older than a couple of centuries. It is also rare to find
mention of specific rigging parts in historical documents, since it was not
common before the modern period for someone well versed in the details of a
ship’s rig to also have occasion to write about it. Much of the historical evidence
for rigging comes from contemporary carvings or paintings, but this again poses
a problem in that the researcher must make a judgement on how valid the
illustrator’s portrayal of the details of the rig might or might not be.
There are some cases, though, where a rig analysis might just be feasible,
and, in the case of the lug rig, one of these is a small fishing vessel found only in
the Outer Hebrides of Scotland known as the sgoth (pronounced “sgō”). Because
of its geographic isolation and relatively small area of operation, only a very few

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outside maritime influences could have affected the development of this vessel,
making it easier to match rigging traits to particular traditions and time periods.
There were two main maritime forces with which the developers of the sgoth
would have had frequent and direct contact. The first were the Viking raiders
and, eventually, settlers from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries. The longship
of these Norse invaders led to the first large-scale Scottish ship, the birlinn. Not
long after the Vikings were defeated and driven out of Scotland, the first of the
massive Dutch fishing fleet appeared off the coast of the Western Isles trawling
for herring. Unlike the longships, these ships were decked and had multiple
masts, but they still sailed under a single squaresail on each mast. Dominating
the western Scottish fishing grounds for the better part of three centuries, these
outsiders might also have influenced what would later become the sgoth.
Since individual types of evidence for details of rigging are scarce, the
approach of this study is to combine several different elements in an attempt to
piece together a picture of the rig of each of these three types of vessels.
Examples from iconography, material remains, written documents, and even
experimental archaeology in the form of replicas have all been layered and
compared, and the key elements of spars, standing rigging, and running rigging
have been highlighted for comparison. This piece-by-piece breakdown results in
an emerging pattern of survivals and similarities that serve as a convincing
argument for the Norse origin of the Scottish sgoth.

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 Chapter Two:

Theory, Methodology and Literary Review

Theory
There is a tendency in maritime archaeology to focus more on the
analysis of what can be found from the deck to the keel of historic ships and less
on the analysis of what would have been found looming far above the deck. This
is understandable, since most material evidence recovered from ship remains,
especially sites which pre-date the early modern period, tends to be the most
resilient parts of a vessel, primarily in the lower hull. Little, if any, rigging parts
are usually recovered from early sites, so an analysis of rig design and use is
often only a small part of the interpretation of a vessel. The importance of the rig
cannot be ignored, though. Until very recently, sail was the most popular and
widely used way to propel all kinds of watercraft, and the rig was the complex
engine that drove the vessel. With such a variety in sail types and usage, a ship’s
rigging could be just as diagnostic to the archaeologist as the type of wood and
construction techniques found in the hull. For example, the experienced eye of a
seventeenth-century rigger can tell right away if a ship is Dutch or English just
by looking at the way the bowsprit gammoning is led and seized. The ability to
distinguish region and time from hull design is a well-established practice in
maritime archaeology, but the same ability should not be overlooked when
considering the analysis of the rig.
This study is an attempt to establish a link in maritime traditions, not by
an in-depth look at hull structure, but by just such an approach of a detailed look
at rigging. There are many survivals of traits in the rig that continue long after
construction techniques have evolved, and these little details can last for
centuries unchanged. In order to recognize the traits of one vessel in another, in
this case the Viking longship echoed in the rig of the Scottish sgoth, it is only
necessary to compare the details of fairleads, belay points, and so forth. As a
contrast, another intermediate vessel, the Dutch buss, has been analyzed beside
the two of primary interest. This is because the buss was fishing the same waters
in coastal Scotland that the sgoth would later occupy and because the Norse also
may have influenced the Dutch in their early maritime traditions. It is a

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possibility that the buss, being so prevalent in Scottish waters and in the
intermediate time period between the use of the longships and the creation of the
sgoths, might have influenced the design of the sgoth. Each of these three ships
has been broken down by individual parts of the rig to be compared and
contrasted. By comparing these individual points, it is then possible to identify
trends and survivals in the overall rigging scheme.

Methodology
Since archaeological evidence of rigging is not easily obtained, an
analysis of rig components must rely on a variety of sources to supplement
physical remains. For this study, I consulted a mixture of archaeological,
historical, iconographic, and experimental sources and sometimes supplemented
these with my own practical experience with square-rig technology. Where
possible, a detail has been interpreted by comparing more than one type of
evidence, but in cases where no clear evidence can be found, I reached some
conclusions by consulting the results of experimental archaeology in the form of
replica and restored vessels.
When looking at ships of the Viking era, I have looked at details of two
similar types of vessels, the Viking longship and the equivalent Scottish birlinn.
Since most of the rigging traits of these two vessels are essentially the same, I
have used them interchangeably as representatives of this time period when
comparing them to the other two vessel types, but continue to identify them as
individual in their design. Archaeological studies have produced a small amount
of material evidence of rigging in the Viking longships, most notably the finds of
the Oseberg ship, the Gokstad ships, and the Skuldelev ships. Additionally, a fair
amount of iconography exists depicting details of rigging, though much of it
dates to the later periods of Viking influence and into the medieval period. Much
less remains of the Scottish birlinn. No physical remains have been found of this
particular type of vessel, so evidence is limited to iconographic and the historic
record. The symbol of the birlinn is widely used in clan emblems and family
crests, especially in the Western Isles and West Highlands of Scotland. The best
detailed evidence of its rigging, though, comes from just two sources. The first is
a 1528 carving of a birlinn under full sail on the tomb of Alasdair Crotach
(Alexander Macleod), eighth chief of the Macleods of Harris and Dunvegan,

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found in St. Clement’s church on the south end of the Isle of Harris (see Figure
1). The second is a Gaelic blessing of unknown date that was translated by Dr.
Alexander Nicolson and published in The Gael in 1877 and that provides
extraordinary detail of the operation of a birlinn.
The Dutch buss is well represented in the historical record, but a rig
analysis relies heavily on common usages on various types of ships at the time.
Since no material remains can be attributed specifically to the buss, I drew
conclusions by comparing contemporary illustrations and models to what is
known to be common practice on Dutch ships of a similar style and tonnage of
the time period. This is a fairly sound approach, since rigging at the time was
becoming somewhat standardized and was showing distinct characteristics based
on region rather than vessel type. Manuals of rigging for this time period often
distinguish, for example, between different types of leads or lashings on ships of
different nationalities, but rarely make a distinction in vessel usage or tonnage
(see, for instance, examples set in Lever’s rigging manual, 1819: 51, 67). No
experimental archaeology exists for the Dutch buss in the form of a replica ship,
but there are contemporary replicas of equivalent tonnage for reference, and the
one in particular referred to in this study is the seventeenth-century Dutch
pinnace Kalmar Nyckel, upon which I gained considerable rigging experience.
The sgoth is the one vessel in this study that has been operated within
living memory. This means details of the rig can be defined without speculation
or interpretation of iconography. Unfortunately, it is not very well represented in
the historic record, since it is a craft operated within a relatively short time period
in a very limited geographic region. In order to gain enough information to
compare the rig of the sgoth with other vessels, I have drawn quite extensively
from the knowledge gained by those who continue to sail restoration and replica
sgoths in the Isle of Lewis today. The insight gained by their day-to-day
operations has been extremely valuable in understanding the practical
considerations of single-masted small vessel operations in coastal Scotland.

Literary Review
There are quite a few works written about the vessels used by the Vikings
for long distance raiding and settlement. Many of these focus on the more
famous archaeological finds: the Oseberg ship and the Gokstad ship in Norway,

5
and the Skuldelev ships in Denmark. Greenhill (1976) gives a thorough
breakdown of the construction methods and finds associated with each of these
ships in his work. McGrail (1987) takes a more theoretical approach to these
ships, including calculations on sail efficiency and more detail on material
remains associated with rigging in Ancient Boats in North-West Europe. He has
also compiled some reports on experimental archaeology tied in to the Viking
ships that outline varying degrees of success in attempts at rig interpretations as
part of an overview of maritime archaeology (McGrail, 1984). The only work
that has dealt specifically with the Scottish birlinn is a small publication by John
MacAulay (1996) in which he has published the previously mentioned Gaelic
blessing and its translation in their entirety.
Since the Dutch fishing buss is a fairly marginalized ship for the time
period, not much published information deals specifically with this vessel. Unger
(1978) devotes only a few pages to it in his well-known work on early Dutch
shipbuilding. However, since rigging by that time had become fairly
standardized across vessels of similar tonnage and originating in the same areas,
other works that deal with rigging of smaller Dutch vessels of the time can be
reliably consulted. The main work used by riggers for seventeenth-century
vessels of this type is Anderson’s The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the
Spritsail Topmast, 1600-1720 (1927). For details of later rigging methods, the
English publication by Darcy Lever (1819) is preferred. Several paintings and
models can also be found in places such as the Nederlands Scheepvaart Museum
that usually include enough detail to give insight into the particular rigging
methods employed on the buss in particular.
There is even less published about the sgoth as an individual vessel type.
Donald Macdonald (1984) gives an excellent description of fishing operations in
the Tolsta townships of Lewis and lists many of the local sgoths along with
individual crew and vessel names. He includes accounts of beaching, extreme
conditions, and wrecks, but does not mention particular details of the rig.
Modern-day examples of the vessels can fill in these details, though. Since
sgoths were operated well into the twentieth century, there are is an accurately
rigged restoration and several replicas still sailing out of the Isle of Lewis which
can be reliably referred to for the finer point of individual rigging parts. The

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original half-sgoth Jubilee and the replica full sgoth An Sulaire have been used in
this study as examples of the type.

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 Chapter Three:

Historical Background

Four centuries of Viking rule

The earliest outside maritime influence in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland
came with the Viking invasion at the end of the eighth century. Originally, the
visits of the iconic Norse longships were limited to brief raiding runs, working
their way through all of the islands from the Shetlands to Ireland. Throughout the
ninth century, the sight of the single square sail of the warship became quite
familiar to the residents of the Western Isles (as the entirety of the Hebrides is
known today), and by the latter half of the century, this region was conquered by
Norway and settled with Norsemen from the unfavourable west coast of Norway,
who were attracted by the freedom of the newly-acquired land to the west. For
the next two centuries, the kings of Norway ruled relatively peacefully in the
Western Isles, but, by the end of the eleventh century, the Norwegian kings were
forced to continue to reassert their dominion in this area as the Scottish kings and
lords started to become more powerful. In the middle of the twelfth century,
Norse rule started to disintegrate as Lord Somerled claimed one region after
another in western Scotland, posing an open threat to the distant Scandinavian
rulers. The Somerled dynasty continued to gain power over the next century,
until King Hakon the Old of Norway responded with a full-scale attack with his
impressive fleet of warships on the Hebrides and the Somerled rule. His attack
was unsuccessful, and the Hebrides were ceded to Scottish rulers by 1266.
The ships the Vikings brought over to the British Isles were built for
long-distance voyaging, though completely open to the elements. Much of what
we know of these vessels comes from archaeological finds, and these show a
variety of designs, indicating that vessels were probably purpose-built to fill
specific roles. For instance, finds such as the ninth-century Oseberg and Gokstad
ships show us wide, shallow-drafted ships with very low freeboard, which are
not ideal for ocean voyages. This was more likely a design suited for carrying
cargo in the sheltered fjords of Scandinavia (Greenhill, 1976: 209, 212). On the
other hand, the tenth- or eleventh-century Ladby ship is probably a good
representation of the type of vessel suitable for ocean voyaging and coastal

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raiding, as it was long, fast, and deep-drafted with more freeboard. This design
was ideal as a warship, since it moved rapidly when light, but was also capable
of carrying a moderate amount of cargo and even, as demonstrated on a Danish
replica, could be used to transport horses (McGrail, 1984: 118). Nothing built in
the British Isles at the time could have come close to these ships in technology
and sailing ability, so it is not surprising that the Vikings were able to move
fairly freely around the coast for centuries.
The longships used for ocean voyaging were of a clinker-built shell-first
construction. Since they were designed to withstand considerable hardship on
long voyages, they were built with numerous closely set frames and included the
relatively new innovation of transverse beams tied in to the heads of the frames
to provide lateral support. Since the ship was designed to row as well as sail, the
beams provide a platform for the thwart, which was used as a seat for the rowers.
When travelling to windward, the ship would have to be rowed, and it is believed
the mast was often unstepped and laid down the middle of the vessel to stow it
alongside the yard for long periods of rowing. The resulting lower center of
gravity would also make the ship more stable, so it is probable that the mast and
yard were also struck to weather particularly bad storms in the open ocean. For
shorter spans of windward travel, the mast could be left standing, but the yard
would have been lowered to the gunwales, as this appears to have been the only
way of dousing sail at the time. There is only evidence of a single mast on
Viking longships that carried a single square sail. The spars were constructed
from local Scandinavian wood, usually some variety of pine or fir, a type of
wood still preferred for wooden spars today because it is light and flexible.
According to medieval documentation, sails in the Viking era were
usually made of wool, and early iconographic representations such as the
Gotland stone show diagonal panels (see Figure 14). Since these panels did not
run straight vertically or horizontally, they would spread the tension from the
lines across the entire sail, and they were possibly designed this way to try to
prevent the sail from stretching too much out of shape horizontally or vertically.
As it was, the woollen sails tended to be very baggy, and there was a definite
problem with the luff of the sail curling in upon itself. This was not really a
problem when the ship was sailing dead downwind, but if any attempt was made
to sail to weather, the luff had to be held straight. Both the Skuldelev 1 ship and

9
the Gokstad ship were found to have a block of wood fixed to the forward side of
the mast with indentations on it that have been interpreted as a resting place for
the heel of a tacking spar (McGrail, 1987: 239). This was wooden crutch that
extended forward of the weather bow and either provided a forward lead for a
bowline or was fixed into the weather luff itself. Either way, the intention would
have been to keep the luff stretched to windward to allow the ship to sail on the
wind. These early experiments with technology to press a ship’s windward
ability date to around the tenth and eleventh centuries, during the height of
Viking power and influence in Scotland, so it is likely that this sailing capability
was exploited as much as possible in order to make longer voyages more
efficient and give them an advantage in conflicts.

The birlinn: a Scottish adaptation

As the Scottish kings started to rise in power near the end of the eleventh
century, a new form of ship was taking shape. When Scottish ruler Alexander III
met the longships of Norwegian king Hakon the Old in battle in 1263, it was
with a force consisting primarily of this newest design, the Hebridean birlinns
(MacAulay, 1996: 13). In Scotland, it is still popularly thought that the defeat of
the Norwegian maritime force was mainly due to the tactical superiority of this
new ship. The design may have had something to do with it, but there is also the
fact that much of Hakon’s fleet was heavily damaged in a storm, and the
remainder were forced to retreat to the Orkneys, where King Hakon eventually
died of illness (MacAulay, 1996: 13). Regardless of this outcome, the birlinn
definitely showed a step forward in the evolution from the longship of the Viking
era to the medieval square-rigger.
Though a fair amount is known about this unique Scottish vessel, most of
the body of knowledge comes from a very few sources. No archaeological
evidence exists for this type of vessel, since none have ever been recovered.
Some iconographic evidence is available, the most notable and helpful being the
carving of a birlinn on a tomb inside St Clement’s church in Rodil on the Isle of
Harris (see Figure 1). The tomb was made for Alasdair Crotach, or Alexander the
hunchback Macleod, who was the eighth chief of the Macleods of Harris and
Dunvegan and died in 1546. The birlinn is carved with such intricate detail of
rigging and hull, that it is likely a contemporary example was still in use in the

10
mid-sixteenth century. The early representations of birlinns, though, are usually
not so detailed, being mostly small depictions within family crests and clan
emblems. The Somerled galley is one of the most famous examples that can be
seen to this day in all sorts of crests and emblems around the Western Isles. In
fact, the earliest record of a birlinn comes from the seal of Reginald, one of
Somerled’s sons, and dates to the late twelfth century (MacAulay, 1996: 2),
supporting the idea that these vessels existed as a distinct design before the
defeat of the Vikings in the mid-thirteenth century.

Figure 1: Birlinn carving on Rodil tomb (Photo: Louisa Pittman)

There are three main differences evident in the illustrations of the

Scottish birlinn from the Viking longships used in the Western Isles at the time: a
deeper draft, higher topsides, and a central rudder. As demonstrated by the Ladby
ship and some of the Skuldelev ships, the typical ocean-going longship was long
and narrow, but had a relatively shallow draft. This allowed them to be beached
quite easily, but was somewhat disadvantageous in sailing to windward, since the
lack of a substantial amount of the vessel under the water would have caused the
ship to make a considerable amount of leeway. The birlinn, by comparison, was
a very deep vessel with what appears to be a fairly deep keel for the time. On the
Rodil tomb (see Figure 2), a faint waterline is visible, which shows that almost as
much of the vessel sits below the waterline as above. The high topsides of the

11
birlinn are what have been attributed for its supposed tactical advantage. The
evidence that the topsides sat higher than the longships is mostly taken from the
existence of oarports built into the top planking on the birlinn, whereas a
longship traditionally had oars run out over the gunwales. Higher sides provide a
tactical advantage in two ways: they provide more protection for the rowers and
crew, and they provide a higher vantage point for warriors from which assaults
can be launched down into the open boats of the enemy. The most distinct
difference in the design of the birlinn, though, was the appearance of the central
rudder. This feature is shown so clearly on the Rodil tomb that even the
individual gudgeons and pintles of the rudder assembly can be made out. At the
time this rudder first appeared in the Western Isles, the longships were still being
steered by a rudder mounted on one side (McGrail, 1987: 245-6). Because of the
deeper draft of the birlinn, a central rudder proved to be much more efficient for
steering, and it provided less of the difficulties of a side-mounted rudder
(MacAulay, 1996: 57). Given these technological advances, it is no wonder the
birlinn became a symbol of power for rulers in western Scotland as an emblem of
the height of early medieval seapower.

Dutch fishing in coastal Scotland

With the defeat of the Vikings, a century and half had passed in the
Western Isles with little maritime interference from the rest of Europe, but the
beginning of the fifteenth century heralded the rise of the offshore fishing
industry in western Scotland. Up to this time, fishing had been limited to short
coastal runs, since the fish could only be preserved once they were unloaded
from the boats. This meant fishing industries were comprised of groups of local
fishermen working from small open boats in the near-shore areas. The
technological breakthrough which allowed for offshore fishing came in two
inventions only a year apart: the invention of larger drag nets that brought in
larger catches in 1416 and the introduction of a ship purpose-built for herring
fishing, known as a buss, in 1415 (Unger, 1978: 29). Dutch fishermen had
already been experimenting with methods for onboard preservation of fish since
the fourteenth century, but their curing technique combined with bigger nets and
a larger vessel with more room for crew and cargo meant they could now stay at
sea for more than just a couple of days, and the Dutch herring industry started to

12
venture out into foreign territory. For the next two hundred years, the Dutch
herring busses controlled the Scottish fishing industry, and it wasn’t until King
Charles I started levying huge fees on the Dutch for permission to fish in English
and Scottish waters in the seventeenth century (Gillmer, 1994: 91) that the local
fishing industry managed to gain any kind of foothold. Even when local fishing
was starting to be encouraged, though, the government favoured the Dutch
design of larger, decked ships like the buss. A bounty was offered for vessels
which fit the type of specifications the buss had introduced, so the older open
boat design still preferred by the local fishermen of the smaller fishing towns in
the Western Isles were not able to benefit from this incentive pay. Therefore, the
larger decked design made popular by the herring buss continued to dominate the
Scottish coast until the nineteenth century (Gray, 1978: 5-6).
Not much is known about the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Dutch
busses. At that time, ships were not ordinarily specialized, so herring busses,
though built for fishing, were often refitted for other purposes such as general
cargo transport and convoy duty in wartime. This makes it difficult to isolate
traits specific to the buss from those of other vessels also performing multiple
duties. By the end of the sixteenth century, ships were becoming specialized, and
this is where we start to see a typology appearing for the herring buss. Unger
(1978: 29-30) gives a detailed description of the typical Dutch herring buss
around the year 1600 as having a rounded stern (typical of Dutch design), a box-
like appearance, a single squaresail on each of three masts, partial or full decking
to provide shelter for cargo and crew, and an unusually high length to breadth
ratio. The length is explained as necessary for maneuvering the massive drift
nets, something not easily done from a shorter, wider vessel. The Porcellis
illustration from 1600 (see Figure 3) matches this description, with the exception
of an older-style square transom, and it also shows the distinct buss feature of an
elevated rack in front of the mizzen mast on which the unstepped main mast
rested during fishing operations. The buss really shows us squaresails being used
efficiently as the only means of propulsion. Unlike the Viking longships, the
Dutch did not use oars as a means of getting to windward, but they were still
relying on a single squaresail on each mast to drive the ship. This meant a
refining of square-rigging techniques to allow them to sail closer to the wind in
coastal maneuvering, but the methods used, such as braces and placement of

13
tacks and sheets, were also employed by their Viking predecessors. In the Dutch
ships at the beginning of the seventeenth century, we see square-rig technology
that had progressed as far as it could without the addition of fore-and-aft sails.

The sgoth of the Outer Hebrides

During the nineteenth century, almost six hundred years after Viking rule
ended there, Scottish fishermen finally regained control of their own offshore
fishing grounds. In the intervening centuries, while the Dutch controlled the
offshore industry, local fishermen had continued to build small inshore boats and
engaged in subsistence fishing. It is unlikely their boat design changed
dramatically over this time period, since the existing evidence of the nineteenth
century fishing boats shows a surprising amount of conservation of elements and
techniques, especially considering such a long interval. During the nineteenth
century, several distinct regional types started to emerge. Hull designs varied
greatly: some were carvel-built, some clinker; some had sharply raked sternposts
and rudders, others were almost plumb; a few sported an adjustable bowsprit,
most had no bowsprit at all. The one thing all of these boats had in common was
the rig; they were all lug-rigged. The more well known of these herring luggers
come from the southeast coast of Scotland, in the area of Fife. From this region
came the scaffies, fifies, and zulus fishing the offshore waters in huge numbers.
Further north, in the Orkney and Shetland islands, sailed the yoles and ness
yoles, boats with lugsails cut so square that they were almost unrecognizable as a
fore-and-aft sail. In the Western Isles, especially in the Isle of Lewis, the sgoth
became the main boat to fish the North Atlantic coast.
There are several elements of the sgoth that immediately stand out as
probable survivals of Viking shipbuilding. It is a clinker-built boat, shallow and
beamy, very reminiscent of the Gokstad ship in its cross-section. The bottom is
fairly flat with a shallow keel to allow the boat to be beached in between runs,
which was necessary in most parts of the Lewis coast. The sternpost is sharply
raked with a centrally mounted rudder, very like the birlinn in its shape. Unlike
most of the lug-rigged herring boats in southeast Scotland, the sgoth carries only
one mast with one large lugsail. It can also be rowed when travelling directly into
the wind, or when beaching, a manoeuvre that required the utmost skill and
timing on the part of the crew (Macdonald, 1984: 108).

14
 The sgoth was typically about 18 to 24 feet long at the keel, and engaged
in offshore fishing with a crew of about five to seven men for one or two days at
a time (Macdonald, 1984: 105-6). All sgoths were rigged with a dipping lugsail,
meaning the yard is passed aft of the mast and keeps the same luff when tacking,
unlike the square yard that swings forward of the mast and changes luffs by
switching tacks. The lug has the advantage of the fore-and-aft rig to sail very
close on the wind, but, since the mast of the sgoth is unstayed, the yard can be
brought around almost square, allowing for a considerably stable downwind run
as well. Despite the fact that it is a dipping lug, the sgoth continues to have more
in common with its Viking longship ancestors in both hull design and rig than
with the technologically advanced Dutch square-riggers that so easily could have
influenced the Scottish boat builders in the intervening centuries.
Very few nineteenth-century Scottish fishing boats have survived to the
modern day. Most were sacrificed when fishermen converted from sail to motor
in the twentieth century. In the Isle of Lewis, one original half-sgoth, Jubilee,
was restored by John Murdo MacLeod and still sails out of Stornoway,
maintained and operated by the An Sulaire Trust. The same organization also
built a full sgoth replica, An Sulaire, and a handful of half-, three-quarter-, and
full sgoths have since been built or are in the process. The experimental
archaeology of this restoration and rebuilding has provided key evidence for the
practical considerations of rig, which is often so lacking in the archaeological
record.

15
 Chapter Four:

Elements of Rigging, Part 1 – Spars, Sail and Standing Rigging

Rig Components
The Viking longship was really square rig technology at its simplest and
stripped down to the barest of essentials. Two wooden spars were used: the mast
stepped into the bottom of the ship, and the yard from which the sail was hung.
On the sail itself were reef points for shortening sail, cringles sewn in the edges
as attachment points, and earrings and clews sewn into the corners for stretching
the sail outwards along the yard and downwards towards the vessel, respectively.
The rest of the rig consisted of rope used either to stabilize the mast (standing
rigging) or to control the yard and sail (running rigging). The standing rigging on
such a vessel was composed of two parts: stays to steady the mast fore and aft,
and shrouds to steady it athwartships. The running rigging moved the yard and
sail in two planes: the halyard to hoist the yard and the tacks and sheets to pull
down the sail all worked together to move the sail in a vertical plane, and the
braces swung the yard in a horizontal plane. Since one can also see the same
basic structure of each of these elements of wood, cloth, and rope in the Dutch
buss and the Scottish sgoth, I will break their analysis down by individual piece
and discuss the use on each type of vessel for a more detailed view.

Mast
Some of the only archaeological evidence of rigging on Viking longships
is related to the masts of these vessels. However, this material is restricted to the
lower portions of the spar and the places where it fit into the keel. The upper
portions have been lost to the material record, and must be conjured up through
interpretation of iconography and the historic record, as with the rest of the rig.
This has led to much conjecture about a standard for length of masts and overall
shape and design. Various known rules have been applied to try to estimate mast
height, ranging from traditional Norwegian to fifteenth century Italian (McGrail,
1987: 226), all with wide-ranging results.
What is generally agreed has been summed up by Christensen (1979) that
longships were pole-masted and the masts were round with a squared-off foot to

16
better fit into the mast step. They generally tapered upwards, with the exception
of a thickening of the wood near the top to accommodate the halyard hole and to
provide a seat on which the stays might rest. This can be seen quite clearly on the
Rodil tomb carving (see Figure 2). The length was probably not much more than
the vessel’s length, since the mast was frequently unstepped and could not be
easily handled if such a heavy spar projected too far over bow or stern
(Christensen, 1975: 266). Most representations of Norse vessels have the single
mast stepped just forward of midships, and the small amount of archaeological
evidence available indicates that they were stepped directly to the keel by means
of an extra brace attached to the keelson (McGrail, 1987: 226).

Figure 2: Sketch of birlinn carving from Rodil tomb (MacAulay, 1996: 1)

It is hard to draw anything more than the most general conclusions about
the mast of the Dutch buss, since evidence is limited to contemporary drawings
and paintings, but the overall design is similar. Unger (1978: 29) describes the
early sixteenth century buss as a three-masted vessel in which all but one mast
were routinely unstepped while fishing. This means that many of the
representations of busses of the time depict them with the masts lowered in the
process of shooting nets. However, the 1600 Porcellis print (see Figure 3) shows
a buss with only the mainmast lowered, which gives us a clear look at the
foremast. It shows a pole mast with a slight taper toward the top. There is no
evidence of crosstrees on which to seat the standing rigging, but there is certainly
some kind of seat. This could be a simple addition of hounds or cheeks to the

17
outside of the mast, a common practice of both English and Dutch ships of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Anderson, 1994: 22-29). Anderson (1994:
47-8) mentions, though, that it was also common in the seventeenth century for
the Dutch to leave an octagonal-shaped thickness at the masthead upon which the
rigging (or trestle trees if added) could sit, a practice very similar to the
thickened masthead of the longships.

Figure 3: Print by Jan Porcellis, 1600 (Cees)

Since the sgoth does not carry separate shrouds or stays, there is no need
on its masthead for a seat, so there is no corresponding thickening at the top of
the mast. However, like its predecessors, the sgoth is pole-masted and the mast
tapers slightly, while just being thick enough to accommodate the halyard sheave
near the top. The mast is stepped in a familiar fashion: a squared-off foot stepped
into an extra brace fixed to the top of the keelson, just like the longship.

Yard
There are essentially two parts to the yard of either a square or a lug rig:
the wooden spar itself and the parrel, or traveller, that holds it to the mast as it
travels up and down. Very few examples of Viking yards have been recovered,
but a handful of complete or fragmented spars were uncovered with the Gokstad
boats, and three were identified as yards (McGrail, 1987: 232). These spars are
constructed of a single piece of light wood, slightly tapered toward each end, and
have a hole drilled through close to the end of each yardarm through which the

18
earring lashing for the sail could pass. Contemporary depictions of the longships
and birlinn seem to agree with this construction, though the carvings are not
detailed enough to make an exact match. For instance, the birlinn of the Rodil
tomb (see Figure 2) shows a light spar that is shorter than the sail is tall and to
which the sail is lashed, but it is hard to tell if the spar has any taper to it and the
detail of making fast the earring lashing is not depicted. It is reasonable to
assume that the fairlead holes and taper would have been part of the construction,
though, since the taper is a universal feature of such spars, and some means of
outboard strain is necessary to properly stretch the head of a squaresail.

Figure 4: Parrel from Wood Quay excavation, Dublin (McGrail, 1987: 233)

A small amount of material evidence also exists for the type of parrel
used on the longships. Finds both in the ninth-century Oseberg ship and at the
early thirteenth-century Wood Quay excavation in Dublin (see Figure 4) have
produced virtually identical parrels consisting of a flat semi-circle of wood with
a single hole on each end (McGrail 1987: 232). These parrels were the
predecessor to parrel beads and were designed to sit on the aft side of the mast
with ropes passed through each eye lashed to the yard. This created a closed loop
to hold the yard in to the mast against the pressure of the wind and to serve as a
guide as the yard was raised and lowered. One problem with this simple design is
that the parrel can bind against this mast when there is a lot of lateral pressure,
for instance when lowering the sail in a strong breeze. An effective way to

19
counteract this is through the use of the braces, which will be discussed further
on in the chapter. Binns (1980: 161-2) experimented with another method on his
boat Odin’s Raven in which he seized on end of the parrel rope to the yard, but
led the other end over the yard from aft to fore, and then down to deck between
the sail and the yard. By slacking this running end, he was able to open up the
parrel when lowering the yard to keep it from binding.

Figure 5: Illustration of eighteenth-century Dutch buss (Steel, 1794: 239)

Depictions of the Dutch buss are typically only detailed enough to draw
the most general of conclusions about the yards of these vessels. Both Porcellis’
seventeenth-century depiction (see Figure 3) and Steel’s eighteenth-century
drawing (see Figure 5) show a wooden spar shorter than the sail is tall that tapers
slightly towards each end. A parrel can be made out, but not in enough detail to
ascertain its composition. There is also no indication of how the earrings of the
sail are hauled out and lashed to the yardarms. These details can be filled in quite
easily, though, since much has been written about the common rigging practices
of the Dutch during this time period. Unlike the longship examples, the Dutch
yardarms do not have fairlead holes for the earring lashings. By the seventeenth-
century, it was common for yardarms to bear extra cleats that acted as a seat for
the outboard turns of the earring lashing. This technique was still in use well into

20
the nineteenth-century and has been neatly illustrated by Lever (1819: 53) in his
description of bending on sail (see Figure 6).

Figure 6: Earring lashing over cleats (Lever, 1819: 53)

As for the traveller, Anderson (1927: 141-2) describes a typical

seventeenth-century Dutch parrel made up of at least two or three rows of
wooden beads threaded upon short pieces of rope with wooden spacers in
between spanning all of the strands and holding them together (see Figure 7).
These rope strands are made fast to the sling of the yard on one side, passed
around the mast, and then passed through a fairlead on the other side of the sling
before running down to deck. I successfully used this configuration on

Figure 7: Seventeenth-century Dutch parrel (Anderson, 1927: 141)

the lower yards of the early seventeenth-century Dutch replica ship Kalmar
Nyckel, and it proved particularly useful not only when lowering the yard, but
also when extra room was needed to brace the yard up extremely sharply to sail
closer to the wind.

21
 The yard of the sgoth, though lug-rigged, is again most similar to the
longship. It is a spar of light wood tapered evenly from the sling toward each
end. The earring lashings are hauled out by means of a fairlead hole (see Figure
8) and tied off or held in place by a pin. The traveller is once more a closed loop,
in this case an iron hoop with a hook on the forward side on which to hang the
yard. To alleviate some of the issues with binding of a closed parrel against the
mast, the iron ring is hinged in the middle (see Figure 9). The yard itself has two
or three eyes at the sling, though it only hangs from one at a time. The extra
hanging points are to allow the yard to stay balanced when the sail is reefed close
by shifting where the traveller attaches to the sling (see Figure 10).

Figure 8: Sgoth yardarm with earring fairlead (Photo: Ian Stephen

22
Figure 9: Jointed iron traveller of the sgoth (Photo: Charlotte Pittman)

Figure 10: Sling of sgoth yard w/ eyebolts for traveller hook (Photo: Charlotte
Pittman)

Sail
The evidence for reef points in the sails of the Viking era is poorly
represented in contemporary iconography. The earliest carving to clearly show
this feature comes from a thirteenth-century seal of Dublin (see Figure 11) and
shows three bands of reef points in the lower two-thirds of the sail. This indicates
that the sail was shortened by lowering the yard, bunching up the foot of the sail,
and tying the points around the bundled portion. However, there exists an earlier
written record of reefing in the twelfth-century writing of Wace, who describes
in Norman French: “....A dous ris current u a treis.” In this case, the word ris is
the Old French for reefs, and the phrase translates literally as “....They run under
two reefs or three” (Sayers, 2005). The writing describes a longship with a single
square with at least three bands of reef points sailing in the western British Isles
during the same time period the Scottish birlinns started to make an appearance.
In the case of the birlinns, the only iconography detailed enough to show the

23
possibility of reef points is, again, the carving on the Rodil tomb. Three rows of
vertically lines can barely be seen in the photo on the starboard side of the sail
(see Figure 1). The detail of these lines is actually better illustrated by
MacAulay’s sketch of the carving (see Figure 2). These bands are also in the
lower two-thirds of the sail, which matches the Irish representation, so make a
compelling case for the existence of reef points on the Scottish birlinns as well as
the longships.

Figure 11: 13th c. Dublin seal (McGrail, 1987: 238)

Evidence of methods for shortening sail on the Dutch busses is a little

mixed. Most eighteenth-century representations such as the model of the
haringbuis Vigelantie (see Figure 12) and Steel’s illustration (see Figure 5) show
two or three bands of reef points near the head of the sail. This indicates a shift to
the eighteenth-century method of reefing described by Lever (1808: 83) in which
the excess sail is taken up at the top and the points tied around the head of the
sail. This allowed for reefing without having to touch the tack or sheets.
Porcellis’ 1600 illustration, though, shows a buss with a bonnet instead of reef
points (see Figure 3). This was a common feature of the seventeenth-century
square-rigger (Anderson, 1927: 262), and may represent a transitional period
when lower squares had become so large that reefing the foot of the sail was no
longer practical, but reefing at the head had not yet been worked out. The fact
that the bonnet was relatively short-lived is no doubt due to the difficulty of
reattaching this piece of canvas to the foot of the sail when compared to the ease
of shaking out a reef. The sgoth also carries multiple bands of reef points,
ranging anywhere from three on the smaller boats to six on the bigger boats.
Unlike the buss, these bands are once more positioned in the lower two-thirds of

24
the sail, so that the sail is reefed much like the longships by bundling up the foot
of the sail and tying the points underneath.

Figure 12: Model of Vigelantie c. 1800 (Cees)

Standing Rigging
The standing rig of early square-rigged ships would have been made up
of only a handful of stays and shrouds. Most iconographic evidence for the
longships points to the existence of at least a forestay, but not always of a
corresponding backstay. The twelfth century Dunwich seal (see Figure 13), the
eighth century Gotland gravestone (see Figure 14), and the thirteenth century
Dublin seal (see Figure 11) all portray masts stayed to a spot on or near the stem.
The representation of the birlinn on the Rodil tomb (see Figure 2) also clearly
shows a forestay leading to what appears to be the inside of the stem. The
forestay was evidently an important part of the standing rig, and this is no
surprise given how often the masts were unstepped and lowered into the ships
when proceeding under oars or in rough weather. The mast steps and supporting
beams that have been found indicate that the masts would have been lowered
toward the stern of the vessel, which means a stay leading to the bow would have

25
made a handy support to steady the mast while it was being lowered and to raise
it again when stepping (McGrail, 1987: 226-7).

Figure 13: Seal of Dunwich, 1199 (McGrail, 1987: 231)

Figure 14: Carving on eighth-century gravestone, Gotland (McGrail, 1987: 237)

Evidence for separate backstays is less conclusive. The same images that
clearly show a forestay in use do not paint such a clear picture of a backstay.
Both the Dunwich (see Figure 13) and the Dublin (see Figure 11) seals show a
line leading from near the masthead down to a spot very close to the sternpost,
but only a single line in each case. It is more likely that this line is the halyard
rather than a backstay, since a halyard would be necessary for hoisting the yard,
but could also quite easily double as backstay when it is made fast in the stern.
The slightly later examples of longship-type vessels depicted in the thirteenth

26
century seals of Hulkesmouth (see Figure 15) and Winchelsea (see Figure 16),
however, show multiple lines leading aft from the masthead; one has two, and
one has three. In this case, it is likely that one line represents the halyard, while
the other one or two represent standing backstays. The evidence for a fixed
backstay in the birlinn is much clearer. The Rodil tomb carving (see Figure 2)
clearly shows one separate from the aft-leading halyard, and the Gaelic ship
blessing mentions by name the two men assigned to tending the backstays and to
“keep them always straight and trim/In the middle” (MacAulay, 1996: 99).

Figure 15: Seal of Hulkesmouth, c.1295 (McGrail, 1987: 256)

The lateral support of the shrouds seem to have been one necessary piece
of standing rig for the longships, since all of the iconography already mentioned
plainly shows two or more shrouds. Because these are two-dimensional
representations with a broadside view of the ship, it is typically almost
impossible to tell if the shrouds are made fast to one side of the ship or both
sides, but it may be reasonable to assume that, where an even number of four or
more are shown, they are divided between port and starboard sides. The birlinn,
too, appears to have had shrouds, though the Rodil tomb (see Figure 2) shows a
much simpler design of only one on each side. In all of these cases, the stays and
shrouds are fixed at the top by stacking them on top of the thicker part of the
masthead that held the fairlead for the halyard, but it is difficult to tell how or
where the shrouds are fixed at the bottom. It is likely that they were either tied

27
through a hole in the topsides or around a cleat or thwart right up against the hull
on the inside (McGrail, 1987: 229-30).

Figure 16: Thirteenth-century seal of Winchelsea (McGrail, 1987: 257)

The Dutch herring busses also carried forestays as a matter of routine,

and, as with the longships, these would have been just as much for help in
lowering and raising the masts as for support when stepped. The one exception
was the foremast, which does not appear to have a forestay in most depictions,
and the early seventeenth century illustrations make it look impractical to rig
one. Both the 1600 Porcellis illustration (see Figure 3) and the mid-seventeenth
century Vogelaer sketch (see Figure 17) show a foremast stepped right in the
bow, so that a forestay would end up running almost vertical to the masthead.
This would leave no space for the squaresail to fill when running before the
wind, and Porcellis shows a full foresail billowing out past the stem, where a
forestay would have been made fast. Even Steel’s illustration of the late
eighteenth century buss (see Figure 5) gives us a head-on view of a very bluff
bow and full foresail with no forestay. The lack of the stay might also explain the
unusual forward rake of the foremast, a necessary precaution to counter any
pressure that might come against the mast if the sail comes aback. There is also
the consideration that only the mainmast and sometimes the mizzen were
unstepped for fishing operations, but the foremast was left in place, so a forestay
would not be needed for routine lowering and raising on that mast.

28
Figure 17: Sketch by Pieter Vogelaer, late 1600’s (Cees)

Shrouds and backstays on the Dutch busses are all part of the same unit,
since the backstays are made fast to the sides of the ship just aft of the mast
rather than to the sternpost. Because of this arrangement, the backstays are really
just the after-most set of shrouds, the ones that put more aft tension on the mast
than lateral tension. The top of both are seated at the masthead on the hounds.
The lower parts are tensioned with deadeyes that, like the longships, are made
fast high on the topsides, but in this case are positioned outboard of the hull and
held fast through the frames by chainplates. All of the illustrations show a
number of shrouds, as many as three or four per side, and one or two backstays
per side as well. The heavy lateral reinforcement indicates that the busses
routinely sailed with the wind to the beam and not just with the wind dead astern,
as if often mistakenly supposed of a strictly square-rigged vessel.
The elements of standing rigging on the Scottish sgoth are simplified
considerably, since it has neither stays nor shrouds. The mast is reinforced like
the longship with a brace high up in the boat at the level of thwarts and a mast
step on the keelson, but the rest of the mast is left unstayed. Instead, aft tension
on the mast that would normally be taken by the forestay is countered by the
running end of the halyard, when the yard is lowered, and by the tension on the
luff of the sail (and ultimately the tack) when the yard is raised. The halyard also
doubles as both stay and shroud when the yard is either lowered or raised. With
the yard down, the standing end of the halyard, which normally attaches to the
traveller, is transferred aft and made fast on the weather side. Once the sail is set,

29
the mast no longer needs the support of a forestay, so the standing end is hooked
to the traveller for hoisting the yard, and the running end is transferred aft and,
once the yard is hoisted, is made fast aft and to weather (see Figure 20).

30
 Chapter Five:

Elements of Rigging, Part 2 – Running Rigging

Halyard
There can be no doubt that all three vessel types discussed in this paper
had halyards, since it is the only means to haul the yard up the mast. What should
be looked at in the case of this particular piece of rigging, then, is not whether it
was used, but rather its components and how it was rigged. The basic concept is
quite simple: all that is needed is a line leading up from the deck, through the top
of the mast, and back down to the sling of the yard, which will make it possible
to hoist the yard as high as the fairlead through which the halyard runs. The
Viking longships appear to have kept things as basic as this. The fairlead has
already been discussed as the hole through the swelling at the masthead. There is
no evidence that a sheave was used to reduce friction, so it is believed that the
line sat directly on the bottom of the fairlead, possibly coated with tallow or
grease to make it easier to haul (McGrail, 1987: 232).

Figure 18: Standing end of halyard on replica Sebbe Als (McGrail, 1984: 119)

The standing end of the halyard, the end attached to the yard, would have
been attached somewhere in the middle of yard to balance the spar. This has been
replicated in a couple of different ways on the recreated longships. The
Skuldelev 3 replica Skinfaxe has a single standing end around the middle of the
sling, directly in front of the parrel (McGrail, 1984: 122). Bigger warship
replicas, though, such as the Skuldelev 5 replica Sebbe Als (see Figure 18) and
the Gotland Stone replica Krampmacken (McGrail, 1984: 143) were rigged with
a two-leg bridle on the end of the halyard that spread the hauling pressure out

31
along the yard. This arrangement makes more sense on the longer, larger spars
that also lacked lifts to support the yardarms when lowered, so was most like
used for the larger longships. The only piece of iconography that might suggest
this bridle rig for the halyard, though, is the thirteenth century Dublin seal (see
Figure 11), which appears to have two small legs coming from the end of the
halyard and attached to the yard. The running end of the halyard was brought aft
and to weather, as mentioned, and was most likely made fast to a cleat, pin, or
thwart. Since there were no blocks in use on the Viking ships, it is unlikely that
the running end had any kind of purchase, so it was likely just a single end that
was hauled on directly to hoist the yard.
The birlinn had a similar halyard rigged. The Rodil tomb shows the
fairlead hole very clearly and confirms the lack of a sheave to reduce friction
(see Figure 2). What it does not show is the two-leg bridle the replica boats have
rigged, so it is likely that the standing end of the birlinn halyard was made fast
straight to the middle of the sling, as with the smaller Norse replicas. The
running end of the halyard in the carving is led well aft, alongside the backstay,
and made fast inside the boat, presumably on the weather side to reinforce the
lateral stabilization of the single shroud. There is a slightly puzzling passage in
the Gaelic ship blessing that may give a little more insight into how the halyard
end was handled. It refers to the man set aside to tend the halyard (the translation
spells it in the old-fashioned way “haulyard”), and it instructs:

He won’t fix the chafing rope

With a tight knot,
But belay it firm and cunning
With a slip-knot;
Lest when the cry comes to slacken,
It should stop him,
And that it may glide with humming
Off the pin.
(MacAulay, 1996: 93)

The first thing this passage tells us is that the halyard end was made fast
on a pin (though not necessarily the belaying pin so familiar in later centuries),
rather than around a thwart. What is puzzling about this reference is the mention

32
of the “chafing rope” in connection with the halyard. This would indicate that a
separate piece of rigging was utilized to alleviate the chafe of the halyard, and
the most likely source of chafe was where it led through the fairlead at the
masthead. It remains, then, to figure out the nature of this chafing rope. One
answer may be found in a method used on many modern tallships to relieve the
strain on halyards and change the chafing points after long periods of continuous
use. A separate line is often permanently fixed close to the belaying point of the
halyard, and this “stopper” line is often temporarily knotted onto the halyard to
take the strain as the end is tied off to the belaying pin. When the halyard is in
use for long voyages, the stopper line is occasionally lengthened or shortened
along with the halyard end to change the part of the line which passes through
the fairlead, and thus even the chafe on the line. There is no evidence that this is
what is meant by “chafing rope,” but the stopper is something that has been used
for centuries at least, and may have existed for much longer.
The halyard rig for the Dutch buss had a similar construction with just a
couple of improvements in technology. The fairlead through the masthead
included a wooden sheave held with a wooden pin to reduce friction and chafe
on the halyard. While this is a good idea in theory, one problem encountered on
the Dutch replica Kalmar Nyckel was the continuous seizing of these wooden
sheaves as the wooden pins swelled when wet. In order to keep them running
freely, it was necessary to completely dismantle and overhaul each block and
sheave at least once a month, a task that is pretty much impossible to keep up
with on the bigger ships. Assuming the Dutch busses had the same problem,
they, too, would have encountered severe problems of chafe on the halyard
where it sat on the frozen sheave in the fairlead. The standing end of the halyard
was made fast to the sling of the yard in a fairly uniform way throughout the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, simply by seizing it directly around the
yard. With the presence of lifts on the yards of seventeenth century square-
riggers, there was no need for the two-leg bridle of the bigger Viking warships,
and the single leg attachment to the yard more closely matched what must have
existed on the smaller Norse cargo vessels.
The running end of the seventeenth century buss halyard seems to have
matched the standard Dutch practice of the time. With the yard lowered, the
running end would terminate just past the fairlead with a block seized to the end.

33
Through this block was rove a single whip, which gave the hauling end a 2:1
mechanical advantage. One end of the whip would be fastened to the deck or
inside the bulwarks, and the other end was attached another whip that acted as
the working end and was made fast to a cleat or pin (see Figure 19). It was
common practice on ships of Kalmar Nyckel’s tonnage to have an extra double
luff tackle added to the working end of the whip to increase the mechanical
advantage to 8:1, but this may not have been necessary on the smaller busses. It
is hard to pick out the whip arrangement on the halyard in most of the
contemporary illustrations, but it can just barely be made out in the Portcullis
illustration (see Figure 3) coming down just aft of the backstay on the port side.
The block of the whip at the running end can just be made out along with the
doubled line of the whip.

Figure 19: Running end of Dutch halyard (Anderson, 1927: 179)

In the case of the halyard, the Scottish sgoth more closely matches the
technological improvement of the Dutch buss rather than the single line of the
longship halyard. The fairlead through the masthead of the sgoth includes the
single sheave, though metal has replaced wood, and thus done away with the
routine seizing encountered by the earlier attempts. The standing end of the
halyard in the modern day is a wire cable with a served eye that is shackled to the
top of the hook on the iron traveller. The wire helps prevent the chafing problems
at the fairlead, but it just as easily could be replaced by a fibre line, perhaps one

34
that has been served to provide some measure of chafing protection. The running
end of the halyard, like the Dutch example, terminates in a block, and the rest of
the working end is composed of a single luff tackle. The bottom block of this
tackle has a hook that attaches to an eye in the rail and allows it to be switched
quite easily from side to side as necessary. When the yard is lowered and the
tackle is run out to its length, the tail and the bottom block can be made fast to
opposite rails to provide lateral support against rolling. When the yard is hoisted,
though, the bottom block is hooked to the weather rail and the tail is made fast on
the same side on a nearby thwart. During the tacking manoeuvre, the block and
tail are switched to the new weather rail at the critical moment that the yard is
being dipped and the bow swinging through the eye of the wind, a delicate move
that requires absolutely perfect timing and coordination on the part of the crew.

Figure 20: Running end of sgoth halyard (Photo: Ian Stephens)

Running Rigging – Tacks and Sheets

Since a loose-footed sail has no spar along the bottom on which to stretch
the foot of the sail, the lower corners must be pulled, or “tacked,” down by two

35
more pieces of running rig, the tack and sheet. Both are essentially the same kind
of line, but the tack leads down and forward, while the sheet leads down and aft.
There is both archaeological and iconographic evidence that the Viking
longships had both of these rigged on their squares. Many of the finds, including
the Oseberg ship, the Gokstad ships, and several Skuldelev vessels, had holes in
the topstrake that acted as fairleads for both tack and sheet. Three of these finds,
the Oseberg ship, Gokstad 1, and Skuldelev 3, also had cleats inboard which
were used as belaying points for tacks and sheets (McGrail, 1987: 237). There is
a thirteenth century model found in Dublin which very clearly shows the fairlead
holes for the tacks (see Figure 21), and these are bevelled in such a way that they
are designed to accommodate a line leading from up and forward, the position
from which the tack would lead. The iconographic evidence agrees with the
archaeology as well. The thirteenth century Dublin seal (see Figure 11) is the
most definitive, showing a tack leading for the starboard clew to the bow, and a
sheet leading from the clearly visible eye of the clew to the stern quarter. The
carving does not show separate tacks and sheets on each clew, rather just one line
that appears to switch purposes as the vessel changes tacks.

Figure 21: Wooden model (36 cm), thirteenth-century site, Dublin (McGrail,
1987: 237)
The distinction between tack and sheet are really only a matter of
purpose, and it is possible for one line to be designated for both purposes. If, as it
is assumed, the Viking square sail started out as a strictly downwind sail, the
single line would have been led aft on both sides as a sheet and the yard would
have remained square to the ship. In this configuration, though, the wind cannot
come from anywhere forward of the stern quarter, since the sheet will cause the

36
luff of the sail to curl back on itself and prevent it from catching a wind on the
beam. In order to get the vessel to sail closer to the wind, it is a simple matter of
leading the weather sheet forward to the bow, thus changing it to a tack, and
presenting the sail at a new angle. With the wind on the beam, the yard will
automatically turn itself to match the angle of the foot of the sail, since the wind
will still be at almost a right angle to the sail. Since the longships had fairleads at
both bow and stern, they undoubtedly were accustomed to sailing on the wind
and not just downwind.
Nothing can be said conclusively about the nature of tacks and sheets on
the birlinn. The Rodil tomb (see Figure 2) shows the sail set, but the lower edges
are obscured by the high topsides. There may be a clue in a small detail of the
carving, though. The sculptor has taken great care to show the faint outline of the
forestay pressed against the sail. This happens when a square sail is braced sharp
up and the sail, billowing to leeward, fetches up against the stay. If the yard is
braced in this picture, this would mean the sail has one clew pulled aft by a sheet,
and one clew pulled forward by a tack. There is also the possibility a tack/sheet
is mentioned in the Gaelic ship blessing, though the context makes it very hard to
interpret the meaning. Section IX of this poem (MacAulay, 1996: 91) has been
translated to: A man was set apart for the fore-sheet. This may be taken to mean
a forward-leading sheet, in other words, a tack. The section itself makes it sound
more like a halyard, mentioning a “fore-hoist” and speaking of raising the sail
and lowering it. What is a little odd about this is that there is a whole passage a
little later in the poem which goes into great detail about the main halyard and
the two men assigned to haul it. One possible interpretation for this mention of
the fore-sheet, then, is that the sail has some rudimentary means of clewing up,
and the man assigned to the tack was then responsible to raise and lower the tack
as necessary. This is a common practice on a more modern square-rigger, when
bigger sails are routinely clewed up for tacking manoeuvres or to spill the wind
when it gusts unexpectedly.
The buss rig of sheets and tacks appears to have been of typical Dutch
design for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On the model Vigelantie (see
Figure 12), both the tack and sheet on the port clew can be made out in detail. It
shows a single large line for the tack leading forward and outboard, and then
passing through a fairlead in the topsides, from where it is presumably made fast

37
to a kevel or other belay point. The sheet can be seen as a single whip, with the
standing end made fast aft and outboard of the shrouds, from where it passes
through a block seized to the clew, and the running end comes back to a fairlead
through the topsides near the standing end. It is interesting to note that, while this
arrangement seems to be consistent for the main and mizzen sails on most
busses, the foresail probably had a slightly different rig. Because the foremast
was stepped so far forward and the bow is lacking a bowsprit, it is very likely the
foresail was only rigged with the aft-leading sheets and without tacks. The reason
can best be seen in the Porcellis illustration (see Figure 3), in which the foresail
is set on both sheets. The sail is seen to billow so far forward, that, if it was
braced up, there would be no place far enough forward to board the tack. This
may not have been detrimental, though, because the fore was used as a steadying
sail during fishing operations, when it would have only been necessary to keep
the stern into the wind. A squared yard would have accomplished that easily,
since the concentration of canvas would act as a weathervane and keep the bow
off the wind. The mainsail, then, would have been the primary driving sail with
the ability to brace up and board the tack to weather.

Figure 22: Sgoth detail – Tack boarded on the starboard side (Photo: Ian
Stephens)

38
 Though the lugsail of the Scottish sgoth is technically a fore-and-aft
rigged sail, it also retains the square-rig feature of the tack and sheet. Since the
weather side of the sail does not change with tacking, it is not necessary to rig a
separate tack and sheet on each clew like the squares, but the rig of the single
tack and sheet are very familiar. The tack is not permanently attached to the clew
in this case, but is a line belayed just inside the bow and passing out through a
hole in the topsides near the stem. It terminates in a hook, onto which the ring of
the clew is attached (see Figure 22). This simplifies the operation of tacking,
because the clew must be detached very quickly, passed around aft of the mast,
and then reattached to the opposite side. If the tack itself was attached to the
clew, it could easily catch, drag, or tangle on its way around the mast and hinder
the already tricky process. One important note about the tack of the sgoth is that
the clew is made fast on the weather side of the bow with each new tack. This
may seem trivial, as the difference between making fast to weather or lee is only
a matter of inches, but, when comparing it to a square, it is significant that it is
one of the only types of lug rigs to continue to board the tack and sheet on
opposite sides, just like a square. Most other fore-and-aft rigs keep everything on
the leeside, including the tack of the lugsail. The sheet of the sgoth is much more
familiar, resembling quite closely a combination of the Dutch and Viking rig.
Like the longship, it is led aft and belayed close to the stern. Like the buss, it is
doubled with a block fixed to the clew to make a single whip.

Running Rigging – Braces

Braces on a square-rigger become necessary when the vessel is routinely
sailed with the wind anywhere forward of the stern quarter. At this point of sail,
the yard can no longer me relied on to brace itself, since its tendency is to stay
square to the wind, but a vessel sailing with the wind on the beam, for instance,
will need to keep the yard closer than square to the wind. Without braces in this
case, it is too easy for the wind to catch the wrong side of the sail, twisting the
yard aback and creating an hourglass-like foul in the sail. Archaeological
evidence of braces on Viking ships would be incredibly difficult to find, since at
that point they were most likely simply a line tied to each yardarm and led aft to
a convenient belay point in the stern or stern quarter. This would very little
physical trace, and most likely any found could not be definitively interpreted as

39
belonging specifically to the rigging of braces. The existence of tacks on the
longships makes it likely that braces were in use at some point, though, since
boarding a tack implies a desire to sail in some degree to weather. There is also
strong iconographic evidence of braces in use close to the same time period, as
braces can be made out on the twelfth century seal of Dunwich (see Figure 13),
as well as several thirteenth century sources like the Dublin seal (see Figure 11)
and the seals of Hulkesmouth (see Figure 15) and Winchelsea (see Figure 16).
The birlinn, too, appears to have utilized braces, and these are
prominently shown on the Rodil tomb (see Figure 2). It is a little odd that they
are not attached at the very end of the yardarm, as most square-rig braces tend to
be, to give the most leverage when hauling the yard around. One reason for this
has been suggested that the leverage afforded by tying the braces off at the
extreme ends might actually be too much for a light, flexible spar. This has been
a problem on some square-riggers of my experience that have very light yards on
the uppermost sails. If both braces are hauled taut and belayed, the sling of the
yard pulled tight against the mast becomes a pressure point. If a strong gust
billows out the sail and bows the yard, it can actually snap at the sling. One way
to prevent this might have been realized by the riggers of the birlinn, to move the
braces inboard and even the strain on the spar.
The Dutch buss carried braces as well, a common rig that can be seen in
all of the contemporary illustrations. It consisted of a single pendant attached to
the end of the yardarm, usually seized around the same hounds to which the
earring lashing was tied, and terminating in a block on the free end. Another
single whip was rigged from aft, just like the sheet, with one end fixed to a point
aft and outboard and with the other end passed through a fairlead in the topsides
and belayed inboard. In most respects, this rig was just like the sheet, and this is
not surprising since the lee brace is usually handled simultaneously with the lee
sheet in tacking operations. As for the Scottish sgoth, braces are the only piece of
running rigging for which there is no equivalent, since the yard does not pivot
around the mast in the same manner the square yard does. On the square-rigger,
the downward pressure of the lee brace pulling the weather yardarm up and the
weather tack pulling the clew of the sail down combine to keep the weather luff
of the sail taut, which gives the sail its efficiency to windward. On the sgoth, the
yard of the lugsail is not centred on the mast, instead, a shorter section angles

40
down forward of the mast while a much longer section rises up aft of the mast.
The sheer weight of the longer section of the yard has the same effect of pulling
up on the weather yardarm that a lee brace would have on a square, and, in much
the same way, keeps the luff taut.

41
 Chapter Six:

Research Analysis and Conclusion

Viking longship vs. Scottish sgoth

In almost all aspects of the rig, the sgoth shows similar or even, in some
cases, virtually identical traits to the longship or birlinn. Both are pole-masted
with the same slight taper toward the top and with a fairlead for the halyard cut
into the masthead near the top. The sgoth has only the addition of a sheave in this
fairlead to reduce friction on the halyard, while the birlinn has an additional
thickening of the wood of the mast around the halyard fairlead as a reinforcement
and seat for the standing rig that the sgoth lacks. The masts also are stepped in a
similar fashion into a reinforced mast step on top of the keelson. The yards of
both longship and sgoth are fashioned with the same very slight taper toward
either yardarm, and both have fairlead holes drilled through the ends for the
earring lashing. The parrels of the yards are similar in construction, though not
made of the same material. Longship parrels were a semi-circle of wood lashed
to the yard with rope, while the sgoth parrel is a steel hoop that is jointed at the
middle and connected to the sling by a hook. Both the rope and the jointed
portion are to help keep the parrel from binding on the mast as it comes down,
which a solid hoop will do.
The sails of these two vessels, even though they are not cut the same,
have the same modifications in the form of reef points. Both are reefed by rolling
up the excess portion at the bottom and tying the reef points around it. The sgoth
modifies the sheet attachment point by passing an extra line through the reefing
cringle or simply retying the sheet through both clew and cringle, while the tack
is simply rehooked to a new cringle. It is not clear how the longship sail would
have been modified when reefed, but, since cringles were used at the time, a
similar arrangement is entirely possible.
The two types of vessels show the least similarity in the standing rigging.
Longships and birlinns have shown evidence of all the basic forms of standing
rig: forestays, backstays, and shrouds. The birlinn only exhibited a single set of
shrouds, but multiple sets have appeared on various depictions of longships. The
sgoth, on the other hand, has neither stays nor shrouds. They may have simply

42
become a casualty to the transition from square to fore-and-aft, or they may have
become too much of a hindrance to the constant raising and lowering of the mast.
It is difficult to tell. Most other lug-rigged Scottish fishing boats, particularly in
Fife, have shrouds, forcing the lug to stay inside the narrow angle created by the
rig coming together at the masthead. Since the sgoth has a yard crossing the mast
much closer to the middle of the yard, it would be difficult to sail with the wind
from behind with such a restriction on the swing of the yard. Therefore, it may
have been easier to just do away with the standing rig in order to have the
flexibility of swinging the lug around like a square, as is done in the modern day
for downwind running on the North Lewis sgoths.
The longship and the sgoth once again show remarkable similarity in the
construction and lead of the running rigging. The halyard assembly is almost the
same, though the sgoth has a couple of modifications with a wire standing end
that hooks rather than ties onto the yard and the addition of an extra tackle on the
working end for added mechanical advantage. However, on both vessels, the
halyard is routinely run back aft when the yard is raised to act as a temporary
backstay. The tacks and sheets of longship and sgoth have virtually identical
leads in the form of holes in the topsides through which the working ends are led.
Both vessels board the tack on the weather side (and unusual trait in a fore-and-
aft rigged boat), and both are known to make the sheet fast with turns around the
thwart. The main difference between the two is that the sgoth tack is no longer
tied to the clew, but instead is fixed in the bow so that the clew can be hooked
and unhooked easily while tacking. No comparison can really be made when it
comes to braces, though, because they are really a piece of rigging designed only
for the square-rigger.

The Dutch contrast

Adding the Dutch herring buss into the comparison gives some contrast
to the analysis. The buss shows some evidence of survival of traits, but much has
been modified or improved upon from the Viking example, and these
modifications for the most part do not seem to be reflected in the sgoth. The
Dutch mast is a similar design to the longship, pole-masted and slightly tapered
with a bulge at the masthead where the halyard fairlead runs. In the case of the
Dutch, though, this thickening of the masthead was usually created by the

43
addition of hounds or cheeks rather than deliberating shaping it that way. The
yard shows some changes as well. While the longships and sgoths employ a
simple hole in the yardarm to act as a fairlead for the earring lashing, the Dutch
yard keeps this lashing on the outside by leading it around cleats fixed to the end
of the arm. The parrel, too, is different. The longship and sgoth use a solid hoop
(or half-hoop in the case of the longship), while the Dutch switched to a system
of racks of wooden beads, mostly to help keep it from binding against the mast.
The reefing of sails is another point of difference between the Dutch and
the other two. While the sgoth and longship employ the older method of reefing
by rolling up the bottom of the sail, the Dutch sails either carry a bonnet (in the
earlier busses) or reef from the top (in the later ones). All of the vessels use reef
points passed through the middle of the sail, but reefing from the top of the sail
means that the tack and sheet remain unaffected. The vessels that reef by rolling
up the bottom of the sail must also shift tack and sheet to a new cringle on the
edge of the sail. The Dutch busses do have one point in which they have more in
common with the longships than do the sgoths, and that is when it comes to
standing rigging. Since the sgoth masts are unstayed, a comparison cannot be
made with the Viking longships, but the buss had a very similar composition of
stays and shrouds as the longships. Forestays and backstays were both used and
were variously employed in helping to raise and lower masts. Shrouds provided
lateral support, but also had a limiting effect on how far around the yard of the
square could be braced. This could have been a major factor in why the standing
rigging lost some of its usefulness in the transition to the fore-and-aft orientation
of the lug rig.
In the basics of running rigging, the Dutch buss had parallel versions of
all of the pieces employed by the longships and sgoths. The Dutch halyard is
more similar to the sgoth in its complexity than is the longship halyard. This is
mainly due to the technical innovation of blocks and sheaves, a technology that
the Vikings did not employ to the same degree. The addition of a sheave in the
masthead fairlead hole of the Dutch buss is also seen on the sgoth, as is the
addition of a separate tackle rigged to the running end of the halyard to provide
more mechanical advantage. Like the longships, though, the sgoth belays the
working end of the halyard far aft in the boat in order to double as a backstay,

44
which is a precaution not really necessary on the Dutch ships with plenty of extra
support in the form of separate backstays.
The survival of the longship form of tacks and sheets on the sgoth is also
very neatly pointed out by the Dutch contrast. The buss was fitted with separate
tacks and sheets on each clew that were permanently rigged forward and aft,
respectively, while the longship just had one line on each clew which could be
switched to forward and aft fairleads as tacks changed. The Dutch fairleads for
sheets and tacks would generally be outboard first to keep from pulling the leech
of the sail too far inboard, while the longship lead could only be straight to the
topsides. Since the sgoth is rigged with one edge of the sail always to weather, it
also only has a single line associated with each clew. Unlike the buss sheet,
which was really a tackle rigged through a block on the clew, the sgoth sheet is
simply a line tied to the clew and led aft through a hole in the topsides, exactly
like the longships. In a similar fashion, the sgoth tack is also led through a hole
in the bow, whereas the Dutch tack would have been boarded in various ways
depending on how sharp the yard was braced and to which sail it was attached.
The braces are the only piece of running rigging that show the Dutch buss to be
more similar to the longship than the sgoth is, but, as already mentioned, this is a
piece of rigging that fell out of use in the transition to fore-and-aft rig, where
braces are unnecessary. In general, though, the Dutch buss has proved a good
contrast to highlight the traits that could have changed on the sgoth but instead
stayed very close to the original longship form.

Conclusion
It can be difficult when comparing vessels over such a long time period to
find traces of survivals in the hull construction. Ship designs change so much and
are so varied even within a particular time period that one specific origin in a
later design might be lost in the intervening centuries of additions, subtractions,
and experimentation. Small ship rigging does not tend to be subject to so much
variation, though. The basics of rig design, especially of square-rig design, have
tended to stay the same over the centuries simply because the physics of how the
rig is set up cannot be varied from too much without upsetting the balance. This
conservative tendency in rigging makes it easier to trace trends in rigging over
centuries. If ship riggers or sailors from a more recent time period have had

45
exposure to a more contemporary form of rigging, but instead show the traits of
an earlier form, this might indicate a stronger attachment to this older design that
was most likely the origin of their boat-building tradition.
The North Lewis sgoth shows us a good example of how this method of
rig analysis can give us insight into its origins. Though it is already believed to
have roots in the Norse tradition of almost one thousand years earlier, the
intervening centuries had left a gap in the record of boat-building and hull design
in the area. Taking a close look at the rig is one way to fill this gap. In an area of
geographic isolation in which conservative tendencies are more likely, it is easier
to identify survivals of Viking traits in the rigging. It is also significant that the
local fisherman in the Outer Hebrides would have been well aware of the newer
trends in square-rig technology used on the Dutch buss, but chose instead to stick
to the stripped-down basics of the Viking rig. This points to an attachment to a
particular origin in rig design and serves to reinforce the speculation of origin in
hull design. What this study has shown, then, is a way to expand the scope of
analysis by not limiting the view to what lies below the deck, but by including
that which is above the deck in order to present a more complete picture of what
it is we are trying to understand.

46
 Appendix

Glossary of Terms Used

Athwartships: Laterally across the ship, side-to-side.

Bonnet: An extra strip of sailcloth laced to the bottom of a lower squaresail that
could be unlaced quickly and removed to shorten sail.
Bowline: A line fixed to the leech of a squaresail and leading forward. Used to
pull the leech of the sail forward.
Chainplate: The metal fixture through-bolted on the outside of a hull to which
the lower part of shrouds and backstays are attached.
Cheek: Similar to hounds, but generally a wider, flatter set of blocks fixed to the
outside of a mast to add thickness for seating bigger pieces like
crosstrees.
Clew: The bottom corner of a sail upon which the tack and/or sheet are fixed.
Cringle: A small loop sewn to the edge of a sail to which line can be made fast.
Earring: The top corner of a sail that is lashed to the end of the yard.
Gudgeon: A metal loop fixed to the aft edge of the sternpost into which the
pintle of the rudder fits.
Hounds: A set of cleats fixed near the top of a mast or end of a yard usually used
as a stop to seat or lash rigging.
Leech: The vertical edge of a sail; specifically, the aft edge of a fore-and-aft sail.
Luff: The windward edge of a sail, or the forward edge of a fore-and-aft sail.
Lugsail: A four-side sail oriented fore-and-aft in which the luff is shorter than
the leech, similar to a gaff-rigged sail. The yard of the lug-rigged sail
crosses the mast anywhere from one-quarter to one-third of the way up
the forward edge of the yard.
Parrel: A kind of yoke or collar fixed to the sling of a yard used to hold the yard
in to the mast as it is raised and lowered or swung around the mast.
Pintle: A metal spike fixed to the forward edge of a rudder that fits into the
gudgeon on the sternpost.
Pole-masted: Having only a lower mast with no tops or topmast in addition.
Rake: The angle above or below 90° at which a mast is stepped. Also, an angle
finer than plumb that a stem or sternpost assumes.

47
Sheet: The line attached to the clew that leads aft and holds down the leeward
clew of a sail, or, in the case of downwind sailing, both clews of a
squaresail.
Single luff tackle: A tackle consisting of a single sheave block and a double
sheave block with a line rove between the two.
Sling: The middle, and generally thickest part, of a yard.
Spar: A general term for a long, round length of wood such as is used for a mast,
yard, boom, etc.
Tack: The line attached to the clew that leads forward and holds down the
weather luff of a sail. Also, a procedure to turn a vessel that puts the bow
through the wind to bring the wind on the other side of the sail.
Yard: A spar that crosses the mast and upon which is bent the head of squaresail
or lugsail.
Yardarm: The extreme end of a yard.
Whip: In the case of a tackle, a single sheave block with a line rove through it.

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