11 Oak Trees for a Single Viking Longship

It took 11 oak trees to build a single Viking longship.

Each trunk had to be at least a meter in diameter, and old-growth timber. Archaeologist Ole Crumlin-Pedersen calculated that a typical 20-meter longship required 11 such trunks, plus a single 18-meter trunk just for the keel.

The planks were never sawed. Instead, they were split along the natural grain with axes and wedges. A sawed plank cuts across the grain and cracks under stress. A split plank follows the wood’s own fiber, stays flexible, and moves with the ship. The hull could twist in open ocean swells without breaking. That was the genius of it.

It’s mind-boggling to think about the tremendous amount of labor and wood (and other resources) it must have taken to get one ship into the water, let alone a fleet!

Read more in my essay about Viking ship economics.

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