Gaulish shipbuilding

[St Naffatun]

Reading an English translation of the Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar (instead of doing coursework) I came accross this passage, upon reading it I really struggled to fathom what these "barbarian" ships might have looked like.

For their ships were built and equipped after this manner. The keels were somewhat flatter than those of our ships, whereby they could more easily encounter the shallows and the ebbing of the tide: the prows were raised very high, and, in like manner the sterns were adapted to the force of the waves and storms [which they were formed to sustain]. The ships were built wholly of oak, and designed to endure any force and violence whatever; the benches which were made of planks a foot in breadth, were fastened by iron spikes of the thickness of a man's thumb; the anchors were secured fast by iron chains instead of cables, and for sails they used skins and thin dressed leather. These [were used] either through their want of canvas and their ignorance of its application, or for this reason, which is more probable, that they thought that such storms of the ocean, and such violent gales of wind could not be resisted by sails, nor ships of such great burden be conveniently enough managed by them. The encounter of our fleet with these ships' was of such a nature that our fleet excelled in speed alone, and the plying of the oars; other things, considering the nature of the place [and] the violence of the storms, were more suitable and better adapted on their side; for neither could our ships injure theirs with their beaks (so great was their strength), nor on account of their height was a weapon easily cast up to them; and for the same reason they were less readily locked in by rocks. To this was added, that whenever a storm began to rage and they ran before the wind, they both could weather the storm more easily and heave to securely in the shallows, and when left by the tide feared nothing from rocks and shelves: the risk of all which things was much to be dreaded by our ships.

These ships sound pretty damn awesome - I'm trying not to picture "medieval" ocean going sailing ships - and failing

[Watchman]

That's Atlantic shipbuilding for you. Quite possibly the harshest school of seafaring there was. Anyway, the description certainly conjures up images of something not unlike the early Medieval cog, although presumably not quite as high-sided - the reference to "benches" would sound more like the deck arrangement of Viking longship.

I've often rather wondered what happened to that shipbuilding tradition after the Roman conquest. Mediterranean ship designs weren't AFAIK too survivable on the Atlantic, so it'd seem strange if the new bosses didn't keep the know-how around.

[gaius valerius]

Damn those Veneti! But the minute the Romans found a way deal with it, they sure were grinfooked...

[Sphere]

It seems like two seperate descriptions here. The first part is close to a viking ship; oak construction, flat shallow keel, high prow and stern, benches, a sail and the ability to beach at high tide.

The other part about fighting against the roman type trieme suggests a much larger multi deck Cog type ship. A ship of that size would not be likely able to beach itself.

I think perhaps Ceasar might be overstating their size and defensive abilities to account for a lack of victory at sea.

[Watchman]

Eh, not really. They just needed to be fairly high-sided so as to be difficult to board and to give the height advantage. Resistance to ramming was achievable simply by having a strong hull; this was easy enough even on the Mediterranean oared warships if you were willing to deal with the added weight - much less of an issue on a sailing ship, obviously. The description makes it sound like rather heavy beams and planks were involved, and given that the Romans hardly had the kind of infrastructure available to build the bigger end of Mediterranean warships (the classic trireme had pretty much been obsolete for centuries already anyway) it's not hard to see why they had trouble. (Dunno where Caesar's ships actually came from though; while it's conceivable the Romans could simply have sailed a detachement from the Med, one imagines the attrition would have been fierce given the northern Iberian coast being more or less hostile and the vicious sailing conditions of the Atlantic - particularly the rightly infamous Bay of Biscay. Ships with holes all over their sides... aren't really at home there.)

[gaius valerius]

Eh, not really. They just needed to be fairly high-sided so as to be difficult to board and to give the height advantage. Resistance to ramming was achievable simply by having a strong hull; this was easy enough even on the Mediterranean oared warships if you were willing to deal with the added weight - much less of an issue on a sailing ship, obviously. The description makes it sound like rather heavy beams and planks were involved, and given that the Romans hardly had the kind of infrastructure available to build the bigger end of Mediterranean warships (the classic trireme had pretty much been obsolete for centuries already anyway) it's not hard to see why they had trouble. (Dunno where Caesar's ships actually came from though; while it's conceivable the Romans could simply have sailed a detachement from the Med, one imagines the attrition would have been fierce given the northern Iberian coast being more or less hostile and the vicious sailing conditions of the Atlantic - particularly the rightly infamous Bay of Biscay. Ships with holes all over their sides... aren't really at home there.)

I was under the impression that the Romans built the ships on the spot - or at least they did so later on. Or is that wrong?

[Watchman]

Dunno, haven't read the original or detailed references. If they did, though, the produce sure as Hell wasn't up to the standards of first-rate Med war fleets. Those things require a fair bit of specialised infrastructure.

[The Super Pope]

Didn't the Romans ships come as pre-fabricated components which were assembled on the spot?

[Watchman]

WTF would Caesar have dragged that junk across the breadth and width of Gaul for ? Plus I'm pretty sure you're thinking of the construction techniques used on the big Med warships (IIRC the Romans were originally able to reverse-engineer the design from a shipwrecked Carthaginian version specifically due to the "assembly" structure used, or something)...

[Tiberius Tosi]

I was under the impression that the Romans built the ships on the spot - or at least they did so later on. Or is that wrong?

Yes they built them on the spot, but I believe they had all winter to do so.

I don't know much about boats and the ocean, but Caesar claims that they defeated the Veneti ships by using long poles with hooks on the end to rip their enemies sails, and that the Veneti did not have oars so they were stranded. Doesn't it seem a little odd to not have any oars on a ship at this time? Again I don't know much about boats so...

[Watchman]

It's not really that odd for a large sailing ship. The Atlantic isn't all that friendly for the kind of design that tends to accompany effective oared propulsion in a large vessel, although the Vikings figured out how to work around that. But then, Baltic ships only started getting sails in something like the early Migration Period, and when the Vikings went on a "long haul" ocean voyage - say, to Iceland or Greenland - they used the big "merchant" knarrs rather than the sleek mean warships.

[St Naffatun]

"Caesar, being informed of these things by Crassus, since he was so far distant himself, orders ships of war to be built in the mean time on the river Loire, which flows into the ocean; rowers to be raised from the province; sailors and pilots to be provided."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loire_River

A fleet of trireme(?) motoring down a French river in early spring, that must have been a sight.

[Erebus Pasha]

Apart from Caesar's Gallic Wars are there any good books on ancient and dark age northern european navies?

[Octavius Vatco]

That would look quite close things we make and call paper boats...

Really it does....

[Hesus de bodemloze]

i think you could compare it whit a medieval kog.

[St Naffatun]

i think you could compare it whit a medieval kog.

If that's the case then I find it pretty mind blowing tbh

[Octavius Vatco]

There was a model illustration in one of the books of osprey.
"Romes enemies, the Celts" sorts...

[Erebus Pasha]

I can't remember an illustration of one in that osprey book you are talking about but there was an illustration by Angus McBride in another publication re the Celts and I'm sure he had the Veneti as deploying small cog like vessels against Caesar's navy.

[Octavius Vatco]

There was.. a small sketch on the upper left corner on page 39...
Rome's Enemies (2) the Gallic and British Celts

Looks like a combination of Noah's ark and a Medieval Kog....
Two sails, one at the prow and the mass.
Flattened keel like a paper boat...