[Sca-cooks] OT-knots and medieval boat

[Ciorstan]

Srefan writes, quoting Brandu/Elias:

>>Brailing. this is a method of bringing together a number of control lines
>>to ease the stress at each one, so that if you pull on a line, you actually
>>spread the pull over several points. The Old Norse used Brailing lines and
>>leather reinforcing strips attached to the sail, since they generally used
>>a rather weak homespun linen for the sail cloth, and it was prone to
>>tearing or blowing out when the wind got strong.
>
> linen sails? When did hemp become more common? Did the Norse not have access
> to hemp? I thought I'd seen criss-crossing strips of reinforcing material on
> pictures of Norse craft. Is this just modern artistic interpretation?

As someone who weaves, spins and is generally obsessed with thread-- I
would respectfully disagree with the assertion that 'a rather weak
homespun linen for the sailcloth' because as far as I know there's no
definitive archaeological evidence of something that's survived
identified as sail cloth. We have caulking rags (which include the
remains of a gusseted 'apron-dress'), we have the small wares (a
weaver's term for narrow textiles, which include tablet woven bands
[warp twining], fingerloop braids, rope and cording) and fragments of
textiles preserved by proximity with metal jewelry-- but nothing that
could be a sail.

Practically speaking as a spinner and weaver, if someone wanted to use a
linen cloth of mine as a sail, I'd try to talk him/her out of it. In the
time period in question, hemp is the only staple available that does not
  undergo accelerated rot when drenched in sea water.  Since hemp was
introduced into England in the 800's and was readily available on the
continent for centuries prior, it seems foolish to expend the energy
necessary to create a textile likely to fall apart sooner than one made
of a hardier staple-- moreover, the work necessary to prepare hemp and
linen bast for spinning is very similar.

I'd be very interested to look into the reasoning behind Brandu's
source's assertion. Often times textile archaeologists have little to no
practical knowledge of the properties of the staples they find and
categorize. To me, having sailed as a kid and knowing what I do of the
properties of cloth, it seems a waste of resources and valuable time to
do all the work to prepare such an impractical cloth for a sail. Hemp
would be my hands-down choice.

ciorstan
(whose birthday present last year was a small color book from a museum
lacking a colophon-- called "Viking Cooking" and suffers somewhat from a
bad translation into English)