What are the purposes of tar and wool in viking ship building?

Wool was also used for the sails. Spun on a drop spindle, woven on a rather primitive loom. It really humbles to think about the magnitude of the task making those huge, rectangular sails with the means the people had available to them. read more

Tar is used to impregnate the wood,wool was used as sealant between the wooden parts to make ship watertight,and as material for the sail. On modern Viking ships,tar is still used,but wool is replaced with silicone and linen or Dacron. read more

Archaeology plays a major role in learning about Viking vessels; the major discoveries include the Mästermyr tools, the Skuldelev vessels, the Oseberg ship, and the Gokstad ship. These discoveries will be discussed later on, before vessels are mentioned there must be some information about the items required to build them. read more

For most ship builders of today a viking ship project is a compromise between financial resources and to which extent one can follow the historic building techniques. In most projects the builder is restricted to selecting industrially sawed planks instead of splitting and adzing logs. read more