Today, the Vikings are mostly known as violent pirates(海盗). But they were also traders. At their height, the Vikings attacked, settled or traded on four continents.
All of their travel, trade and warfare were made possible by Viking ships, which were far more advanced than anything else sailing around Europe at the time. The most famous, and most feared, was the drekar. At sea, these ships could move quickly thanks to their large sails . The hulls (船体)of the ships were shallow and fat, which made them ride high in the water. The ships were also light enough that they could be carried from one body of water to another over short sections of land. This greatly extended their range.
But Viking ships weren't just built for warfare. Another type, called the knarr, had cargo(货物) holds built in the hull. One such cargo ship was capable of carrying 24 tons. The knarrs would have looked similar to the drekars except they were longer, fatter and taller. These were the backbones of the Viking empire, which they used to carry everything from gold coins to spices and fine fabrics.
Both the drekar and the knarr were built using the same method. Traditionally, oceangoing ships have used a keel(龙骨), shaped like the fin of a fish . The keel sinks into the water below the hull. It helps the ship maintain a straight line through the water and counters the force of the wind against the sail, which otherwise might blow the ship over. Viking ships had no deep keel. Instead, they were built fat enough to carry lots of soldiers or pieces of cargo whose weight helped keep the ship planted in the water.
Viking ships were so advanced for their tine that they often were the biggest, tallest and most striking ships many people had ever seen, A monk at the St. Omar Monastery, in Franco, wrote this description of a royal Viking ship in 1013.
"On one side lions molded in gold were to be seen on the ships, on the other birds on the tops of the poles indicated by their movements the winds as they blew … ."
The Vikings built a wealthy empire through trade as well as robbery and used their wealth to continuously improve their ships.
