Re: [Paddlewise] West Greenland Hull Design

Bob wrote;



>If the Vikings actually "Discovered" the new world around 1000 they
probably
>would have interacted with the locals along the way. I'm sure a boat load
of
>Vikings would have impressed the indigenous peoples and there may have
been
>some influence on the future design of their boats. Just a thought.

What Bob says could have validity but we don't know nor do we have any
artefacts that support an influence or  no influence. Eugene Arima
(personal communication) says that the Inuit tended towards conservatism
and endeavoured to retain their cultural identities. He felt this applied
to the kayaks because the regional differences persisted despite contact
between groups. Each time I read books about the Inuit boats I am struck by
the magnitude of the assumptions made by the writers. Granted, few had any
knowledge of hydrodynamics or the history of naval architecture and that
may explain why they arrived at "facts" woven from faulty or incomplete
observations.

So, the upswept ends may have existed before the Vikings arrived. The
professor might even suggest that the Inuit discovered Scandinavia and that
the Vikings copied the Inuit boats.

Difficult knowing who and what influenced who and what. The research for my
book on Inuit kayaks has unearthed a lot of this kind of thing and the
temptation to make a tenuous connection does get strong. Sort of like the
various conspiracy theories where one ties a lot of coincidences together
in hopes of proving a pre-conceived idea.

For example, some believe that the Irish predated the Vikings so one could
conclude that the Greenland Inuit copied their hide covered boats and
adapted the construction to meet their needs. Thus, the Irish may have
invented the sea kayak and, instead of migrating eastward it migrated
westward to the Aleuts. Sound silly? Not to the fellow that suggested it to
me.

Cheers,
John Winters
Redwing Designs
Specialists in Human Powered Watercraft
http://home.ican.net/~735769/







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