Wooden Magnet
By
William J. Nissen
Presented
at the meeting of
The
Chicago Literary Club
January
23, 2012
Copyright
© 2012 William J. Nissen
I
have a magnet made of wood. It attracts
people. People who see it from a
distance are attracted and come closer.
They want to look at it more closely and to know about it. They ask questions such as: “Who made
it?” “What type of wood is it made
of?” “How old is it?” “How long have you had it?” But most of all, they just look at it and
remark on its beauty. When I have walked
through my neighborhood with my wooden magnet, it has attracted people in cars
and on bicycles as well as people in their yards or out walking. They stop me so they can look at the wooden
magnet and ask about it. Some have taken
pictures with their cell phone cameras, and one man said he was an artist and
wanted to draw it. Another said he would
like to take it home and just look at it.
My wooden magnet is known as a faering. Many people don’t know what a faering
is. A faering is similar to a seksaering or a tolvaering, only
smaller. The word faering is Norwegian,
and is derived from the same root as the English word for the number four. Similarly seksaering
is derived from the same root as the number six, and tolvaering
from the root for twelve. In each case
the word describes a boat which has the number of oars in its name. My faering is a four-oared rowboat.
Faeringer (the plural of faering)
have been used in coastal Norwegian waters since Viking times. They have been used for fishing, as well as
for carrying produce or livestock. In
Viking times, faeringer accompanied larger ships on
their sea voyages to provide local transportation for the Vikings. Currently faeringer
are used for rowing and sailing in western Norway.
This
design of the faering spread to other places where the Norse settled. For example, the Shetland Islands were
colonized by the Norwegians long before they became part of Scotland in the
fifteenth century. Four oared boats
called fourerns, which, like faering, means four
oared, were used for travel among the islands and for fishing and have
continued to be used in modern times.
Similarly the Norse settled the Faeroe Islands and introduced their boat
building techniques there, where the Faeroese have a small four oared boat
called a tribekkur, meaning that it has three seats,
with a crew of two oarsmen.
Faeringer generally range in
size from about 15 feet to 21 feet. Mine
is 14 feet long, which is slightly smaller than usual, but the smaller size and
weight make it easier to fit in my garage and to transport from the garage to
the water and back. Also, a traditional
faering is designed to be rowed by two persons with four oars. Although my faering is capable of being rowed
in this manner, its smaller size allows me to row it alone with one pair of
oars. I have no sail on my faering, so
rowing is its only means of propulsion.
Being able to row the faering is a continuation of an
interest in Viking watercraft which I have had for most of my life. I first learned about the Vikings and their
sea voyages from my grandfather, who was an immigrant from Norway. He would tell his grandchildren about the
Vikings, and how they roamed the world in their ships in ancient times. He also made sure that we knew that Norwegian
Viking Leif Ericson had discovered America long before Columbus’s voyage to the
new world.
My
earliest encounter with a Viking ship was in Lincoln Park in Chicago. There I saw the Viking ship replica that was
built in Norway and brought to Chicago to be an exhibit for the 1893 Columbian
Exposition. This ship had sailed across
the Atlantic to New York, and had then gone up the Hudson River,
and through the Erie Canal to the Great Lakes and on to Chicago where it was a
popular attraction at the Exposition. A
photo from the Exposition shows the ship moored with a faering tied astern.
After
the Exposition, the ship traveled to New Orleans, but a year later it returned
to Chicago where it initially was kept alongside the Field Columbian Museum,
which had been the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1893 Exposition and later became
the Museum of Science and Industry. In 1920,
the ship came under the care of the Commissioners of Lincoln Park, later
consolidated with the Chicago Park District, who kept the ship under a
fenced-in open air wooden shelter in Lincoln Park, where I first saw it.
Although
the Viking ship replica in Lincoln Park had suffered deterioration over the
years when I first saw it, it was nevertheless an impressive sight, with its
classic Viking design, including long clean lines and sweeping bow and
stern. The ship is only 78 feet long, 17
feet wide, and 6.5 feet deep, but it crossed the ocean with only sail and oars,
as had the original Viking ships.
The
ship was moved out of Lincoln Park in 1994, when the Chicago Park District sold
it to a non-profit group, the Scandinavian American Council, and two years
later it was moved to Good Templar Park in Geneva, Illinois, where it is
currently located in a shelter. This
ship has been and continues to be a source of pride in the Norwegian-American
community in the Chicago area, and it is now being restored by a non-profit
corporation named the Friends of the Viking Ship.
The
sailing of the Viking ship replica from Norway to Chicago in 1893 showed that
the Vikings could have reached North America in their ships. At that time,
there were written references to the Vikings’ presence in North America but no
physical evidence. The Icelandic Sagas,
which were written in about 1200, recounted Leif Ericson’s voyage to a place he
called Vinland in about 1000 A.D. In
addition there were brief mentions of Vinland in the writings of Adam of Bremen
in about 1075 and the Book of the Icelanders in about 1122. In the 1960s, however, archaeologists
discovered and excavated the remains of a Viking settlement in L’Anse aux
Meadows, Newfoundland, and thereby confirmed that the Vikings had reached North
America.
The Viking ship from the Columbian Exposition is a
replica of an authentic Viking ship known as the Gokstad
Ship, which was constructed in about 850 A.D.
It is on display at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, Norway. In addition to the Gokstad
Ship, the museum also displays an earlier ship, constructed in about 800 A.D.,
known as the Oseberg Ship. Each of these ships is named for the town in
Norway where it was discovered. Both
towns are in Vestfold County, which is south of Oslo
along the Oslo fjord, and which is the same county where my grandfather was
born and raised before immigrating to America as a young man.
The
Gokstad and Oseberg ships
were preserved because each was buried as part of a funeral ceremony, and the
burial preserved enough of each ship to permit reconstruction after excavation
in modern times. Consistent with the
elaborate burials, each ship contained the body of a person believed to be of
high rank in the society, with the Gokstad Ship
containing the body of a person believed to be a male chieftan,
and the Oseberg Ship serving as the burial place for
a high ranking woman, possibly a queen, and a younger woman who may have been
her servant.
I
visited the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo in 2001, where I saw both the Gokstad and Oseberg Ships. Both have been beautifully restored, so that
museum visitors can see these ships as they looked when they were built. Among the artifacts found in and near the Gokstad Ship were three boats which are assumed to have
accompanied the ship on its voyages.
Only two could be reconstructed, as the third had deteriorated too
much. The smaller of the two
reconstructed boats is a 21 foot long faering, which is known as the Gokstad faering, and the other was a larger seksaering. In many
respects, these boats are miniature versions of the ship itself, with similar
construction and design. Archaeologists
have concluded that the seksaering had a sail as well
as oars, whereas the evidence is ambiguous as to whether the faering had a
sail.
Four
years later, in 2005, I visited the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde,
Denmark. Roskilde has five ships from
the Viking era on display. Rather than
being buried for funerals like the Gokstad and Oseberg Ships, the ships in the Roskilde museum were
scuttled in the cold waters of the Roskilde fjord in the eleventh century. Roskilde, which is a port located about 20
miles from Copenhagen, was the capital of Denmark at the time, and it is
believed that the ships were scuttled to block the channel near a town called Skuldelev, along the fjord, to prevent an invasion by
sea. The cold water preserved them until
they were discovered and retrieved in the 1960s.
Named
for the town close to where they were found, the five ships at the museum in
Roskilde are known as the Skuldelev ships. They were all built in the early eleventh
century. Based on the wood that was used
to construct them, archaeologists have determined that two were built in
Denmark, two in Norway, and one in Dublin, which was founded as a Viking
trading post and was still serving in that capacity in the eleventh
century. Two of the ships were war
ships, known as longships, with the larger of the two
being longer than the Gokstad Ship. The Skuldelev ships
also include an ocean going trader and a coastal trader, as well as a fishing
vessel. The varying sizes and functions
of these ships have provided a great deal of information regarding the
construction and functions of Viking era ships.
The
ships and boats on display in Oslo and Roskilde are all based on a method of
construction called lapstrake or clinker-built
construction. The craft begins with a
keel which serves as the backbone and then the strakes, which are long wooden
boards or planks running fore and aft on the ship or boat, are added and held
together with clinkers, which are small nails that are fastened like
rivets. Each strake overlaps the one
below it to form the hull. Ribs are then
added to hold the hull firmly together.
This type of construction provides great strength to the hull with less
need for a heavy internal framework.
The
earliest example of lapstrake construction is the Nydam boat, dating from about 320 A.D. This boat, which was discovered in Denmark,
is 23 meters long and accommodated 15 pairs of oars. It is on display at a museum in Schleswig,
Germany.
Although
the museum in Roskilde has an extensive collection of Scandinavian-design
boats, these are not authentic Viking-era boats. Some are replicas of ancient craft and others
are more modern examples of Scandinavian boat design, which still reflects many
of the features used in Viking times.
For example, a comparison of the Gokstad
faering with modern faeringer used in western Norway
shows that there has been little change in the basic design and function of
these boats for over 1000 years.
After
visiting the museums at both Oslo and Roskilde, I decided that I wanted to have
a Viking-era boat of my own. Recognizing
that any such boat would have to be custom-built, I began to research the
design and construction of these boats.
I first obtained books on Scandinavian-design boats, ancient and modern
from the Roskilde museum. Through my
research, I also discovered that a group sponsored by the National Maritime
Museum in Greenwich, England had built an exact replica of the Gokstad faering, and had written two reports about it: one
on the construction of the faering, and another on how the faering performed at
sea after it was built. These reports were out of print, but I was
able to find a copy of the report on building the boat through a used book site
on the Internet. This report contained
drawings for the boat and a detailed description of the construction process.
Although
this report showed how the group in England built a replica of the Gokstad faering, I faced some serious obstacles in building
one for myself. First, the Gokstad faering was about 21 feet long, which could pose
storage problems for me because it would be difficult to fit in my garage, and
the weight of such a large boat would make it hard to transport. In addition, the Gokstad
faering was intended to be rowed by two persons, which
meant I would always have to find a second person to row with me if I wanted to
go out in the boat, and therefore I would be limited in how often I could take
it out. Finally, I am completely lacking
in the woodworking skills needed to build such a boat. I face a risk of injury merely by picking up
a tool, and if I try to use one, injury is virtually certain.
These
obstacles seemed difficult to overcome, and I was close to giving up on the
idea of having a Viking-era watercraft, when, on one of my searches on the
Internet for information on Viking boats, I came upon a picture of a boat that
was called the Gokstad skiff. It was a 14 foot long, downsized version of
the Gokstad faering, and it was made to be rowed by a
single person. Despite the smaller size,
it had the same type of elegant design as the original Gokstad
faering.
Recognizing
immediately that this was the boat that would work for me, but also recognizing
that I could not build it myself, I decided to search for someone who could
build the boat. The builder of the Gokstad skiff was located in British Columbia, so I needed
to find someone else closer to home.
Using the resources of the Internet, I found a boat builder in the
neighboring state of Wisconsin whose web site said that he that he was
interested in projects of all sizes, and that he had spent six weeks working at
a waterfront boatyard in Norway that was focused on keeping alive the
relationship between a village and its place on the water. I emailed this boat
builder, whose name is Josh, with a link to the picture of the Gokstad skiff, and asked if he could build a boat like that
one. He promptly responded that he had
hoped to be able to build such a boat for a client, and that he was not only
willing, but eager, to do so.
It
was February of 2010 when I first contacted Josh, and although he was happy to
build the boat, he had a full schedule for the next several months and told me
the earliest I would be able to take the boat on the water would be the fall of
2010. In view of the years it had taken
me to get to this point, waiting a few months was not a problem for me, so in
March 2010 Josh and I agreed that he would build the boat.
By
email, we discussed some of the features of the boat. To prevent the boat from being too heavy and
for ease of maintenance, the boat would be primarily made of marine plywood
strakes glued together, rather than a traditional construction method using
cedar planks and rivets. The backbone of
the boat would be of tightly grained Douglas fir. He was also going to make it slightly
asymmetrical in order to achieve the best shape for rowing. He called the shape a cod’s head and
mackerel’s tail, which is a traditional design with a blunt bow and a sharp
stern.
The
modern Gokstad skiff which I had seen on the Internet
had only one set of oarlocks, and they were of a modern style. Josh suggested, and I concurred, that my boat
should have two sets of oarlocks, which would make it a faering. The two sets of oars would not require two
people to row, but they would allow it, and would also provide two alternative
places for one oarsman, depending on whether or not there was a passenger in
the boat. Also Josh suggested, and I agreed,
that the oarlocks would be the traditional keip
design, which was used in Viking times, and can be seen on the Gokstad faering.
With this design, the oarlocks consist of L-shaped wooden blocks against
which the oars pivot, and there is a short loop of line attached to each
oarlock to go around each oar to keep it from flying out of place, although the
line cannot take a great deal of pressure and requires the person who is rowing
to keep the pressure on the wood. The
oarlocks would be made of ash. Josh had
learned in Norway how to make oars and fit them to the size of the boat, and
was going to make the oars from pine.
After
all the details were agreed upon in March, the building of the boat was now in
Josh’s hands. He had warned me about his other
commitments that he had to fulfill before he could build my faering and
completion was not expected until the fall.
When I contacted him in August to ask him how things were going, he said
that he had obtained the materials, and that he hoped to get started with
construction soon, and possibly finish by the end of September.
Before
he could finish the construction, however, Josh was delayed by an injury to his
thumb. It became clear that the faering
would not be completed in time for it to be delivered and on the water in the
fall. Now the objective was to finish
the boat in time to have it on the water for a full season beginning in the
spring of 2011.
As
the construction of the faering progressed during the late fall and winter of
2010-2011, Josh would post photos for me on an Internet site. I saw the boat being built, beginning with
the keel, and later with the strakes added.
Bit by bit the boat took shape, and it was evident that the
craftsmanship going into it was careful and thorough.
Finally,
after watching the progress of the boat in the photos posted by Josh, he gave
me the news in February 2011 that the boat was finished. He wanted to put it out in the sun to help
the pine tar finish take hold, and he also wanted to try it out on Lake
Superior before delivering it to me, but otherwise it was ready. The pictures of the finished boat showed
exactly the look that I wanted, and I was hoping that its performance on the
water would match its looks.
Now
that the faering was built, I faced a new challenge: how to get it from Josh’s
shop in Wisconsin to my garage in Illinois.
Although I live in far Northern Illinois and can reach the Wisconsin
state line in about 20 minutes by car, Wisconsin is a large state. Josh was at the other end of Wisconsin, about
400 miles away. After checking, I found
that using a traditional moving company was not economical for a 14 foot
boat. I had no boat trailer, and renting
a U-Haul truck, which had a per-mile charge in addition to the rental fee and
gasoline, was also not economical. Nor
did I want to devote the two full days it would take to make the 800 mile round
trip drive to pick up and bring the boat home.
After
I explained my problem to Josh, he informed me of a boat delivery service run
from the home of a couple in upstate New York who have a truck with a large
trailer which carries 15 or 20 boats.
They have a driver who lives in Florida in the winter and drives around
the country during spring, summer and fall to pick up and deliver boats. To use this service you can’t be particular
about timing, but rather you just tell them where the boat needs to be picked
up and delivered, and they put you on the schedule for whenever the driver
happens to be in the area of the pick-up, and then you wait for them to be in
the delivery area for it to be delivered.
I asked the owners of the boat shipping service to put me on their
schedule. They originally expected they
could do it in late March, but as a result of their other stops, it ended up
being in April.
The
weather was still wintry in northern Wisconsin in mid-April when the driver of
the trailer was in the vicinity of Josh’s shop.
His trailer is quite tall, with many racks for boats, and initially it
looked as if snow and high winds might prevent him from picking up the boat
then. However, he arrived at Josh’s shop
early one Friday morning in April, and while the snow was falling, Josh helped
him put the boat on a rack on his truck, and he headed south to Illinois. He had another stop to make before reaching
me, but early the following Saturday morning the driver called from the road
that he was in southern Wisconsin and headed my way. He arrived around noon, and I helped him
unload the faering and place it on a two wheeled boat cart I had bought to take
it to and from the water. As I
anticipated from seeing the photos, the boat was beautiful, but it was cold,
rainy and windy, not a good day for boating, so I quickly wheeled it into the
garage and out of the elements to wait for a better day.
When
the weather turned better I was able to view the boat more carefully and I could
appreciate the detailed work much better than looking at the photos. The finish on the boat was striking. It is a mixture of pine tar, turpentine and
Dutch varnish. This finish not only
gives the boat an ancient look; it also results in a wonderful pine smell that
adds another dimension to the beauty of the boat. There were a couple of spots that had been
roughed up by the rack on the trip from Wisconsin, and Josh sent me a jar of
this mixture, which he calls “boat sauce,” to touch it up. Despite my shortcomings as a craftsman,
brushing on some boat sauce was one job I was capable of performing, so that
with a bit of sandpaper and the application of some boat sauce, the finish on
the faering was as good as new.
Each
seat in the boat performs a specific function.
There are three seats, one in the bow, one amidships and one slightly
aft of amidships. The amidships and aft
seats are each located for an oarsmen to row, as each is slightly forward of a
pair of oarlocks. Unlike the other two
seats, the bow seat is not attached to the boat but rather can be lifted in and
out. Josh explained that this was the
traditional construction method, because removing the bow seat would provide
more room in the event the boat was being used to carry livestock or crops
instead of a passenger.
The
two pairs of oars are unlike oars typically seen on modern American boats. The area where the oar fits into the oarlock
is squared off, rather than round, so that it fits into the right-angled
oarlock. Also, in contrast to the wide
blades on modern oars, the blades on these oars are quite narrow, and they are
also cupped, so that there is a scooping effect when the oar moves through the
water. Josh told me that he finished
these oars in the traditional way, by using only an axe, knife and plane. People look at the narrow blades and wonder
how the oars can move the boat through the water, but they do. The combination of the hull shape, the length
of the oars and the shape of the oars all work well together to move the boat gracefully
through the water.
One
other traditional touch to the boat is that Josh created a wooden scoop-shaped
wooden bailer to accompany the boat.
This is a standard feature on traditional Norwegian boats, and Josh had
learned how to construct bailers in Norway.
I was wondering when I first saw it whether it was a message that the
boat would be taking on water frequently while out on the lake, but fortunately
that has not turned out to be the case, as I have only had to use it once when
some high waves spilled over the sides to put a small amount of water in the
bottom of the boat.
Now
that the boat had arrived, I needed a good day to go out on the water. I live about ¾ of a mile from Lake Michigan,
where our village has a public beach. My
plan was to continue to store the boat in my garage, and wheel it on my boat
cart through the streets of town and down to the beach each time I would use
it. I had been already been doing this
for a few years with a kayak. The
faering, however, is larger and heavier than my kayak, so I was not sure how
easy it would be to transport and launch the faering.
The
time for the maiden voyage came on Easter weekend, about two weeks after
delivery. My son was going to be
visiting for the weekend, so I asked him to accompany me so I would have help
if needed. It was a bit windy and rough
on the lake that Easter Sunday afternoon when we launched the boat, and we
didn’t stay out for long, but the launching was a success. The faering rowed well and took the waves
well. Also the sweeping bow and stern
worked as designed, because the boat pulled up on the beach in a way that you
could get in and out from the dry beach without stepping into the water.
It
was on this first trip to and from the beach that I first experienced the faering’s magnetic attraction for people. As we walked along the street with the boat
on the two wheeled cart, people in their yards and people out walking would
come over and want to look at it and ask about it. The same thing occurred on the beach itself. The most frequent reaction, then and since
then, has been people saying that it is a beautiful boat.
Since
that first voyage on Lake Michigan, I have had the faering out many times. From Memorial Day to Labor Day of 2011, I
rowed the faering at least once every weekend, generally on Saturday
morning. I took it out a few days in the
fall as well, and even on Christmas Eve 2011, which was a relatively warm and
sunny day with the temperature in the 40s.
Generally I row for two miles along the shore and two miles back, which
takes about an hour. Usually I row
against the wind on the first leg, and with the wind coming back.
Rowing
the faering on Lake Michigan provides a perspective on the lake and lake shore
that few people experience. Although millions
of people live or work close to the Illinois shore of Lake Michigan, relatively
few of them see the shore from the lake itself, and even fewer do so from a
human-powered watercraft. Despite the
huge population close by, the lake is uncrowded, and often empty as far as I can see, particularly early on
a Saturday morning when I usually row.
Sometimes I can see no other boats, or possibly a commercial ship or
recreational motorboat far off in the distance, and I feel as if I have the
enormous lake to myself. Even on a
weekend afternoon, when there are often small sailboats and kayaks near the
shore, the vast expanse of Lake Michigan leaves plenty of room for all of us.
If
I look to the south as I row, I can see the tops of buildings in downtown Chicago,
which is about 30 miles away. Looking to
the north, I can see the smokestacks of industrial buildings in the cities of
Waukegan and North Chicago, as well as the landmark clock tower at the Great
Lakes Naval Station. To the east is the
horizon.
To
the west are the tall bluffs along this section of the lakefront, which have
been protected by various means by the property owners. Some have placed large metal groins along the
shore to absorb the force of the waves and prevent them from eroding the bluff,
and others have huge pieces of concrete and rocks piled along the shore for the
same purpose. Some have no beaches at
all, and others have very narrow strips of sand along the water. Still others have built rock breakwaters out
into the lake in order to create sheltered beaches. Some have built stairways to get down to the
lake, and others don’t appear to have any way to access the water from their
homes. With the exception of people on
the public beaches, however, it is seldom that I see any people along the
lakefront when I row past.
The
view of the houses along the shoreline varies, depending on how far out I
go. Close to the shore, it is not always
apparent that there is anything built on the bluff above. But if I go farther out, I can see the large
houses looking out over the lake.
The
lake itself is different each time I row.
Sometimes it is as smooth as glass, because there is no wind. Other times it has varying degrees of wave
action, depending on the wind direction.
The roughest waters, which sometimes keep me from taking out the faering
at all, result from strong north, east or south winds, as the winds can blow
unobstructed along the lake and build up the force of the waves. Heavy west winds do not affect the lake
nearly as much, at least close to the shore, because
they are broken by the trees along the shore, and the drop from the bluffs to
the lake prevent them from affecting the water near the shore.
The
weather in the days preceding a trip on the lake also makes a difference. If the weather has been windy so that the
lake has been rough on previous days, the water will have been stirred up and
may not be clear. On the other hand, if
there has been calm weather, the water can be clear with several feet of
visibility and I can see the bottom, as well as large fish swimming, as I row
by.
Rowing
provides a form of exercise that is difficult to duplicate. The upper body gets a workout as it would on
a rowing machine in a gym, but unlike rowing on a machine, the water resistance
is not uniform, and the scenery is always changing as you row. Rowing in calm water is relaxing, whereas
waves can make rowing a challenge. Even
rowing the same course each week provides an opportunity to see new things,
with the changing seasons, the changing condition of the lake, different people
and watercraft on or near the lake, and just looking at the lake and lake shore
and noticing things differently each time.
The
attraction of the faering to people who see it has not diminished during the
time that I have been wheeling it back and forth and taking it out on the
lake. Every time I have taken it out,
someone has complimented it, sometimes in passing and sometimes in extended
discussion. People also are attracted to
it when they see me out on the water and I return to shore, and they tell me
how much they like seeing it move through the water. Once a woman approached me on the beach to
look at the faering and ask about it while I was getting ready to go out. After we finished talking, I launched it and
rowed for an hour. When I returned, she
was still there, and this time she wanted to take a picture which she said she
was going to share with her husband.
There
is a women’s yoga class under a shelter on our beach on Saturday mornings in
the summer. As I push off from shore, I
see the women in the class with their graceful poses as they go through their
routines, and I try to be quiet and unobtrusive so as not to disturb them. One day as I was leaving the beach after
rowing, a woman came up to me. She told
me that she was a member of the yoga class, and that when they see me rowing away
from the beach as they go through their routines, it is like looking at a
Norman Rockwell scene.
One
day as I was headed to the beach with the faering, a man who was walking his
dog came up to me, and after admiring the boat and asking about it, he told me
he had built a model of a Viking longship which he
wanted to show me. So we walked over to
his house, which was about half a block away, and I left the faering on his
front lawn while I went into his house to see his model longship
and some other ship models he had built.
Another
time a woman who was walking her dog on the beach approached me as I was about
to take out the faering. She told me a
story about how she was from Brittany and that she often sailed off the coast
of Brittany and acted as navigator for the sailboat. She said one day when they were out it was
quite foggy, and they had low visibility.
She heard a horse neighing, and was afraid she was closer to shore than
her navigation had showed. She rechecked her figures, and was convinced she had
the correct position, but could not understand how she could hear the horse at
sea. She then gained some visibility,
and she saw a boat, just like my faering, which was carrying a horse.
The
reactions people have to the faering have been unlike anything I have
experienced before. Before I had the
faering, I would wheel my kayak down to the lake and paddle it along the shore,
but no one ever called that boat beautiful or wanted to ask about it or talk
about it. At most, someone seeing me
coming back would ask how the lake was that day. Unlike the faering, however, the kayak was
not handmade of wood, but rather was manufactured in China from synthetic
materials.
I
also often walk through our small town without the faering. People often smile and say hello as they pass
each other, but unless people know each other in some other context, they
rarely stop to talk. In contrast, when I
am walking through town with the faering, I almost always get drawn into a
conversation with someone who wants to talk about the faering.
What
is about the faering that attracts people to it, that makes them want to talk
about it, and most importantly, what makes so many of them spontaneously remark
on its beauty? I don’t think there is a
single answer to this question.
One
aspect of the faering that attracts people is that it is unusual. This attracts peoples’ attention in the first
instance, but being unusual only goes so far, as the fact that something is
unusual doesn’t make it beautiful.
Nevertheless, the fact that people can see that it is a boat, but can
also see that it is unlike any other boat that they have ever seen before, is
part of its attraction.
The
obvious excellent craftsmanship that went into the building of the faering is
also part of its attraction. It is
evident to anyone who sees it that the builder of the boat went to great care
in attending to every detail. The boat
itself, the seats, the oars and oarlocks all show that they were carefully made
by someone who cared about his work. The
handmade oars and bailer accompanying the boat exhibit the same high level of
craftsmanship and reinforce the craftsmanship that went into the boat
itself.
The
design of the faering is also part of its attraction. The design seems to have a universal appeal
that doesn’t depend on any one person’s taste.
Moreover, the classic design of the boat, which has been used for boats
for well over a thousand years, appeals to people of all ages and times. The
design of the faering has stood the test of time, and people instinctively
recognize this. Its design has not gone
out of date in over a thousand years, and there is no reason to believe it will
ever go out of date.
The
faering also is an example of how form and function work together, which is a
characteristic of Scandinavian design.
People who have seen the boat move through the water know that it not
only looks beautiful but that it also performs beautifully. It performs its function of transporting a
person over water with that person’s own power, and it does so gracefully,
without any pretensions. Its elegant
simplicity is easy to understand. And it
may be that even those who only see it move on land on my two wheeled cart can
sense its functionality merely by looking at it.
The
fact that the faering is made of wood is also part of its attraction. Wood is a natural material with a grain,
knots and imperfections, unlike the antiseptic sameness of plastic, metal or
fiberglass. Just as a wood fire attracts
people more than a radiator which puts out the same amount of heat, and a light
bulb which provides the same light, wood construction takes us back to another
time which we have lost, and allows us to recapture it, if only for a short
time, before we return to the modern industrialized world of synthetic
materials and computer chips.
The
faering also connects us to a time when people made things with their own hands
and did not rely on mass production. You
can see the care of the craftsman in it, and there is a direct relationship
between the builder and the person who looks at or rows the boat, without any
intermediation by a machine. You cannot
go to a store and buy one, but rather you need to find a craftsman like Josh
who is willing to put his best effort into creating something that it is not
only beautiful to look at, but also beautiful to use.
I
have tried to explain why it is that the faering is a wooden
magnet which attracts people, and why these people find it to be
beautiful. Words fall short, however, as
a writer cannot fully describe why a physical object is beautiful. We therefore need to recognize the limitations
of language, and we just need to accept that the faering attracts people just
because it does, and that it is beautiful just because it is.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Viking(Ship), Gokstad
Ship, Oseberg Ship, Viking Ship Museum (Oslo), Leif
Ericson, Nydam Mose
3. http://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/en/
4. National
Maritime Museum, The Building and Trials of the Replica of an Ancient Boat: The
Gokstad Faering, Part I, Building the Replica, Maritime Monographs and Reports, No.
11- 1974