[HN Gopher] Viking Ship Museum in Denmark announces the discover...
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       Viking Ship Museum in Denmark announces the discovery of the
       largest cog
        
       Author : PaulHoule
       Score  : 15 points
       Date   : 2026-01-22 21:43 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.medievalists.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.medievalists.net)
        
       | perihelions wrote:
       | More discussion,
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46633574 ( _" Found:
       | Medieval Cargo Ship - Largest Vessel of Its Kind Ever
       | (smithsonianmag.com)"_, 54 comments)
       | 
       | edit: Also, I think this domain (medievalists.net) is suspect.
       | This article has _no author byline_ ; and its text is highly
       | similar to other published articles (like [0]), with only minor
       | word changes. Here's an A/B of an excerpt:
       | 
       | > [vikingeskibsmuseet.dk] _" Dendrochronological analysis shows
       | that Svaelget 2 was built around 1410 using timber from two
       | regions: Pomerania, which is modern-day Poland, and the
       | Netherlands. By comparing tree-ring patterns with reference data,
       | researchers were able to date the wood and determine its origin.
       | The planks were made of Pomeranian oak, while the frames - the
       | ship's ribs - came from the Netherlands. This construction
       | pattern suggests that the heavy planking timber was imported,
       | while the frames were cut locally at the building site,
       | reflecting a practical approach and a complex trade network where
       | large quantities of timber moved across Northern Europe."_
       | 
       | > [medievalists.net] _" One of the most striking results so far
       | comes from dendrochronology (tree-ring dating). Researchers
       | report that Svaelget 2 was built around 1410 using timber sourced
       | from two different regions: Pomerania (in modern-day Poland) and
       | the Netherlands. The planks were made from Pomeranian oak, while
       | the ship's frames (ribs) came from the Netherlands--an
       | arrangement the team interprets as evidence of complex material
       | supply and specialised shipbuilding capacity."_
       | 
       | [0] https://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/en/news/archaeologists-
       | rev... (author byline Rikke Tornso Johansen)
        
       | ggm wrote:
       | I wish people didn't use headline superlatives so much. If you
       | compare this ship to the pleasure craft of Caligula which was
       | destroyed in ww2, you have to start qualifying things by open
       | water vs lake-bound. Caligula had two of them, in Roman times.
       | One was 20m wide and 70m long.
       | 
       | It's a big ship. It's an important find. It's not a supership or
       | a supercog, or a beast, or a behemoth.
       | 
       | It's 9m wide, 6m high and 28m long.
       | 
       | This class of ship was a significant component of middle age
       | trade and presages even larger ships, which in turn increased
       | carrying capacity. Transport on water is bound by displacement to
       | surface area, where drag is bounded in surface area so as ships
       | increase in volume the energy cost per unit carried drops
       | significantly and thus the crewing and sail burden. Bigger ships
       | mean cheaper goods.
       | 
       | Carrying 300 tonnes of cargo in 1400 was pretty good.
        
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       (page generated 2026-01-22 23:00 UTC)