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Viking ships allowed vikings to travel far afield from their Scandinavian homeland. You can see reasons they may have wanted to do this here:

In the Wikipedia article, under viking expansion, the reasons that their boats were so effective are detailed in this part of the article:

"There were two distinct classes of Viking ships: the 'longship' (sometimes erroneously called "drakkar", a corruption of "dragon" in Norse) and the 'knarr'. The longship, intended for warfare and exploration, was designed for speed and agility, and was equipped with oars to complement the sail as well as making it able to navigate independently of the wind. The longship had a long and narrow hull, as well as a shallow draft, in order to facilitate landings and troop deployments in shallow water. The knarr was a dedicated merchant vessel designed to carry cargo. It was designed with a broader hull, deeper draft and limited number of oars (used primarily to maneuver in harbors and similar situations). One Viking innovation was the 'beitass', a spar mounted to the sail that allowed their ships to sail effectively against the wind.[20]"

I found this quotation in the Wikipedia article, under "ships".

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13y ago

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