Ancient greek bireme Hyperborea - finished & UPDATED!

[Lýsandros]

There were no updates for some time, for which I deeply apologize, but the progress has been very slow lately. I have a big news today for you, though: The ship has finaly tasted the stall waters of the Orava dam! A lot of testing was carried out and the result is... the ship is in excellent condition, has no leaks and is able to maneuver and move across water with ease! The Slovak Nautical Board is a lot more supportive now that they have seen the ship in action and much of their skepticism is now gone.

Here is a couple of pictures from the testing, so that you can finaly see her on water, even though it has no sail yet!







And a bonus picture at the end - ramming in action! Well, sort of.. they moved a bit faster

[jvrjenivs]

Wow, great pics. A really good project. Hope there will be some pictures of the Roman ship they're going to built in Millingen, soon.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Ahhh, the acid test! She floats!! 8)

How does she handle? Stability wise too? Are you going to install a fighting deck over the rowers?
The ballast requirements would need carefull management for that I imagine!
Are you doing a mast too?

Great to see her on the water!!

[Lýsandros]

The handling is far better than expected, but it is important to realise that the ship is very different from her modern cousins. It is extremely fast even with 20 rowers without the sail helping, but it is taking a lot of effort to turn it.. and a lot of space! I am confident though that with more practice it should be possible to get the turning maneuver down to a more acceptable diameter.

There is no plan to install a fighting deck. It will serve as a merchant/pirate ship (depending what other ships are nearby ) and from my observations, these lighter and faster ships did not often have a fighting deck. As opposed to the trireme (triere) the bireme didnt have a separate crew of rowers and fighters due to the lack of space on the ship. While i can imagine there were definitely few soldiers always ready for battle, for a full scale boarding/landing operations the rowers would need to get their arms and join the fight.

I am open to ideas and objections

[M. Demetrius]

For steerage, have you tried having the rowers on one side of the boat row forwards, and the other side row backwards, or hold their oars in the water still, resisting forward motion on that side? Seems like a good way to make a tighter turn than just relying on the rudders.

[Lýsandros]

I am sorry for such a long period of silence, but things really started to move and I was too busy to do a proper update. To correct this, I will feed you with the most recent information!

During the last weekend, specifically on friday the 2nd, we have transported the ship to its planned docking area in Trencin. It is a town ~100k citizens large, one of the regional centres of Western Slovakia and our base of operations. The very next day, after tuning all the fine details and well executed preparations, we have carried out the event, which consisted of an opening show, the namesgiving ceremonial and a ride down the river for VIP people, who all helped the ship to its successful completion.

So lets get down to a documented description of what really happened!

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We wanted to do something entertaining and fun for people, so we have moved the scenario a bit to the heroic age and used the notoriously known background of Iason and his Argonauts. Sure, its a good couple of hundreds years into the past, but it is a story that even people in Slovakia seem to recognize, so we have decided to go on with it anyway. We did not go directly for any of their adventures, but we have made up one of our own - The crew of Argo is on the way from Kolchida, victoriously carrying the Golden Fleece, passing trough a barbaric territory. To serve our purposes, we have cast the Argonauts to be the evil side and the local population as the good side, so the Argonauts mercilessly assault a local village to plunder their much needed resources, so that they have enough to continue their journey. Thats where the show begins.



We have hidden the ship some 3 km from the place where the event was supposed to take place and when the time was right, we have rushed into the place head on, ramming the coast. Our mighty crew of, ehm, 2 battleready argonauts - Iason and Theseus, jumped into the water and stormed the beach, handily defeating the weak defenders.





The situation changes when the reinforcements from the nearby village arrive, led by a mighty chieftan Jastrab (Hawk), who rides a battle chariot dragged by 2 horses and manages to fend of Iason.



Since none of the sides is strong enough to make a decisive move, Iason and Jastrab make a deal. There will be a duel of each side's most powerful warriors and the outcome will determine the winner. If the Argonauts win, they will get all the resources they need and all women from the local tribe will be (continues after 10pm ). On the other side, when the local tribe wins, Argonauts will pull back and never return to harass this village.





And so ensues an epic set of duels - in which, the mighyt chieftain Jastrab remains undefeated. The hammer of the pagan gods that he wields grants him strenght and might, which only few can hope to match. Iason stands to his own word and the argonauts pull back. They board the ship and leave to the cheering of the local population.















After the initial show ended, it was time for the namesgiving ceremonial. First there was the historical part - a sacrifice to the gods. Poseidon recieved his share of wine into water, the rest recieved their share into the flames of our sacrificial vessel. We have used animal fur and wine mixed with water, as the old traditions tell us (Thanks to Stefanos who sent us instructions D Those rocks are hard as hell...



The second part was a traditional namesgiving procedure. Our watersports wold champion (and olympic winner) Martina Kohlova sprayed some champaigne onto the ship officially named it Hyperborea, after the Ancient Greek term for countries north of the river Istris, countries of the northern wind.



Afterwards, we have taken the VIP guys on their first trip and after returning, the ship was docked and available to the general public, they could come onboard and explore the ship on their own.

And thats it, friends, hope we will be ramming your ports next summer



Photographic material by: Lucia Kuklisova ( [email protected] ), www.trencin.sk , www.sme.sk

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Veery good!
Must have been great fun! Deserves laudes.
Khaire
Giannis

[Marcus F.]

I can't believe that I have just recently discoverd this thread! Great work! Maybe you will have an opprtunity to fight these other ship-recontructions on the Danube. :wink:

[Kineas]

WOw!

I, too, can't believe I missed this thread.

Now I want one for the Great Lakes (Canada).

Beautiful. Magnificent.

[Astiryu1]

I may be too late but how about "Gaia" the greek word for earth.

[Lýsandros]

That was a bit too late, indeed. But thank you anyway for your idea

[Astiryu1]

Just after I replied about the name I found out there was more pages! Anyhow Nice ship, Hyperboea is very fitting and the pics are excellent. If I am ever able to get out of America I hope to see her and talk with you guys.

[morhathol]

Hello and congratulations, Lýsandros, I must say the ship is wonderful! I've heard something about it in the TV (didn't watch it until now), but I didn't fully realize how great it was. Also your costumes and equipment look very nice. I have somehow missed the ceremony, but I certainly hope you'll be organizing similar performances in the next summer.

I wish you good luck in any further projects, as well as happy new year to everyone (though a bit belatedly).

[Lýsandros]

Hello Roman,

thank you very much for your kind words! If you are interested in ancient greek history, you are welcome to join our project. There is never enough enthusiasists around

You can contact us at [email protected] , www.bludni.sk or you can PM me for a phone number

Regards,

Juraj

[morhathol]

You are welcome, Juraj

Thanks for the offer, I'll definitely think about it, as I find this theme very appealing. I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to attend training sessions or such activities regularly, though. But one should never say never, I'll remember the link.

Regards