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Last Sunday, our Mainz Type A navis Lusoria "Regina" had her first major voyage of the season. We rowed the ship from the Naab estuary at Mariaort (opposite to the ancient fort at Regensburg-Kumpfmuehl) up the river Naab to Pielenhofen. The current of the Naab was at first insignificant, due to the backwater of the Danube, but then quickly turned to noticeable, then to unpleasant, and finally to very unpleasant.
The entire distance was about 11 km, and it took us 3,5 hours to cover them. Not a bad result given the strong current, the fact that about 50% of the crew were still novices, and that we had a small monoxylon in tow.
The trip back cost us only about 1 hour and 45 minutes. We could have been faster, but the crew was understandably no longer inclined to row AFAP (as fast as possible) 
a few impressions:
Florian Himmler (not related!)
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Congratulation to your session-starting
real Name Tobias Gabrys
Flavii <a class="postlink" href="http://www.flavii.de">www.flavii.de
& Hetairoi <a class="postlink" href="http://www.hetairoi.de">www.hetairoi.de
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Wow, fascinating...very good.
Susanna
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A Lyra is basically an instrument to accompaign pyromanic city destruction.
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Looks great! Do you have any closer pictures of the Regina with crew?
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Are plans available?
If Yes.... How do we get them?
Hibernicus
LEGIO IX HISPANA, USA
You cannot dig ditches in a toga!
[url:194jujcw]http://www.legio-ix-hispana.org[/url]
A nationwide club with chapters across N America
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Tobias and Susanna - thank you
Quote:Do you have any closer pictures of the Regina with crew?
Dan, 50% of your wish is my command. However, I am somewhat reluctant to post close ups of the crew. The reason: maintaining and running the ship costs us so much time and money, that it is simply impossible to equip over 30 people with '100% autistic late Roman stuff'.
I guess any good late Roman reenactment group...
(e.g. Fectio, Aitor, II Herculia, I Germanica, Comitatus, etc. etc. don'tbeatmeifIhaveforgottensomebody...)
...would turn away in horror from the task of dressing three dozen people in late Roman military regalia!  hock:
So please, do us a favour and smile on the ship, but don't pay too much attention to what the crew is wearing (or rather not wearing). Scientifically, the Lusoria herself is the important part.
(I only stress this, because we were once chastised by a fanatic smart ass on a German discussion board, because the crew did not satisfy his exquisite taste :evil: I should have asked him for a donation of 70 000 bucks for equipment :twisted: )
But long story short - here are more pics:
Florian Himmler (not related!)
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Quote:Are plans available?
If Yes.... How do we get them?
Hibernicus, if you plan to reconstruct another Mainz A patrol galley, you should first look for a navigable river with a low current (the ship is not seaworthy! = don't try this at home!), at least 100 000 US $, about a dozen tons of oak wood (the ship weighs only 5-6 tons, but you will lose a lot of material during the construction process), a shipyard, a lot of high quality tools and machines, at least 1-2 experienced boatwrights, 1-2 dozen unskilled or semi-skilled workers/students, over 3000 hand forged iron nails, and-so-on-and-so-on.
Then you could perhaps ask the Museum for Ancient Shipping at Mainz, but I don't know if they will agree :?
In short, it's a lot of work... 
Florian Himmler (not related!)
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What a beautiful galley! What magnificent work! What nice blisters!
You and your crew are to be congratulated for a really superb piece of reconstructive archaeology. I assume the plans are based on the remains of a real river galley. Can you provide more info on which one (or ones), and where it (or they) were found? Also, how long did she take to build?
Also... what kind of helmet to you have slung on your chest in your avatar?
T. Flavius Crispus / David S. Michaels
Centurio Pilus Prior,
Legio VI VPF
CA, USA
"Oderint dum probent."
Tiberius
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I followed to critics on German boards as well...
I mean its always easy to say...I could do this and this better...;-) )
But here to boat is the reconstruction, not the clothes of the people.
Thats enough work and money!
I mean, if I see something wrong which can be easily fixed, I give people a hint to fix it or tell them why I think it doesn´t fit...
but the boat was the first one...everything has to grow...we are facing the same problem with our music. Either the ask why we do not sound like any Italian CDs or we do not satisfy their wishes of Baroquian trumpet sounds.
Anyway, great work and you have my fullest respect...where can I read your dates in Germany in web? I would like to link to from our website ;-) )
Susanna
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.musica-romana.de">www.musica-romana.de
A Lyra is basically an instrument to accompaign pyromanic city destruction.
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Quote:What a beautiful galley! What magnificent work! What nice blisters!
David, thank you for your benevolent words :lol:
(and congratulations for your 300th post :wink: )
The plans of the "Regina" are based on the wrecks of several late Roman river galleys unearthed at Mainz in 1982/3. The wrecks were closely studied by Dr. Olaf Hoeckmann (ship archaeologist from Mainz - a very nice person, by the way), who then devised a bulding plan for an operational reconstruction. As far as I know, he worked on this plan for about an entire decade! hock:
The construction process itself took only about a year, but minor repairs and maintenance still consume a lot of time, plus there are improvements now and then (most of the work is done by Dr. Konen himself, who runs the project together with Prof. Schäfer).
If you want to know more about the Mainz Type A vessels look at...
http://www.rgzm.de/Navis/Ships/Ship035/Ship035Engl.htm
Susanna, thank's for the praise! For the link - try
www.vefag.de
David, the helmet is a Deepeeka Axel Guttman Niedermoermter. I tie the handle to the right shoulder plate, while the ring on top of the helmet is laced to the copper alloy loop of the topmost left girdle hoop. Thus, the helmet stays in place and doesn't crash against the armour all the time.
(I know this Deepeeka helmet isn't exactly an excellent reconstruction, but the original helmet would be far too small for my huge head, and - as has been stated on another thread - a 100% reconstruction would be very expensive)
Florian Himmler (not related!)
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Florian,
Your boat is (quite simply) magnificent! I wish we had a similar one on the Thames. At the Great River Race last year, there were iron age curraghs (with IIRC, about 12 rowers), coracles, Tudor boats, but sadly no Roman....
One day perhaps....
Cheers
Caballo
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Wow.. I wish you many happy hours this year!
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Robert and Paul - thank you for the flowers
Quote:At the Great River Race last year, there were iron age curraghs (with IIRC, about 12 rowers), coracles, Tudor boats, but sadly no Roman....
Paul, how about a reconstruction of the Blackfriars ship? :wink:
Florian Himmler (not related!)
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![[Image: Comitatuslogo3.jpg]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v221/PaulHB/Comitatuslogo3.jpg)
