OS NAVIOS EM TORVALDSLAND

Os navios dos homens de Torvaldsland são rápidos. Em um dia, um dia Goreano inteiro
de vinte Ahn, com um vento razoável eles podem cobrir de duzentos a duzentos e
cinquenta pasangs.
The ships of the men of Torvaldsland are swift. In a day, a full Gorean day of twenty Ahn,
with a fair wind they can cover from two hundred to two hundred and fifty pasangs.
Saqueadores de Gor, página 56

Proas
Prows

Outra característica dos barcos do norte que eles têm, com efeito, uma proa em cada
extremidade. Isso permite que eles sejam encalhados, em roletes, mais facilmente. Eles
podem ser trazidos para a terra em qualquer direção, uma valiosa capacidade em
pedregosas, rápidas águas do norte. Além disso, isso permite que os remadores, em uma
posição invertida nos bancos, revertam a direção do navio. Asso adiciona considerável
capacidade de manobra à embarcação. É quase impossível bater um dos rápidos navios do
norte.
Another feature of the northern ships is that they have, in effect, a prow on each end. This
permits them to be beached, on rollers, more easily. They can be brought to land in either
direction, a valuable property in the rocky, swift northern waters. Furthermore this
permits the rowers, in reversing position on the benches, toreverse the direction of the
ship. This adds considerably to the manoeuvrability of the craft. It is almost impossible to
ram one of the swift ships of the north.
Saqueadores de Gor, páginas 32 / 33

Remos
Oars

Haviam vinte bancos de cada lado, com dois homens em cada banco, Ele tinha, assim,
quarenta remos, com dois homens em cada banco. Tercites de Port Kar, o controverso
inventor e carpinteiro naval, havia defendido mais de um homem para cada remo, mas,
em geral, as galeras do sul utilizam um homem por remo, três remos e três homens em um
banco diagonal, de frente para a popa, os remos escalonados, a diagonalidade dos bancos
permitindo a multiplicidade de braços. Os remos eram geralmente com um comprimento
em torno de dezenove pés, e mais estreitos que os remos do sul, para que eles pudessem
cortar e varrer em uma grande velocidade, mais rapidamente que o mais largo remo de
lâmina; e com dois homens em cada remo, e a leveza do navios, isso produziria grande
velocidade.
There were twenty benches to a side, with two men to each bench. It carried, thus, forty
oars, with two men to each bench. Tersites of Port Kar, the controversial inventor and
shipwright, had advocated more than one man to an oar but, generally, the southern
galleys utilized one man per oar, three oars and three men on a diagonal bench, facing aft,
the oars staggered, the diagonality of the bench permitting the multiplicity of levers. The
oars were generally some nineteen feet in length, and narrower than the southern oars,
that they might cut and sweep with the great speed, more rapidly than the wider bladed
oar; and with two men to each oar, and the lightness of the ship, this would produce great
speed. As in the southern galleys the keel to beam ratio was designed, too, for swiftness,
being generally in the neighborhood of one to eight. Forkbeard's ship, or serpent as they
are sometimes called, was approximately eighty feet Gorean in length, with the beam of
some ten feet Gorean. His ships, like most northern ships, did not have a rowing frame,
and the rowers sat within in hull proper, facing, of course aft. Marauders of Gor, page 31

The Mast and Lookout

The lookout stood upon a broad, flat wooden ring, bound in leather, covered with the fur
of sea sleen, which fits over the mast. It has a diameter of about thirty inches. It
sets near the top of the mast, enabling the man to see over the sail, as well as to other
points. He, standing on this ring, fastens himself by the wait to the mast by looping
and buckling a heavy belt about it, and through his master belt. Usually, too, he keeps one
hand on or about the mast. The wooden ring is reached by climbing a knotted
rope. The mast is not high, only about thirty -five feet Gorean, but it permits a scanning of
the horizon to some ten pasangs. Marauders of Gor, page 59

Guiding Their Ships

The men of Torvaldsland sometimes guide their vessels by noting the direction of the
waves, breaking against the prow, these correlated with prevailing winds. Sometimes
they use the shadows of the gunwales, failing across the thwarts, judging their angles. The
sun, too, of course, is used, and, at night, the stars give them suitable compass,
even in the open sea. Marauders of Gor, page 56
Sextant

It is a matter of their tradition not to rely on the needle compass, as is done in the south.
The Gorean compass points always to the Sardar, the home of Priest-Kings.
The men of Torvaldsland do not use it. They do not need it.
The sextant, however, correlated with sun and stars is not unknown to them. It is
commonly relied on, however, only in unfamiliar waters.
Even fog banks, and the feeding grounds of whales, and ice floes, in given season, in their
own waters, give the men of Torvaldsland information as to their whereabouts,
they utilizing such things as easily, as unconsciously, as a peasant might a mountain, or a
hunter a river. Marauders of Gor, page 56

The Helmsman

Only two of the Forkbeard’s men did not rest, he at the helm, bare-headed, looking to sea,
and the fellow at the height of the mast, on lookout. The helmsman studies the
sky and the waters ahead of the serpent; beneath clouds there is commonly wind; and he
avoids, moving a point or more to port or starboard, areas where there is little
wave activity, for they betoken spots in which the serpent might, for a time, find itself
becalmed. Marauders of Gor, page 59

The Anchor

''Free the serpent!'' called the Forkbeard. ''Benches!'' The two anchor hooks, fore and aft,
were raised. They resemble heavy grappling hooks. Their weight, apiece, is not
great, being little more than twenty-five Gorean stone, or about one hundred Earth
pounds. They are attached to the ship not by chain, but by tarred rope. Marauders of
Gor, page 78
Signals

Two men of Svein Blue Tooth rose to their feet and silenced the crowd with two blasts on
curved,
bronze signal horns, of a sort often used for communication between ships. The men of
Torvaldsland
have in common a code of sound signals, given by the horns, consisting of some forty
messages.
Messages such as “Attack,” “Heave to,” “Regroup,” and “Communication desired” have
each their
special combination of sounds". This sort of thing is done more effectively, in my own
opinion, in the
south by the means of flags, run commonly from the prow cleats to the height of the stem
castle.
Flags, of course are useless at night. At night ship's lanterns may be used, but there is no
standardization in their use, even among the ships of a given port. There are shield
signals, too,
however, it might be mentioned, in Torvaldsland, though these are quite limited. Two that
are
universal in Torvaldsland are the red shield for war, the white for peace. The men of
Torvaldsland,
hearing the blasts on the bronze horns, were silent. The blasts had been the signal for
attention.
Marauders of Gor, page 181

There was a great cheer from the men of Ivar Forkbeard. The serpent turned slowly
between the high
cliffs, and entered the inlet. Here and there, clinging to the rock, were lichens, and small
bushes, andeven stunted trees. The water below us was deep and cold.
I felt a breeze from inland, coming to meet the sea. The oars lifted and fell. The sail fell
slack, and rustled, stirred in the gentle wind from inland. Men of Torvaldsland reefed it
high to the spar.
The rowing song was strong and happy in the lusty throats of the crew of the Forkbeard.
The serpent took its way between the cliffs, looming high on each side. Ivar
Forkbeard, at the prow, lifted a great, curved bronze horn and blew a blast. I heard it echo
among the cliffs. Marauders of Gor, page 80

Passing Time on a Serpent

The men of Forkbeard, their oars inboard, the ship under sail, amused themselves as they
would. Some slept on the benches or between them, some under the awning and
some not, or on the exposed, elevated stem dock. Here and there, some sat in twos and
threes, talking. Two, like Forkbeard and myself, gave themselves to Kaissa. Two
others, elsewhere, played Stones, a guessing game. Marauders of Gor, page 59

Fishing

Three other men of the Forkbeard attended to fishing, two with a net, sweeping it along
the side of the serpent, for parsit fish, and the third, near the stem, with a hook and
line, baited with vulo liver, for the white bellied grunt, a large game fish which haunts the
plankton banks to feed on parsit fish. Marauders of Gor, page 59

Once the Forkbeard went to her and taught her to check the scoop, with her left hand, for
snails, that they not be thrown overboard.
Returning to me, he held one of the snails, whose shell he crushed between his fingers,
and sucked out the animal, chewing and swallowing it. He then threw the shell
fragments overboard.
''They are edible,'' he said. ''And we use them for fish bait.'' Marauders of Gor, page 62

Oar Dance

"The Forkbeard then, to the delight of those on the bank, who cheered him, as the serpent
edged into the dock, addressed himself delightedly to the oar-dance of the rover
of Torvaldsland. It is not actually a dance, of course, but it is an athletic feat of no little
stature requiring a superb eye, fantastic balance and incredible coordination. Ivar
Forkbeard, crying out, leaped from moving oar to moving oar, proceeding from the oars
nearest the stem on the port side to the stern, then leaping back onto the deck at
the stern quarter and leaping again on the oars this time on the starboard side, and
proceeding from the oar nearest the stern to that nearest the stem, and then, lifting his
arms, he leaped again into the ship, almost thrown into it as the oar lifted. He then stood
on the prow, near me, sweating and grinning. I saw cups of ale, on the bank, being
lifted to him. Men cheered. I heard the cries of bond-maids. Marauders of Gor, page 82, 82

Ivar Forkbeard's Serpent

The ship was a beautiful ship, sleek and well-lined. It was a twenty-bencher, but this
nomenclature may be confusing. There were twenty benches to a side, with two men to
each bench. It carried , thus, forty oars, with two men to each bench. It carried, thus, forty
oars, with two men to each aor. Tersites of Port Kar, the controversial inventor
and shipwright, had advocated more than one man to an oar but, generally, the southern
galleys utilized one man per oar, three oars and three men on a diagonal bench,
facing aft, the oars staggered, the diagonality of the bench permitting the multiplicity of
levers. The oars were generally some nineteen feet in length, and narrower than the
southern oars, that they might cut and sweep with the great speed, more rapidly than the
wider bladed oar; and with two men to each oar, and the lightness of the ship,
this would produce great speed. As in the southern galleys the keel to beam ratio was
designed, too, for swiftness, being generally in the neighborhood of one to eight.
Forkbeard's ship, or serpent as they are sometimes called, was approximately eighty feet
Gorean in length, with the beam of some ten feet Gorean. His ships, like most
northern ships, did not have a rowing frame, and the rowers sat within in hull proper,
facing, of course aft. The thole ports, I noted, had covers on the inside, on swivels,
which permitted them to be closed when the ship was under sail. The sail was quite
different from the southern ships, being generally squarish, though somewhat wider at
the bottom. The mast, like that of the southern ships, could be lowered. It fitted into two
blocks of wood, and was wedged in the top of the block by means of a heavy,
diagonal wooden plug, driven tight with hammers. The northern ship carries one sail, not
the several sails, all lateens, of the southern ships, which must be removed and
replaced. It was an all purpose sail, hung straight from a spar of needle wood. It can be
shortened or let out by reefing ropes. At its edges, corner spars can hold it spread
from the ship. I doubted that such a ship could sail as close to the wind as a lateen-rigged
ship but the advantages of being able to shorten or let out sail in a matter of
moments were not inconsiderable. The sail was striped, red and white. Marauders of Gor,
page 31

The sail was striped, red and white. The ship like most of the northern ships, was clinker
built, being constructed of overlapping planks, or strakes, the frame then fitted
within them. Between the strakes, tarred ropes and tar served as calking. Outside the
planks, too, was a coating of painted tar, to protect them from the sea, and the
depredations of ship worms. The tar was painted red and black, in irregular lines. The
ship, at night, mast down with such colorings, moving inland on a river, among the
shadows, would be extremely difficult to detect. It was a raider’s ship. The clinker-built
construction, as opposed to the carvel construction of the south, with flush planking, is
somewhat more inclined to leak, but is much stronger in the high waters of the north. The
clinker construction allows the ship to literally bend and twist, almost elastically, in
a vicious sea; the hull planking can be bent more than a foot Gorean without buckling. The
decking on the ship is loose, and may be lifted or put to one side, to increase
cargo space. The ship, of course, is open. To protect goods or men from the rain or sun a
large rectangle of boskhide, on stakes, tentlike, stretched to cleats on the
gunwales, is sometimes used. This same rectangle of boskhide, may be used, dropped
between the gunwales, to collect rainwater. At night the men sleep on the deck, in
waterproof bags, sewn from the skins of the sea sleen; in such a bag , also, they store their
gear, generally beneath their bench. In some such ships, the men sit not on
benches but on their own large locked sea chests, fixed in place, using them as benches.
Marauders of Gor, page 32

Forkbeard and I sat in the shade, under a tented awning of sewn boskhides, some thirty-
five feet in length. It begins aft of the mast, which is set forward. It rests on four
poles, with two long, narrow poles, fixed in sockets, mounted in tandem fashion, serving
as a single ridge pole. These poles can also be used in pushing off, and thwarting
collisions on rocks. The bottom edges of the tented awning are stretched taut and tied to
cleats in the gunwales. There is about a foot of space between the gunwales and
the bottoms of the tented awnings, permitting a view to sea on either side. Marauders of
Gor, page 58

The Black Sleen, Ship of Thorgard of Scagnar

''Thorgard is quite proud of his great longship,'' he said, ''the serpent called Black Sleen.''
I had heard of the ship.
''It has a much higher freeboard than this vessel,'' I told Ivar Forkbeard. ''It is a warship,
not a raider. In any engagement, you would be at a disadvantage.''
later...

''It has forty benches,'' said Ivar Forkbeard. Eighty oars, one hundred and sixty rowers.''
The benches on only side are counted. ''But her lines are heavy, and she is a
weighty ship.'' Marauders of Gor, page 71