Testing of the reconstructed boat on water

Boat launched.

The boat measures approx. 6.5 m length, 1.35 m maximal width, 40 cm maximal depth. She weights around 100 kg, two men can lift her and carry. Лодка имеет длину приблизительно 6.5м, наибольшую ширину 1.35м, глубину 40 см.

She behaves in a rather unusual way on water, in comparison to modern crafts. At first one feel scared , as the boat is extremely weak and unstable. The bottom is so thin, that it is better to step onto the ribs or on the exact middle over the false keel. It is difficult (and dangerous!) to keep balance when standing upright in so unstable a craft, and, if the balance is lost, it might be disastrous to recover it by a sure hard sideways step -- your foot might go right trough the weak bottom. Nevertheless, after some half an hour one would get used to this behavior and starts to see her advantages: as always, her strength is in her weakness -- the boat is very light on oars, it is possible to row at almost 6 kph speed for hours. Perhaps, speed of walking ca. 5 kph plays some threshold role with human perception, when a boat is rowed below it, one feel working too hard and moving too slow, but, surpassing this speed, he starts to feel cheerful and like going further and further. Longest journey was 30 km long on map, done in less then 6 hours without much exhaustion. When the rower is properly seated, the boat becomes stable enough and quite seaworthy -- with her lightness and high freeboard tall waves from big ferries passing close seem to be no danger. There were two leaking cracks in the bottom from the beginning, which were stopped with spruce gum. Periodically they started to leak again, but, thanks to the boat lightness water pressure is not so high, and it was possible to stop a crack again on water. In some emergency case leaking would not be so fast even through a big hole, and the boat would be able to reach closest shore.

Stern view

Another advantage of lightness must become apparent if a boat has to be dragged over some land track, between different river systems, or bypassing rapids. It could be a crucial point with this type of boats, but no such experiments were done yet.

Such a fragile boat would certainly be damaged sooner or later against some rocks, and will need a repair. The original had as many as four big cracks in the bottom, their length up to 4 meters. They were patched with thin wooden lathes, sewn from inside. (Though, it is not clear how those lathes were inserted between ribs and hull, as they were. Either the bottom cracked during expanding and was repaired before ribs were fitted in, or the boat once underwent serious repair with her ribs taken out.) Anyway, it seems that her ancient owners used to take damage and repair easy, as something inevitable, and were sure to find all the necessary material -- such as roots, moss, and wooden sticks right near the place of accident. Of course, one have to keep a bailing bucket always in the boat, and have some tools, a knife, at least, and caulking material, moss and tar or gum.