B&G | Tom Cunliffe | How did the vikings navigate the seas? 

Helge Ingstad was an Norwegian lawyer and adventurer, written many books about his adventures, also about the viking settlements in Greenland and Newfoundland.His wife, Anne Stine Ingstad was an archeologist, and they travelled several summers along the canadian atlantic coast looking for vinland, using the former resque boat Halten. They found the viking settlement at the west coast of Newfound Land which most probably was the Vinland from the sagas. Vin is the norrøn word for meadows, not meaning wine. Thank you for very interesting videos

What a wonderful storyteller you are! I can't imagine that voyage being recounted better. Thank you! 😊

Great yarn. You can't help but love Tom with his shock of white hair, walrus moustache and wonderful enchanting stories. Just a brilliant man.

One can't tell whether he's a lad, chap or a sire. Such a fine blend takes elegance and wisdom.

What a guy you are too Tom ! Where all lucky to have your storytelling. Your a National Treasure you are mate 👍

Bro all I did was pause the video at 2:04 with out looking at the screen and when I came back holy shit lmao.

Wonderfully infectious narration, I must find the audiobook if Tom is reading I think!

This dude can yarn! Whoa, that was good!

Fascinating. You can't imagine what it must've been like not knowing what was out there sailing night and day and to have that power of reasoning with so little to go by. Incredible. Ultimately simple solution but sure I and most people would've perished through ignorance! Thanks for telling the story Tom!

Ordered your book (Topsail & Battleaxe) after hearing this interview. Just started the chapter on Erik the Red. I enjoy your sense of humor and the book so far. Cheers from America. P.S. My ancestor is one of the first documented Norwegian settlers in the New World, Albert “Nordman” Andriessen.

A pleasure to listen to you as always Tom ! Just want to add about Helge Ingstad`s nationality ; Norwegian , not Danish.

A truly fabulous film, thank Tom always a great yarn, reminds me of great uncle Capt Winchester of Crosby!

Trust Tom to have a balanced opinion even on boats that aren’t his “cup of tea “ ! Loved this

Sir, you re more than fascinating! You are a delight for the listener. Thank You

👍Yet another cracking good yarn! Wish I could see the finer details of those voyages!

Awesomely fascinating story! Exceedingly gripping! Thank you!

They used a crystal sun stone which could position the sun even on a cloudy day . The crystal was spar and it works , Thanks for your stories Tom ,cheers ,John.

Fascinating - great story telling and fascinating history. May thanks.

Great! Thanks Tom

Awesome navigation skill in time of no charts , great video . Thanks Where did you get the map of Bjanl’s voyage as he saw it ?

Just beautiful 🙏

Great story told by a great sailor and story teller.

Nay, not national treasure, you're a Global Treasure.

Great story. Thank you.

" when you don't have these things, you become much more sensitive" that is absolutely true, remember when there was no GPS used to drive everywhere with just instructions and printed map, paying attention the road signs and the direction i came from, now i can't even go across twon without firing the GPS

Fabulous tale well told.

That was so interesting, thank you.

Great story telling. Very informative also. My late Father would have also enjoyed it. He once read of a sailing man who found himself on calm sea in which one could not tell the starry sky from its reflection in the mirror like sea. It was as if one was sailing through the stars. Have you ever experienced that Tom? Better yet, would be to experience that beneath the Northern Lights.

Well done Tom another great video! Have you ever read the Brendan Voyage by Tim Severn? A book about how Saint Brendan the navigator from Co Kerry in Ireland. Tim built a replica Currach and sailed it to Newfoundland over the course of 2 summers in the 70's.

Recently new methods of dating have given the spring of 1021 I think when the wood was cut down. I'll try and get the proper date, but it was a rather interesting article.

Fab !

So enjoyable and so interesting, thank you Tom 👍

Great history.

Tom you should absolutely do something with the new Time Team archeology series.

Have a copy of those vinland sagas on my bookshelf, visited his house on Iceland too :-)! It's worth noting that when the Viking's settled Greenland it was the beginig of the Medival warm period and the end coincided with the end of it. (If you're interested in the events of that I recommend the "Fall of Civilisations" youtube channel)

It’s like a grown up Jackernory. I must do that voyage myself one day.

Great video. I find that 'thumbs up at arm's length' is pretty reliable for 15 degrees or one hour of sun movement. (Summer is a bit more finicky because of the shallow angle the sun follows. How Ingmar Bergman ever got the chutzpah to title a Swedish movie "Smiles on a Summers Night" There's no real 'night' in Sweden in the summer). I can usually break this down into thirds so 5 degrees (So Bergan/Cape Farewell is North Star four thumbs up- probably +/- 5 degrees. Keep a bit north so you don't miss it... or notice when the currents change like the Polynesians.) I like paddling my sea kayak off Los Angeles in the fog. It's safe, I've got a compass and GPS on my phone, and if I take out my head phones and listen for the surf. What has never ceased to amaze and humble me for the past 16 years: I know the swell pattern, I know what the sea birds are doing -usually up and down the coast in the morning, and I know my paddle stroke is consistent enough to keep me on a straight track..... Without fail in a dense fog I can turn 90 degrees in less than a minute. Completely humbling. I read the Icelandic Sagas in the 1970s. Even then archeologists and historians had discovered that a lot of it was true. Since then even more of it has been proven to be true. Something I've always had a laugh about. Clearly 'Greenland' was marketing. So how are you going to top that? "Vineland" What do all Swedes born in the past 80 years want to do? Move to Spain. I had the pleasure of being in a discussion where two people were arguing whether the Vikings or Columbus were first when a Native American pointed out how ridiculous the discussion was. Also I tested Thumbs up 15 degrees with a bunch of students 12-15 years old and a few adults who wandered into my classroom. It worked very close for all of them. I drew a 15 degree angle on the board and students put their eye at the join and stuck out their arms.

A pdf of that chart would be a useful! 🧐

always a huge pleasure! Thank you Tom and crew!! *__/)__~

Deliberate error navigation, used that technique on many an occasion before the advent of electronic trickery. Recently met a guy stuck in the Solent for several weeks because his GPS had broken down, would you believe..

Tom, here's a thought - we always assume that the ancient mariners could estimate latitude but had to sail along a line of latitude to get to a destination, as longitude was unknown. However, using the fact that a full Moon is exactly true South at midnight local time (N. Hemisphere) might allow some calculation of longitude, although only once a month in theory. I'm going to do some experiments (pretending I don't know local time) as we have a full moon on the 27th of April this year.

Love the sea-monster on that chart :-)

Tom's two middle names are "Ripping Yarns". 🇬🇧 👌🏼 😉

😲💥⚡️👏👏👏

Correction: Helge Ingstad was a norwegian, not a dane!

Thanks, really interesting. I heard they had a semi transparent stone for navigation. Or was that a myth?

So Basically he got lost :)

How did they? Poorly. As not only that discovery of America was a cause of losing at sea but Scandinavians still have an old Norse word that roughly translates "lost at sea on a way to.." :)

Ho the original slave trader Vikings

Greetings from Petty Harbour, Newfoundland. Didn't know you've been to L'anse aux Meadows, Tom! And what a lovely vessel to have made the crossing in! Check out Farley Mowatt's book called The Farfarers (know as The Alban Quest in the UK). Mowatt's belief was that Iceland, Greenland and the Canadian Arctic and Newfoundland were visited and settled before the Vikings by people he calls the "Albans", from Shetland and the Orkneys, hunting walrus ivory. A fascinating book, that put a lot of Canadian archaeologists noses out of joint! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farfarers