leee wrote: > On Friday 07 Aug 2009, Anders Gidenstam wrote: >> On Fri, 7 Aug 2009, leee wrote: >>> I'm just wondering how much hardwood there is in Sweden. >>> Sweden's Firs might have been ok for the masts and spars but >>> hardwood was needed for the hull and superstructure, typically >>> Oak for the keel and frames and other hardwoods for hull and >>> deck planking. Teak was especially favoured for deck planking >>> once trade had opened up the tropics. A relatively little >>> known fact is that Balsa is actually a hardwood :-) >> The oak supply was at least enough to supply the Swedish Navy for >> hundereds of years (though Swedish Pomerainia was also an >> important source during 1648 - 1815). AFAIK all oaks by law >> belonged to the crown and could, if not needed for the Navy, be >> exported to generate cash for the state (something often in short >> supply). >> >> Cheers, >> >> Anders > > Thanks for the intersting info. I guess Sweden's Oaks mainly came > from the extreme south? It wouldn't surprise me if Sweden imported > quite a bit of Oak. It also doesn't surprise me that all Oaks > belonged to the crown. It was almost essential for ship building > once the 'big' multi-decked vessels were developed (although some > of the 'traditional' long-boats were pretty big too) and a nation's > navy was it's primary security force around then; permanent > standing national armies didn't come in until quite a lot later. > > LeeE
To add some trivia on Swedish oak; In the 17th century the navy realized that the available oak woods were too small to meet demand. So, one of the kings back then, I forget which one, ordered planting of oak in Skåne (far south in Sweden 56 degrees N). The problem is of course that it takes a few hundred years before the trees get large enough and now the ship building technology has moved on. The upside is that we now have a few nice oak woods in Skåne. Cheers, Jari ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
