Sailing the Bremen Cog

The 14th-century Bremen Cog is the only near-complete representative of a type of large ship with a single square-sail which dominated North European waters for c. 200 years. The evaluation of sailing properties, seaworthiness, potential and characteristics of two replicas is made by professional seamen who have taken them to their limits. Their judgements need to be recorded now, or they will be forgotten especially as systematic tests and sea-trials have been limited and documentation lost. The replicas' captains' expert opinion on the Bremen Cog as a sea-going vessel is a rare case of long-term evaluation of a large-scale experimental-archaeology project.
© 2009 The Authors