Ship types.

These are the types I am primarily interested in, due to historical and gaming reasons:

Snekke
The Viking longship is perhaps the most famous ship type in history but they didn’t really exist as a single type of ship, but rather an entire family of very different craft. Snekke were the smallest of those that would traditionally be regarded as a ‘longship’. A typical Snekke might have a length of 17 metres, a width of 2.5 metres and a draught of only 0.5 metres. It would carry a crew of about 25 men.
Wikipedia: Longship
The disaster of the Ormen Friske.
Viking ship classes

Drage (or Drekkar)
The ‘dragon ships’ of Nordic legend. For a long time, there was some debate as to whether these giants actually existed, but now, Roskilde Vikingship museum has actually built one; Havhingsten (Sea Stallion). These ships were the battleships of their day, with lengths from 30 metres upwards. Some were said to be as long as fifty metres.
Illustration
Havhingsten (just look at the way she rises from the sea)

Knarr
This is the trading variant of the Viking longship and I’d imagine, probably the most common. Sometimes I wonder if there was always such a big difference between how Knarr and Snekke were used given that the Vikings were probably raiders or traders depending on circumstances, but whether or not Knarr were sometimes used for raiding, they were certainly built for trading. They were from 9 to 18 metres long and built fat and wide in order to hold as much cargo as possible.
The Skuldelev ships
Finds and replicas
Illustration

Cog
This is a ship type from the high medieval period, used especially by the Hanseatic League as a trading vessel in the northern European sea’s and all across Europe and in the Crusades as a troop carrier. Very few examples have survived and not much is known about the various types of cog that must have existed. The best-preserved Cog is the Bremen wreck, which measures 23.27 metre long, 7.62 metre wide, and 7.02 metre high to the top of the capstan on the castle deck. She holds 160 m³.
The Bremen Cog
The Cog
Images of a model Cog

Carrack/Nao
The European Carrack is a fifteenth century vessel and essentially a far more advanced vessel than the others in the list. It resembles the Cog, but has some significant differences. Its bow is blunt, it doesn’t have a clinker hull and it has a more comprehensive cabin arrangement (Indeed I’m not sure Cogs had cabins at all). Columbus’s flagship, the Santa Maria was a carrack measuring 18 metres in length.
The Carrack.
Wikipedia: Carrack
Wikipedia: Santa Maria

Dhow
This is an Arabic ship type that most probably derives its design from Asian ship types. It has lateen sails, comes in a variety of sizes and shapes and in some forms is still used today. Historically, Dhows were used for trade and fishing, but I have read of them being adapted for fighting purposes.
Dhow
The history & construction of the Dhow
Illustration

These aren't the only ship types I'm interested in. I'm also quite partial to the vessels of the Napoleonic period as well as the early ACW Ironclads, but I have no plans to build any models of thes elatter types. The Napoleonic ships in particular would be huge, extremely complex models with little scope for any gaming possibilities... at least not int he classic 28mm skirmish scale. At some point in the future, I'd love to try my hand at naval wargaming in 1/300 or 1/1200 scale