Time Team Special The Boats That Made Britain

Tony Robinson joins a team of experts as they strive to reconstruct the Dover Boat and so unlock the secrets of this mysterious time in our past

[@Martin_Skywatcher]

How nice to see a Time Team special, almost two years after the series ended. I really mis that program. Somehow I did not get to see this special. Thanks for putting it up here.

[@rogerwilco2]

Martin Skywatcher Time Team is one of my favourites as well.

[@PibrochPonder]

It’s a shame that the later ones started to get team members who were not that good but were clearly only their to tick the diversity box. It really lowered the quality of the show.

[@Nirrrina]

Just goes to show our ancient elders actually were smart and knew what they were doing. They were masters of their trade. Skilled & genius artisans.

[@wm5sturgis]

I does somewhat demonstrate, if you are going to get someone to build you a large boat, you want to know they have had a few years success building boats before you ask them to build a large boat for you.

[@jimplummer4879]

Of course through trial and error .

[@joanfourie1753]

Phil makes me scream with laughter 😂

[@22101museum]

Thanks again for another download, Reijer. I am addicted to Time Team.

[@bretnielsen5502]

I have learned so much from Time Team over the years.

[@bbbrewin]

Thanks so much for this and all you're time team uploads. Living in the U.S. as I do, I never had the chance to watch Time Team. Cheers to you Reijer!

[@renehulzebos3144]

Mooie serie, (vooral de experimentele archeologie) de mudlarking serie is ook interessant kun je misschien ook nog Tudor monastery, of building the castle toevoegen😊

[@PaulMahon-s8h]

Thanks will check them out😊

[@kikufutaba1194]

I love when they do these projects. I find the ancients fascinating and amazing. Thank you for posting and editing.

[@kindcounselor]

Always wonderful to see Phil!

[@janetsanders5356]

Yes, makes it time team

[@polygamous1]

A brilliant project people with great sense of humour and No time lapse photography many thanks for posting this excellent video

[@crispincain5373]

Thank you for sharing this delightful TT special. I have enjoyed all the Time Team episodes I have watched so far!

[@cdfdesantis699]

Absolutely amazing boat! Nice to see the ancient build succeed, where the more modern tweaks failed.

[@caturdaynite7217]

On the first build I knew the caulk wouldn't work. We call it caulk in America, mastic is for laying down flooring here in the states, it is used as an adhesive. Caulk isn't really meant for that application. It is meant to keep rain out or moisture out, but not water under pressure. I appreciate that they did have a second try and went back to the old way of sealing the boat. This was very entertaining. Phil was a gas as usual. I could see Phil in a pub in Calais. Or anywhere for that matter. Where there is a pub, there is Phil.

[@wm5sturgis]

Having seen a few wooden boat repairs, tricks of the trade include, after assemble, wetting down the boards to get the joints to swell up. Using a synthetic cordage was a big flaw too. Organic cordage will also swell, reducing the opportunity for leaks. Getting the joints to swell takes many days and you would be making minor adjustments as the days go by including tightening up the cordage.

[@englishmaninfrance661]

Totally brilliant programme . That gold was amazing , and the boat superb - eventually :)

[@jeffreymcneal1507]

To a degree, the swelling of the planks when in water would mitigate some of the leakage, which is why wooden vessels are left in the water once in the water. Hauling them out causes wood to dry and seams to open. They could have tested for leaks before the launch by simply using a garden hose to put water in the interior and see where it was running out and how fast. Roughly the same technique for testing of early steam chests. The Bronze Age, as is stated, heralded an explosion of technology. It is hard to comprehend the insight of the ancients when it comes to making stuff from what they dug from the Earth and chopped out of the forests.

[@wm5sturgis]

Jeffery, We used the hose method when I was a kid, getting our little boat back into shape, stuffing the cracks with rags before running the hose for days.

[@Queequeg61]

Common practice in wooden boat building is to fill the boat with water and let the wood swell before you launch.

[@darlenekovach7983]

Stop risking life and limb.. Wonderful program! THANK YOU!

[@adamsjerome1839]

This episode shows how the concentration of humans in Britain, Europe and the Mediterranean combined with the move from hunter-gatherers to farming caused a rapid growth of technology.

[@robchilders]

Thanks so much. I've been watching your channel for a while now and love Time Team. As the reason the first test failed is pretty obvious to anyone who has ever worked on old wooden boats. They didn't cork it. Pretty basic thing for a wooden hull. Pounding oakum in the cracks.

[@petersattler3454]

Cork xx Caulk..

[@granskare]

a great achievement; it is super to see Time Team again:)

[@stephenodell3861]

I think that this shows how much we have underestimated the skills and knowledge of the agent people as well as we have done with people from other places.

[@MossyMozart]

@Stephen Odell - As well as the ANCIENT people! In sincerity, the farther back we look, the more sophisticated and creative we find our are ancestors to have been. They were not dirty, struggling brutes at all.

[@briangodfrey7424]

@@MossyMozart Agreed. They were at least as intelligent as we are today. But technological advances accumulate gradually and so their more primitive technologies are sometimes misinterpreted as them being dumber. I'm sure that their craftsmen probably spanned the range from crude hackers to masters, just as ours do today. I'm 68 years old and many of the things that seemed very modern and high-tech to me in my youth are now pathetic and out-dated. And the most ultra modern stuff of today will suffer the same fate in just a few decades. Someday our descendants will look back on us. Hopefully at least some of them will realize that we're not just dirty, struggling brutes, too.

[@petrairene]

Hey, great that you still update new videos :-)))

[@TJackSurvival]

This whole video was just amazing.

[@michaelmazowiecki9195]

Dry timber needs to absorb and swell thus temporarily "sinking" the boat to thoroughly soak it would close the leaks.

[@neoclassic09]

pack the joins between each plank with slightly heated wax or the fat mixture, push together, then let it dry after it seeps into the gaps

[@aislinngraves4291]

Fascinating special!

[@mkilner]

so good to see this!...Thanks! 😀

[@ant4812]

Haven't seen this one. Thanks.

[@jbug13158]

Maybe they need more than a "team" of experts, like a community for such a project, with each individual sharing knowledge and collecting and making the parts.

[@51WCDodge]

Expert= Adrip under pressure, perfect description for that lot.

[@adamsjerome1839]

The onset of bronze age made the world shrink dramatically.

[@MB5rider81]

The boats that made Britain... Give it to me

[@brandonpliskin2310]

Phil’s dad shoes! Nike monarchs!

[@waynejones8481]

I'm totally surprised being they had a shipwright there that the didn't know the boat could leak for a couple days, they built her out of dry wood that has to swell up by soaking up water and therefore help seal up the joints and make her strong and tight.

[@opalprestonshirley1700]

Awesome show. Thanks

[@juliejohnson2196]

This brings to mind Julius Caesar's account of the Venetti ships on the coast of western Gaul. Perhaps another project...that is if we have a Venetti shipwreck to work from.

[@gavinwallace5703]

Who ever had the idea vor this show was as they would have said bang on the money. It would have been a nice idea if they had made some specials touring more of Europe.

[@MossyMozart]

@Gavin Wallace - Next, they could build a full-sized Dover Boat and tour Europe's coastlines and rivers in THAT!

[@joanfourie1753]

Poor guys i do admire them for not giving up👍

[@egparis18]

Thank you for uploading.

[@chriscodrington5464]

shame they didn't know it was common to allow a wooden hull to swell her seams over night or for as long as a week. Also bog water was commonly used to soak green lumber prior to bending

[@PaulMahon-s8h]

Really I'm interested in it something to do withe the chemicals in the waters that allows it to become more elastic that is interesting. I thought the steam way was a lot of work, water soaked like that is interesting 😊

[@apibeeman]

Well I heard from a very old boat maker that when they launched a wooden boat they would toss sawdust into the water underneath it which would go into the holes and expand blocking the leaks.

[@BC-ui9yt]

hmm. Interesting.

[@stanalbatross8615]

Just imagine how it would have gone if they used it with people who could actually paddle

[@MossyMozart]

@Stan Albatross - I know! They even had a passenger that sat there without paddling at all. And the man at the end was correct - they could have used fewer people in the boat.

[@lizzy66125]

So glad they managed it in the end👏👏

[@meowwl]

Looks like they forgot to put the moss and beeswax caulking in BETWEEN the planking at the bottom...And that nylon stretches when it's wet!

[@alyciahatton2038]

This is amazing!

[@johnspahr1679]

What a phenomenol program!

[@hobbexp]

fun to see robin wood in action,,,

[@ramonaausterman9620]

So, a California girl here...our First People of the California Coastal Tribes sewed their 'tomols' together, too!!! Yup!

[@paulsugerik3389]

I remember older wood boats took a lone time to put into water. They had to swell the joints. They all took on water at first

[@Hemulen40]

Fantastic film , fanks !

[@karmakshantivyapini4734]

"Ground breaking Archeology?" Tony, is there any other kind?

[@PennWolfsSailingAdventures]

Kind of funny how they thought using modern materials that do not expand for a shortcut would work. They should have asked a shipwright, they might have learned how you have to pre expand wooden craft before launch or all you get is leaks.

[@christina1wilson]

Thank you!

[@Bezzell_Rocket]

Thank you.

[@faramund9865]

Wonderful

[@Beemer917]

They finally gave up their unsuccessful solar helicopters and started making boats!

[@PaulMahon-s8h]

That's funny, I like it 😂

[@Thirdbase9]

It's always funny to hear Phil complaining about "modern" materials. He considers Copper and Bronze to be modern.

[@nicovisser6204]

Blij dat je door gaat.

[@robertbowers9856]

"A people joined by the sea rather than separated by it." Perhaps by by Doggerland ancestry?

[@michaelg7076]

How much tech came from the age of Doggerland with these changes just a few thousand years after the great collapse.

[@dec211979]

Thank you

[@SimonElenor]

The shipwright should have known that the wood needs to swell to seal correctly. Too dry and it can take weeks to fully swell.

[@paulanthonybalistrieri5978]

A very interesting film.

[@carmelpule6954]

The workmanship is excellent but I have some serious doubt about one aspect of the boat. Because hogging and sagging when a boat tackles a wave , the midship sides are subjected to a lot of punishment. I see a vertical joint in the sides of the sides of the boat and these are jointed with a few turns of that primitive rope. I while the bottom is made of a long plank, it moment of inertia about the vertical is not good enough and the sides acting as powerful beams are the elements that have to stand the hogging and sagging. If above the central joint at the centre of the vertical sides there was another longeron tied above the the joint where it projects above the parts which make the sides, the half sides would be tied together much better than with the rope and the longerons on top of the joint of the sides with the bottom planks. The sides could have been made to be much more powerful beams with a little more effort. Apart from that the workmanship and the perseverance and the spirit of those people working together in such a tight schedule, I wish I was amongst them working with them as I come from a family of traditional med. boat builders and seeing this video touched my soul and spirit and reminded me of my uncles who worked with the same tools I say in this video. Congratulations to all.

[@nunya7502]

+Carmel Pule' I think you're right...I'm hardly the expert you are but the whole thing does seem to be lacking a few bits of bracing. I also suspect that she'd need a fair compliment of buckets. It seems that I recall reading how until about the time of the Elizabethan era, lots European hulls were still prone to springing in a moderate swell weren't they?

[@samuelfletcher1773]

Carmel Pule' your a piece of poop💩

[@johnfisk811]

A baling device (gourd, bark bucket, scoop etc. are commonplace on log and on plank canoes in less developed craft today as a practical solution to minor leaking and wave splashing. As long as your boat takes in water slower than a small boy can bale it out all is well. The side beams will be rigid as long as the withies can clamp them and the withies swell and tighten when wet to make the joints tighter than when first put in. Coir rope sewn boats of the Indian Ocean will stretch a little when put in and need some leverage to make them tight when first put in.

[@johnfisk811]

No cause for that sort of language Samuel whatever your opinion. It tells us more about you than about Carmel.

[@kathilisi3019]

I don't know much about boats, but it seems to me that since this is a scaled-down model, it wouldn't handle the same as the full-size real thing. The different weight distribution of the rowers, the cargo, and the increased overall dimensions would probably make the bigger boat more seaworthy than the scale model looks in the demonstration. To be honest, while they seem happy that it works, I wouldn't dare to cross the channel in that thing.

[@annafaber4007]

This is enormus

[@toallofus]

brilliant

[@williameddlewis4625]

did they forget about wood swelling!?!?!?!? come on tony!!!

[@faramund9865]

"Robin Wood" BAHAHHAHA

[@davidmunro1469]

That boat equals a million chops with bronze tools. WOW.

[@suemonk5064]

Just wondered if the channel was as wide as it now between Dover an Calais back then? May be not quite as dangerous as it is now.

[@lizzy66125]

they say about the connection with Etaple in France,were there every any boats like this found in France?

[@hansjohansson8053]

👍🇸🇪❤️

[@DavidGodwin57]

I keep wondering who taught these academics how to row? You row together as a team! Come on guys you can do it!

[@505197]

Perhaps the boat was not constructed in England, but rather in France.

[@gabrielbouvier7763]

Try a Coiin Archer. Not criticising, just other developmemts . Cracìng great video.

[@51WCDodge]

An Expert traditonal Shipwright? Using nylon and expecting a new wooden boat not to leack? Any wooden boat is delibratley submerged for a month and allowed to swell. The same would happen with the ties, they swell to become waterproof. Though all wooden boats leack.

[@jeffreymcneal1507]

Three thousand years ago there is this explosion of technology around the globe. Rome did not yet exist. The geometric progression of technology in the Bronze Age alone is hard to comprehend. But there it is.

[@susicolin5076]

Instead of using nylon ropes, a natural material capable pf swelling when wet, would have solved the problem. Likewise the swelling of the wood would have prevented leakage. It would, however, be necessary to allow some time for the boat in the water to achieve this. A look at ancient boats from the Red and Arabian Sea, which also used the method of sewing planks together would have helped.

[@wewenang5167]

WELL THE BRONZE AGED PEOPLE THAT LIVE ON THE COAST OF FRANCE AND IBERIA WOULD HAVE PROBABLY LEARNED HOW TO BUILT OCEAN GOING BOAT FROM A MIDDLE EASTERN TRADERS. BECAUSE PHOENICIAN TRADERS HAS BEEN TRADING WITH IBERIA AND CORNWALL FOR AGES. IN CORNWALL THEY EVEN FOUND A PHONETICIAN WRITINGS ON A ROCK. NOT TO MENTION THE SOUTHERN TIP OF IBERIA HAS BEEN PART OF THE PHOENICIAN COLONIES. IN ANCIENT TIMES MOST OF THE TIN IN THE LEVANT ACTUALLY CAME FROM CORNWALL, SCIENTIST HAS TESTED IT. SO WE KNOW FOR A FACT PHOENICIAN TRADERS HAS BEEN TO CORNWALL AND ALL OVER THE COAST OF WESTERN EUROPE IN THE BRONZE AGE. IT WAS THE PHOENICIAN WHO CONTROL ALL THE TRADES ROUTES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEAS DURING BRONZE AGE BEFORE THE ROMAN TOOK OVER IT 1000 YEARS LATER. THE ROMAN EVEN COPIED BOAT BUILDING TECHNIQUE FROM THE PHOENICIANS.

[@drevil4454]

maybe that is why the Dover boat was moored. It also leaked upon launch?

[@oldhaggys]

I wonder if this time will be called the "smart stupid period" by future archeologists...

[@TheShootist]

no tony it doesn't look like a sculpture

[@WendyDarling1974]

I love how they learned they can’t cheat.

[@thinguyen8744]

excuse me, is there anyway you can upload the subtitle of this movie? Not an English speaker, I find it hard to follow some parts. Thank you very much.

[@JonFrumTheFirst]

I assume they used people from their museum, rather than people who knew what they were doing. Experimental archaeology with nylon rope and synthetic adhesive? If you don't have the time or the money to do it, don't do it.

[@Realroyrogers]

This appears to be the last upload from Reijer Zaaijer

[@kevinmcneill468]

Caulking goes from the outside in not from the inside out

[@cernunnos_lives]

Yeah. No Ancient Aliens needed

[@kevinmurphy65]

Have to stop thinking of our ancestors as "barbarian", they were anything but.

[@GregSchmidt711]

35:30 Me thinks Phil Harding might have Dyslexia. One hand winds and the other unwinds. Hence, no twisting. It's nice to know that I'm not alone! :D

[@barbmcconnaughey3070]

He was opposite Robin, therefore twisting the wrong direction.

[@Geeraffe]

not uncommon for a new wood boat to leak - and the easiest way is to let it sink let the wood swell and then its watertight , so why did they not do that?

[@nunya7502]

+Gee Raffe Seems they planned the time frame poorly. A wooden hull can take weeks, even months to be properly snug.

[@WR3ND]

That's the problem with "reality" (hyped, convoluted drama) type stuff like this with time limitations and other artificial restraints and influences. People needed a serviceable boat back then, not to try and prove a point, nor even make an argument for one. The priorities are all wrong.

[@kevinmcneill468]

A wooden boat needs to take up.leave it in the water

[@ulfpe]

Similar boots in Denmark

[@mikesemon7392]

Tuathe De Danaan

[@buddylight2191]

Someone should have invented the bilge pump?

[@MossyMozart]

@BUDDY LIGHT - Somebody did.

[@user-yr5nv2gv7m]

Wood Age

[@mikesemon7392]

These were the ancient sea people's and the mythical Tuathe DE Dannan. The Denyens who raided Egypt, the Daniens from the Illiad, the sons of Tuirean from Irish legend.

[@MossyMozart]

@Mike Semon - Sources?

[@4331550686]

look at how arabs in oman and india did waterproof those logs !!!

[@yesh3]

We know who you are, Bronze!

[@peggyt1243]

Obviously boats capable of crossing the English channel existed long before the Dover boat. Think about it. How did the original people of Britain get to the island from the mainland; they did not swim and they did not walk.

[@8698gil]

+peggyt1243 Britain was was part of the mainland. People did walk there.

[@peggyt1243]

+Karen Michaud You are right. "as recently as 8,000 years ago it was joined to the continent by a strip of low marsh leading to what are now Denmark and the Netherlands". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain

[@lesliewoods1355]

+peggyt1243 two words, Ice age

[@kevingee4294]

peggyt1243 DOGGERLAND FOREVER!!!!!!!!!

[@Jasper180]

Time Team mandem