But any small naval resources which England possessed in the second half of the ninth century seemed hopelessly inadequate to impose the least check on the Danes. The invaders came in squadrons numbered by the hundred vessels. Even after Alfred had begun to take in hand a scheme for building a regular fleet, the English ships were only counted in tens or scores. In our own days a power possessing some few vessels, and expecting invasion, would turn them to use by setting them to watch for the enemy, discover him, and give early knowledge of his approach, or to follow his course and divine his intentions. But such tactics demand vessels that can keep the sea for long spaces of time and in any weather. Neither English nor Danish galleys were suited for such work: they preferred coasting voyages, and touched the shore frequently, creeping from cape to cape and from isle to isle. The only voyage across a broad and open sea was that which was made when a Viking fleet ran straight across from the southwestern cape of Norway instead of coasting along the Danish and Frisian shore. The Scandinavians were daring seamen, but their skill and pluck was shown rather by the way in which they felt their way along dangerous, rock-bound coasts, like those of the Hebrides or Western Ireland, than by passages across the high seas. For such crossings they waited for long spells of fine weather, in order to run the least possible risk. This was only natural, for their ships were but long, light, undecked vessels, depending mainly on their twelve or sixteen oars a side, and only using their sails when the wind set fair. To face a really serious Atlantic storm they were wholly unfitted, and even the rough weather of the Channel could be too much for them. In 877 a whole fleet of a hundred and twenty ships was wrecked near Swanage on the cliffs of the Isle of Purbeck. It was no wonder that they preferred to pick their weather, and to hug the shore, in order that they might run into the nearest haven when a tempest seemed at hand. The seamanship of the English was undoubtedly inferior to that of the Scandinavians in the ninth century, and we may guess that in handiness as well as in numbers they were wholly unable to vie with their enemies before Alfred’s day.