The large rowing and sailing galleys of the Mediterranean were fine-weather ships, it being the custom to suspend merchant voyages, naval expeditions, and piracy in that sea during the winter months. Obviously, such vessels were wholly unsuited to the Atlantic coasts of Western Europe. The western coasts of Spain, France and Portugal produced a ship, short and broad, and strong enough to be beached even when a moderate sea was running. This model was seemingly copied by the English of the south coast, and vessels of this type, built in the eighth century, were planked and carried high, erect stemposts and sternposts. The vessels were single-masted and fitted with a yard and square sail, and the steering was effected by a large oar at the stern. They were not unlike the Viking ships in some respects, but they were of less average length and broader in proportion, having bluffer bows, a less fine entry, and a long flat floor extending farther aft than did that of the northern ships. Some also had a ram. [Illustration: VIKING SHIP FOUND AT GOKSTAD, SOUTH NORWAY. _Photograph: O. Vaering, Christiania._] What may be regarded as the first great national step in British shipbuilding was inaugurated in the latter part of the ninth century, when King Alfred saw that in order to beat the Danes he must meet them with ships superior in size and strength to their own. His war galleys were virtually double the size of those of the invaders, and in some instances almost double their length. The Gokstad ship, by no means one of the largest of its type, had sixteen oars a side. If Alfred’s boats had thirty oars or more a side, as is stated, and were double-banked--that is, two men to each oar--like those of his foes, the fighting strength of the individual ships of his navy must have been very great.