A project group of students of the college “Am breiten Teich” in Borna near Leipzig (Germany) dealt with the exploration of the pre- and early historic seafaring between 1996 and 1999. For the first time ever data about the leeboard sailing technique were to be gathered on the Mediterranean Sea with the help of experimental archaeology. Between 1997 and 1999 the project group built a reed boat on Sardinia for this purpose and tested it on the Mediterranean Sea. In order to construct the reed boat China reed was harvested on a renaturalized brown coal dumps and tied to big rolls. During the summer break of 1998 current members and ex students of the project group manufactured the massive body of the ship. However, the Saxon explorers were not able to finish the reed boat until spring 1999 in Alghero, a city in North Sardinia. After the many difficulties that resulted from the bad financial situation were overcome, sails could finally be set end of May 1999. The far away Canaries were the destination of this first journey of Abora 1. The explorers hit the sea with the goal to find out which contribution early seafaring made to the development and spreading of the first cultures.

The main challenge of this expeditions consisted in routing crossways and against the dominant winds with the help of the leeboard sailing technique of the carinaless reed boat for the first time.

The sailed courses finally confirmed what was only an assumption before: With favorable 3-4 wind forces and low wave heights Abora I was able to sail crossways to the wind. Under ideal conditions and on short routes Abora I reached even 80° on the wind.

However, a heavy sea however made of 20-30° was unavoidable. Starting from wind force 5 coursed between 115 and 125° over ground were reached.Unfortunately, Abora I was not able to tack against the wind because the pole was positioned too concentric. Because of this fact the reed boat turned too weather helm even without use of the bow leeboard.

Thus not all leeboards could be applied to reduce the drift from the course significantly and to head the reed boat against the wind. We tried to sail through the central Mediterranean Sea as long as possible but the weather changes and alternating winds in the West of the Mediterranean Sea, which typically occur in the summers, represented a big challenge.

Several times we couldn’t move forward because of a dead calm before the coast or we were captured by a strong wind. After the return our experimental data were analyzed and opposed to the previous interpretation of the old rock paintings and models.

The knowledge and the experiences of the Abora I expedition suffice to restrict the room for speculations about the navigability of prehistoric reed boats considerably. Preconceived doctrines about the limited maneuverability of stone age reed boats had to be corrected after our first expedition because the Abora I was able to sail 90° crossways to the wind. She provided the base for the following reed boat expeditions Abora II und Abora III.