He dispels any idea that the Anglo-Saxons didn't use sails and makes a strong case for the Franks being a significant naval power. He demonstrates that there was always a seafaring aspect to the Germans and how this continued from the Roman period all the way through to the end of the book.

He makes a very worthy point about how Germanic seafaring has been squeezed out by the Vikings grabbing most of the attention and this book redresses the balance. When it comes to boats and seafaring he's very good.

This doesn't make it a bad book, but it does make it feel a bit limited in this aspect and I'm not convinced that I'd have paid £14.95 if I'd known the allocation of contents prior to purchase. As you can see from this breakdown, you don't really get a lot about Anglo-Saxon seafaring in here. The remaining 76 pages are all about the Franks and their naval affairs. Chapter 3 (33 pages) is where the Anglo-Saxons come into it properly and this concerns the Saxon Shore (4 pgs), from raiding to settlement (12 pgs), their ships (17 pgs) and then up to the Viking Age (3 pgs). The first 77 pages are about early Germanic seafaring, which does provide a background, but I'd not really class the Roman period as being dark age. This is a work about Frankish and Anglo-Saxon seafaring, published by Anglo-Saxon Books, yet the Anglo-Saxons don't feature as prominently in it as you may have hoped. Dark Age Naval Power – a reassessment of Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Seafaring Activity, by John Haywood, 1999, 187 pages

Anglo saxon ship construction