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Can someone explain what it means by:

> The keel was sealed with horse blood in keeping with Finnish tradition

I tried googling “keel horse blood” but didn’t find anything useful.

Blood and other binding agents are combined with fibrous material that gets pushed into the cracks between wood planks. Much more commonly done with types of tars and heavy oil.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakum

https://www.google.com/search?q=caulking%20ship%20wood%20rop...

Sounds made up. Finnish boat-sealing tradition is all about pine tar.

Yeah, and I'm not all that sanguine about calling that boat "seaworthy" either.

Sealing with something that's soluble in water does sound like a silly idea.

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