the prototype of the stepped hull?

a pbs show I was watching in Europe was attributing this to the Viking ships high speeds
said it got air under the hull

Like all Viking ships, the longship, was constructed using the clinker design. This means it was planked using two centimetre thick oak boards which were overlapped slightly and then nailed together with iron nails.

I understood the first use was on water planes! The pontoons were steped. Humm.

OMG you're right, look:

http://users.wolfcrews.com/toys/vikings

Those look more like lifting strakes to me.

This is correct. They used to burn these boats (if they didn't sink) to get the nails back out. They burned homes for the same reason. Nails were like gold in them there days. The sea plane is where the modern idea came to performance boats but air entrapment is an old idea.

It wasn't that long ago that nails were still so expensive that most contractors brought their young sons out to the job site, and would have them pull out nails from the demolition jobs. Then they would sit in a circle, straighten, sort for size and box the old nails. I worked with an old general contractor that during the depression he would go to the job site with his father and gather old nails.

I saw the same program a while back. Gee, Reggie is older than we thought.
Maybe on his record run instead of working the throttles he was beating a great big drum!

Yup!

Yeah ... I was gonna say ... "Did this Viking have bad hair and wear a black jogging suit ?"

Now THAT was funny.