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Ancient war galleys of the kind used in Classical Greece are by modern historians considered to be the most energy-efficient and fastest of galley designs throughout history. A full-scale replica of a 5th-century BC trireme, the Olympias was built 1985–87 and was put through a series of trials to test its performance. They proved that a ...
USS Washington was a lateen-rigged, two-masted galley in the service of the Continental Congress during the American Revolutionary War. Washington was capable of propulsion by sail or by the rowing of oarsmen. During a battle with British warships, Washington "struck her colors" and was captured by the British.
A row galley was a term used by the early United States Navy for an armed watercraft that used oars rather than sails as a means of propulsion. During the age of sail , row galleys had the advantage of propulsion while sail boats might be stopped or running at slow speed because of lack of wind for their sails.
USS Washington was a large row galley, with a rowing crew of 60, that was placed into service under the control of the Continental Congress in 1776. During this age of sail, row galleys were highly maneuverable compared to sailing ships whose movements were dependent on the wind.
In the ancient Mediterranean, galley rowers were mostly free men, and slaves were used as rowers when manpower was in high demand. In the Middle Ages and the early modern period, convicts and prisoners of war often manned galleys, and the Barbary pirates enslaved captives as galley slaves. During the 18th and 19th centuries, pirates in Asia ...
War galleys gradually began to develop heavier hulls with reinforcing beams at the waterline, where a ram would most likely hit. There are records of a counter-tactic to this used by Rhodian ship commanders where they would angle down their bows to hit the enemy below the reinforced waterline belt. Besides ramming, breaking enemy oars was also ...
Galleys were hardly used in the Elizabethan navy, [7] and it is not likely, therefore, that the galleys shown are of English provenance. It has been argued that for trading voyages, including those to the Iberian peninsula, the Irish would have used sturdy vessels of the caravel type, a view which finds support in the galleys shown.
Belisarius's fleet during the Vandalic War, as described by Procopius of Caesarea, was apparently at least partly fitted with lateen sails, making it probable that by that time the lateen had become the standard rig for the dromon, with the traditional square sail gradually falling from use in medieval navigation.