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Phoenicians used galleys for trade that were less elongated, carried fewer oars and relied more on sails. Carthaginian trade galley wrecks found off Sicily that date to the 3rd or 2nd century BC had a length to breadth ratio of 6:1, proportions that fell between the 4:1 of sailing merchant ships and the 8:1 or 10:1 of war galleys. [26]
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 ...
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.
From galleys used in the 16th to 18th centuries AD, it is known that the maximum number of men that can operate a single oar efficiently is eight. [13] Further, Casson writes that the oars were the proper length for no more than eight rowers. [14]
THE COUNTDOWN: D-Day marked the beginning of the end of the Second World War, a period of our history captured on screen in all its guts and glory. Graeme Ross sticks his head above the parapet...
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.
The accepted view is that the main developments which differentiated the early dromons from the liburnians and that henceforth characterized Mediterranean galleys, were the adoption of a full deck (katastrÅma), the abandonment of the rams on the bow in favor of an above-water spur and the gradual introduction of lateen sails. [5]