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160-697: The name of the ship commemorated the Russian ship of the line Azov , the flagship of the Russian squadron in the Battle of Navarino . The name of that ship, in its turn, referred to the Azov campaigns of Peter the Great . After the battle Nicholas I of Russia decreed that after the retirement of Azov the Imperial Navy must perpetually have a ship named Pamyat Azova (English: The Memory of Azov ). The cruiser commissioned in 1890

320-767: A Fabergé egg , the Memory of Azov being made to commemorate this event. She made a visit to the French Navy in October 1893 in Toulon to reinforce the Franco-Russian Alliance . In 1906, during the First Russian Revolution , the crew of the cruiser mutinied while at Hara Bay near Reval . The ship subsequently was placed in reserve. In 1909 she was converted into a torpedo boat depot ship and renamed Dvina . The ship

480-462: A keel . To provide a stiffening along its length, they had large cables, trusses, connecting stem and stern resting on massive crutches on deck. They were held in tension to avoid hogging while at sea (bending the ship's construction upward in the middle). In the 15th century BC, Egyptian galley-like craft were still depicted with the distinctive extreme sheer, but had by then developed the distinctive forward-curving stern decorations with ornaments in

640-498: A battle involving chasing or manoeuvring. The 74 remained the favoured ship until 1811, when Seppings's method of construction enabled bigger ships to be built with more stability. In a few ships the design was altered long after the ship was launched and in service. In the Royal Navy, smaller two-deck 74- or 64-gun ships of the line that could not be used safely in fleet actions had their upper decks removed (or razeed ), resulting in

800-439: A common and legitimate occupation among ancient maritime peoples. The later Athenian historian Thucydides described it as having been "without stigma" before his time. The development of the ram sometime before the 8th century BC changed the nature of naval warfare, which had until then been a matter of boarding and hand-to-hand fighting. With a heavy projection at the foot of the bow , sheathed with metal, usually bronze ,

960-411: A disadvantage because they were not optimized for oar use. The galley did have disadvantages compared to the sailing vessel though. Their smaller hulls were not able to hold as much cargo and this limited their range as the crews were required to replenish food stuffs more frequently. The low freeboard of the galley meant that in close action with a sailing vessel, the sailing vessel would usually maintain

1120-448: A few notable exceptions, they were of little use in naval battles. King Erik XIV of Sweden initiated construction of the ship Mars in 1563; this might have been the first attempt of this battle tactic, roughly 50 years ahead of widespread adoption of the line of battle strategy. Mars was likely the largest ship in the world at the time of her build, equipped with 107 guns at a full-length of 96 metres (315 ft). Mars became

1280-459: A full complement of rowers ranging from 150 to 180 men, all available to defend the ship from attack, they were also very safe modes of travel. This attracted a business of carrying rich pilgrims to the Holy Land, a trip that could be accomplished in as little 29 days on the route Venice– Jaffa , despite landfalls for rest and watering, or to shelter from rough weather. Later routes linked ports around

1440-601: A galley is defined as a vessel relying primarily on oars, but which can also use sails when necessary, and which developed in the Mediterranean. "Galley" is also occasionally used as a generic term for any type of oared vessels that are larger than boats and with similar functions but which are built according to other shipbuilding traditions. It was only from the Late Middle Ages that a unified galley concept started to come into use. Ancient galleys were named according to

1600-696: A general term for oared warships or more specifically for the Mediterranean-style vessel. The term derives from the Medieval Greek galea , a smaller version of the dromon , the prime warship of the Byzantine navy . The origin of the Greek word is unclear but could possibly be related to galeos , the Greek word for dogfish shark . Throughout history, there has been a wide variety of terms used for different types of galleys. In modern historical literature,

1760-445: A height advantage. The sailing vessel could also fight more effectively farther out at sea and in rougher wind conditions because of the height of their freeboard. Under sail, an oared warship was placed at much greater risk as a result of the piercings for the oars which were required to be near the waterline and would allow water to ingress into the galley if the vessel heeled too far to one side. These advantages and disadvantages led

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1920-404: A lifetime of practice, while gunpowder weapons required considerably less training to use successfully. According to an influential study by military historian John F. Guilmartin, this transition in warfare, along with the introduction of much cheaper cast iron guns in the 1580s, proved the "death knell" for the war galley as a significant military vessel. Gunpowder weapons began to displace men as

2080-610: A long time, though in subordinate role and in particular circumstances. In the Italian Wars , French galleys brought up from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic posed a serious threat to the early English Tudor navy during coastal operations. The response came in the building of a considerable fleet of oared vessels, including hybrids with a complete three-masted rig, as well as a Mediterranean-style galleys (that were even attempted to be manned with convicts and slaves). Under King Henry VIII ,

2240-457: A major battle, where they played specialized roles. An example of this was when a Spanish fleet used its galleys in a mixed naval/amphibious battle in the second 1641 battle of Tarragona , to break a French naval blockade and land troops and supplies. Even the Venetians, Ottomans, and other Mediterranean powers began to build Atlantic style warships for use in the Mediterranean in the latter part of

2400-424: A much larger degree than before. Aside from warships the decrease in the cost of gunpowder weapons also led to the arming of merchants. The larger vessels of the north continued to mature while the galley retained its defining characteristics. Attempts were made to stave this off such as the addition of fighting castles in the bow, but such additions to counter the threats brought by larger sailing vessels often offset

2560-488: A number of ranked grades based on the size of the vessel and the number of its crew. The most basic types were the large commander "lantern galleys", half-galleys, galiots , fustas , brigantines , and fregatas . Naval historian Jan Glete has described these as a sort of predecessor of the later rating system of the Royal Navy and other sailing fleets in Northern Europe. Classicist Lionel Casson has applied

2720-618: A rearguard in fleet actions, similar to the duties performed by frigates outside the Mediterranean. They could assist damaged ships out of the line, but generally only in very calm weather, as was the case at the Battle of Málaga in 1704. They could also defeat larger ships that were isolated, as when in 1651 a squadron of Spanish galleys captured a French galleon at Formentera . For small states and principalities as well as groups of private merchants, galleys were more affordable than large and complex sailing warships, and were used as defense against piracy. Galleys required less timber to build,

2880-486: A reduced [sailing] rig rather than none at all, to make them sea-going ships.… The blockships were to be a cost-effective experiment of great value." They subsequently gave good service in the Crimean War . The French Navy , however, developed the first purpose-built steam battleship with the 90-gun Napoléon in 1850. She is also considered the first true steam battleship, and the first screw battleship ever. Napoléon

3040-481: A serious threat to sailing warships, but were gradually made obsolete by the development of full-rigged ships with superior broadside armament . Galleys were unsuitable in the wider ocean, far from land and bases of resupply. They had difficulty in rough weather. Their role as flexible cruisers and patrol craft in the Mediterranean was also taken over by xebecs and other oar-sail hybrids. Oars on ancient galleys were usually arranged in 15–30 pairs, from monoremes with

3200-465: A ship could incapacitate an enemy ship by punching a hole in its planking. The relative speed and nimbleness of ships became important, since a slower ship could be outmaneuvered and disabled by a faster one. The earliest designs had only one row of rowers that sat in undecked hulls, rowing against thole pins , or oarports, that were placed directly along the railings. The practical upper limit for wooden constructions fast and maneuverable enough for warfare

3360-505: A single galley battle occurred between the two great powers during this period, and virtually no naval battles between other nations either. During the War of the Spanish Succession , French galleys were involved in actions against Antwerp and Harwich , but due to the intricacies of alliance politics there were never any Franco-Spanish galley clashes. In the first half of the 18th century,

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3520-475: A single line of oars to triremes with three lines of oars in a tiered arrangement. Occasionally, much larger polyremes had multiple rowers per oar and hundreds of rowers per galley. Ancient shipwrights built galleys using a labour-intensive, shell-first mortise and tenon technique up until the Early Middle Ages. It was gradually replaced by a less expensive skeleton-first carvel method. The rowing setup

3680-518: A single mast and bank of oars. Colorful frescoes at the Minoan settlement on Santorini (about 1600 BC) depict vessels with tents arranged in a ceremonial procession. Some of the vessels are rowed, but others are paddled. This has been interpreted as a possible ritual reenactment of more ancient types of vessels, alluding to a time before rowing was invented. Little is otherwise known about the use and design of Minoan ships. Mediterranean galleys from around

3840-486: A single row of oarports on the lower deck, close to the waterline. The three British galley frigates also had distinctive names – James Galley , Charles Galley , and Mary Galley . In the late 18th century, the term "galley" was sometimes used to describe small oared gun-armed vessels. In North America, during the American Revolutionary War and other wars with France and Britain, the early US Navy and

4000-489: A very stout, single-gun-deck warship called a razee . The resulting razeed ship could be classed as a frigate and was still much stronger. The most successful razeed ship in the Royal Navy was HMS  Indefatigable , commanded by Sir Edward Pellew . The Spanish ship Nuestra Señora de la Santísima Trinidad , was a Spanish first-rate ship of the line with 112 guns. This was increased in 1795–96 to 130 guns by closing in

4160-501: Is based on Latin numerals with the suffix -reme from rēmus , "oar". A monoreme has one bank of oars, a bireme two, and a trireme three. A human-powered oared vessel is not practically feasible as four or more oars to a bank will either interfere with each other, or be too high above the waterline to be practicable. In describing galleys, any number higher than three did not refer to banks of oars, but to additional rowers per oar. Quinquereme ( quintus + rēmus )

4320-423: Is credited with pioneering the "five" and "six", meaning five or six rows of rowers plying two or three rows of oars. Ptolemy II (283–46 BC) is known to have built a large fleet of very large galleys with several experimental designs rowed by everything from 12 up to 40 rows of rowers, though most of these are considered to have been quite impractical. Fleets with large galleys were put in action in conflicts such as

4480-606: Is often referred to as a " polyreme ". Medieval and early modern galleys were described based on the changing designs that evolved after the ancient designs and rowing arrangement had been forgotten. Among the most important is the Byzantine dromon, the predecessor to the Italian galea sottile  [ it ] , the final form of the Mediterranean war galley. As galleys became an integral part of an advanced, early modern system of warfare and state administration, they were divided into

4640-720: Is presently on display at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, Sweden . At the time she was the largest Swedish warship ever built. Today the Vasa Museum is the most visited museum in Sweden. The last ship-of-the-line afloat was the French ship Duguay-Trouin , renamed HMS  Implacable after being captured by the British, which survived until 1949. The last ship-of-the-line to be sunk by enemy action

4800-456: Is the first known engagement between organized armed forces using sea vessels as weapons of war, though primarily as fighting platforms. The Phoenicians were among the most significant naval civilizations in early classical antiquity , but little detailed evidence has been found of what kind of ships they used. The best depictions found so far have been small, highly stylized images on seals which illustrate crescent-shaped vessels equipped with

4960-609: The actuaria with up to 50 rowers was the most versatile, including the phaselus (lit. "bean pod") for passenger transport and the lembus , a small-scale express carrier. Many of these designs continued to be used until the Middle Ages. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire around the 5th century AD, the old Mediterranean economy collapsed and the volume of trade went down drastically. The Eastern Roman Empire neglected to revive overland trade routes, but

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5120-491: The Dublin and Bellona classes. Their successors gradually improved handling and size through the 1780s. Other navies ended up building 74s also as they had the right balance between offensive power, cost, and manoeuvrability. Eventually around half of Britain's ships of the line were 74s. Larger vessels were still built, as command ships, but they were more useful only if they could definitely get close to an enemy, rather than in

5280-477: The Early Middle Ages , and cannons from the 15th century. However, they relied primarily on their large crews to overpower enemy vessels through boarding . Galleys were the first vessels to effectively use heavy gunpowder artillery against other ships and naval fortifications. Early 16th-century galleys had heavy guns in the bow which were aimed by manoeuvring the entire vessel. Initially, gun galleys posed

5440-526: The East India Company 's merchant vessels became lightly armed and quite competent in combat during this period, operating a convoy system under an armed merchantman, instead of depending on small numbers of more heavily armed ships which while effective, slowed the flow of commerce. The only original ship of the line remaining today is HMS Victory , preserved as a museum in Portsmouth to appear as she

5600-547: The English Channel as a "steam bridge", rather than a barrier to French invasion. It was partly because of the fear of war with France that the Royal Navy converted several old 74-gun ships of the line into 60-gun steam-powered blockships (following the model of Fulton 's Demologos ), starting in 1845. The blockships were "originally conceived as steam batteries solely for harbour defence, but in September 1845 they were given

5760-675: The Imperial Naval Arsenal on the Golden Horn in Istanbul , was for many years the largest warship in the world. The 76.15 m × 21.22 m (249.8 ft × 69.6 ft) ship of the line was armed with 128 cannons on three decks and was manned by 1,280 sailors. She participated in the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855) during the Crimean War (1854–1856) . She was decommissioned in 1874. The second largest sailing three-decker ship of

5920-589: The Napoleonic Wars . The Mediterranean powers also employed galley forces for conflicts outside the Mediterranean. Spain sent galley squadrons to the Netherlands during the later stages of the Eighty Years' War which successfully operated against Dutch forces in the enclosed, shallow coastal waters. From the late 1560s, galleys were also used to transport silver to Genoese bankers to finance Spanish troops against

6080-626: The Punic Wars (246–146 BC) between the Roman Republic and Carthage , which included massive naval battles with hundreds of vessels and tens of thousands of soldiers, seamen, and rowers. The Battle of Actium in 31 BC between the forces of Augustus and Mark Antony marked the peak of the Roman fleet arm. After Augustus' victory at Actium, most of the Roman fleet was dismantled and burned. The Roman civil wars were fought mostly by land forces, and from

6240-548: The Scottish ship Michael , launched in 1511. She was originally built at Woolwich Dockyard from 1512 to 1514 and was one of the first vessels to feature gunports and had twenty of the new heavy bronze cannon , allowing for a broadside . In all, she mounted 43 heavy guns and 141 light guns. She was the first English two-decker , and when launched she was the largest and most powerful warship in Europe, but she saw little action. She

6400-427: The cannons along their broadsides . In conflicts where opposing ships were both able to fire from their broadsides, the faction with more cannons firing – and therefore more firepower  – typically had an advantage. From the end of the 1840s, the introduction of steam power brought less dependence on the wind in battle and led to the construction of screw-driven wooden-hulled ships of

6560-541: The spar deck between the quarterdeck and forecastle , and around 1802 to 140 guns, thus creating what was in effect a continuous fourth gundeck although the extra guns added were actually relatively small. She was the heaviest-armed ship in the world when rebuilt, and bore the most guns of any ship of the line outfitted in the Age of Sail . Mahmudiye (1829), ordered by the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II and built by

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6720-636: The 13th and 14th century, the galley evolved into the design that was to remain essentially the same until it was phased out in the early 19th century. The new type descended from the ships used by Byzantine and Muslim fleets in the Early Middle Ages. These were the mainstay of all Christian powers until the 14th century, including the great maritime republics of Genoa and Venice, the Papacy, the Hospitallers, Aragon, and Castile, as well as by various pirates and corsairs . The overall term used for these types of vessels

6880-403: The 14th century BC, the first dedicated fighting ships were developed, sleeker and with cleaner lines than the bulkier merchants. They were used for raiding, capturing merchants and for dispatches. During this early period, raiding became the most important form of organized violence in the Mediterranean region. Casson used the example of Homer 's works to show that seaborne raiding was considered

7040-823: The 160s until the 4th century AD, no major fleet actions were recorded. During this time, most of the galley crews were disbanded or employed for entertainment purposes in mock battles or in handling the sail-like sun-screens in the larger Roman arenas. What fleets remained were treated as auxiliaries of the land forces, and galley crewmen themselves called themselves milites , "soldiers", rather than nautae , "sailors". The Roman galley fleets were turned into provincial patrol forces that were smaller and relied largely on liburnians , compact biremes with 25 pairs of oars. These were named after an Illyrian tribe known by Romans for their sea roving practices, and these smaller craft were based on, or inspired by, their vessels of choice. The liburnians and other small galleys patrolled

7200-423: The 1650s become the most powerful state in Europe, and expanded its galley forces under the rule of the absolutist "Sun King" Louis XIV . In the 1690s the French galley corps ( corps des galères ) reached its all-time peak with more than 50 vessels manned by over 15,000 men and officers, becoming the largest galley fleet in the world at the time. Although there was intense rivalry between France and Spain, not

7360-465: The 16th century, the medieval forecastle was no longer needed, and later ships such as the galleon had only a low, one-deck-high forecastle. By the time of the 1637 launching of England's Sovereign of the Seas , the forecastle had disappeared altogether. During the 16th century the galleon evolved from the carrack. It was a narrower ship, with a much reduced forecastle, and was much more manoeuvrable than

7520-424: The 16th-century Mediterranean was fought mostly on a smaller scale, with raiding and minor actions dominating. Only three truly major fleet engagements were actually fought in the 16th century: the battles of Preveza in 1538, Djerba in 1560, and Lepanto in 1571. Lepanto became the last large all-galley battle ever, and was also one of the largest battle in sheer number of participants in early modern Europe before

7680-411: The 17th century fleets could consist of almost a hundred ships of various sizes, but by the middle of the 18th century, ship-of-the-line design had settled on a few standard types: older two-deckers (i.e., with two complete decks of guns firing through side ports) of 50 guns (which were too weak for the battle line but could be used to escort convoys ), two-deckers of between 64 and 90 guns that formed

7840-412: The 17th century every major European naval power was building ships like these. With the growing importance of colonies and exploration and the need to maintain trade routes across stormy oceans, galleys and galleasses (a larger, higher type of galley with side-mounted guns, but lower than a galleon) were used less and less, and only in ever more restricted purposes and areas, so that by about 1750, with

8000-480: The 1820s a number of navies experimented with paddle steamer warships. Their use spread in the 1830s, with paddle-steamer warships participating in conflicts like the First Opium War alongside ships of the line and frigates. Paddle steamers, however, had major disadvantages. The paddle wheel above the waterline was exposed to enemy fire, while itself preventing the ship from firing broadsides effectively. During

8160-476: The 1840s, the screw propeller emerged as the most likely method of steam propulsion, with both Britain and the US launching screw-propelled warships in 1843. Through the 1840s, the British and French navies launched ever larger and more powerful screw ships, alongside sail-powered ships of the line. In 1845, Viscount Palmerston gave an indication of the role of the new steamships in tense Anglo-French relations, describing

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8320-452: The 19th century, but saw little action. The last time galleys were deployed in action was when the Russian navy was attacked in Åbo ( Turku ) in 1854 as part of the Crimean War . In the second half of the 18th century, the role of Baltic galleys in coastal fleets was replaced first with hybrid "archipelago frigates" (such as the turuma or pojama ) and xebecs, and after the 1790s with various types of gunboats. The documentary evidence for

8480-634: 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. Most of the surviving documentary evidence comes from Greek and Roman shipping, though it is likely that merchant galleys all over the Mediterranean were highly similar. In Greek they were referred to as histiokopos ("sail-oar-er") to reflect that they relied on both types of propulsion. In Latin they were called actuaria (navis) , "(ship) that moves", stressing that they were capable of making progress regardless of weather conditions. As an example of

8640-411: The 8th century BC the first galleys rowed at two levels had been developed, among the earliest being the two-level penteconters which were considerably shorter than the one-level equivalents, and therefore more maneuverable. They were an estimated 25 m in length and displaced 15 tonnes with 25 pairs of oars. These could have reached an estimated top speed of up to 14 km/h (9 mph), making them

8800-482: The 9th century typically had 15 and 25 pairs of oars ("triaconters" and " penteconters ", respectively) with just one level of oars on each side, or "monoremes". Sometime during the 8th century the first bireme galleys were built by adding a second level of rowers, one level above the other. This created a second bank of oars, adding more propulsion power with the same length of hull. It made galleys faster, more maneuverable and sturdier. Phoenician shipbuilders were likely

8960-567: The 9th century, the struggle between the Byzantines and Arabs had turned the Eastern Mediterranean into a no-man's land for merchant activity. In the 820s Crete was captured by Al-Andalus Muslims who had fled a failed revolt against the Emirate of Cordoba , turning the island into a base for (galley) attacks on Christian shipping until the island was recaptured by the Byzantines in 960. In

9120-502: The Baltic Sea in the 16th century but the details of their designs are lacking due to the absence of records. They might have been built in a more regional style, but the only known depiction from the time shows a typical Mediterranean style vessel. There is conclusive evidence that Denmark-Norway became the first Baltic power to build classic Mediterranean-style galleys in the 1660s, though they proved to be generally too large to be useful in

9280-581: The Dutch and Spanish found galleys useful for amphibious operations in the many shallow waters around the Low Countries where deep-draft sailing vessels could not enter. While galleys were too vulnerable to be used in large numbers in the open waters of the Atlantic, they were well-suited for use in much of the Baltic Sea by Denmark-Norway , Sweden, Russia, and some of the Central European powers with ports on

9440-502: The Dutch uprising. Galleasses and galleys were part of an invasion force of over 16,000 men that conquered the Azores in 1583. Around 2,000 galley rowers were on board ships of the famous 1588 Spanish Armada , though few of these actually made it to the battle itself. Outside European and Middle Eastern waters, Spain built galleys to deal with pirates and privateers in both the Caribbean and

9600-508: The English navy used several kinds of vessels that were adapted to local needs. English galliasses (very different from the Mediterranean vessel of the same name) were employed to cover the flanks of larger naval forces while pinnaces and rowbarges were used for scouting or even as a backup for the longboats and tenders for the larger sailing ships. During the Dutch Revolt (1566–1609) both

9760-535: The High and Late Middle Ages , even as sailing vessels evolved more efficient hulls and rigging. The zenith in the design of merchant galleys came with the state-owned " great galleys  [ it ] " of the Venetian Republic , first built in the 1290s. The great galleys were in all respects larger than contemporary war galleys (up to 46 m) and had a deeper draft, with more room for cargo (140–250 tonnes). With

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9920-480: The Highland galley), close relatives of longship types like the snekkja . By the 14th century, they were replaced with balingers in southern Britain while longship-type Highland and Irish galleys and birlinns remained in use throughout the Middle Ages in northern Britain. The French navy and the Royal Navy built a series of "galley frigates" from around 1670–1690 that were small two-decked sailing cruisers with

10080-563: The Mediterranean in the early 17th century. In 1616, a small Spanish squadron of five galleons and a patache cruised the eastern Mediterranean and defeated an Ottoman fleet of 55 galleys at the Battle of Cape Celidonia . By 1650, war galleys were used primarily in the struggles between Venice and the Ottoman Empire for strategic island and coastal trading bases and until the 1720s by both France and Spain for largely amphibious and cruising operations or in combination with heavy sailing ships in

10240-620: The Mediterranean type were first introduced in the Baltic Sea around the mid-16th century as competition between the Scandinavian states of Denmark and Sweden intensified. The Swedish galley fleet was the largest outside the Mediterranean, and served as an auxiliary branch of the army. Very little is known about the design of Baltic Sea galleys, except that they were overall smaller than in the Mediterranean and they were rowed by army soldiers rather than convicts or slaves. Galleys were introduced to

10400-511: The Mediterranean, between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and between the Mediterranean and Bruges . In 1447 Florentine galleys could stop at as many as 14 ports on their way to and from Alexandria in Egypt. The earliest use for galleys in warfare was to ferry fighters from one place to another, and until the middle of the 2nd millennium BC had no real distinction from merchant freighters. Around

10560-434: The Mediterranean, they remained in use until the very end of the 18th century, and survived in part because of their prestige and association with chivalry and land warfare. In war, galleys were used in landing raids, as troop transports and were very effective in amphibious warfare . While they usually served in wars or for defense against piracy, galleys also served as trade vessels for high-priority or expensive goods up to

10720-521: The Napoleonic Wars in 1815 with the largest and most professional navy in the world, composed of hundreds of wooden, sail-powered ships of all sizes and classes. Overwhelming firepower was of no use if it could not be brought to bear which was not always possible against the smaller leaner ships used by Napoleon's privateers, operating from French New World territories. The Royal Navy compensated by deploying numerous Bermuda sloops . Similarly, many of

10880-560: The Philippines. Ottoman galleys contested the Portuguese intrusion in the Indian Ocean in the 16th century, but failed against the high-sided, massive Portuguese carracks in open waters. Even though the carracks themselves were soon surpassed by other types of sailing vessels, their greater range, great size, and high superstructures, armed with numerous wrought iron guns easily outmatched

11040-567: The Royal Navy's dominance at sea proved a colossal failure. During the Napoleonic Wars , Britain defeated French and allied fleets decisively all over the world including in the Caribbean at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent , the Bay of Aboukir off the Egyptian coast at the Battle of the Nile in 1798, near Spain at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and in the second Battle of Copenhagen (1807) . The UK emerged from

11200-638: The Russian Black Sea Fleet destroyed seven Ottoman frigates and three corvettes with explosive shells at the Battle of Sinop in 1853. In the 1860s unarmoured steam line-of-battle ships were replaced by ironclad warships . In the American Civil War , on March 8, 1862, during the first day of the Battle of Hampton Roads , two unarmoured Union wooden frigates were sunk and destroyed by the Confederate ironclad CSS  Virginia . However,

11360-484: The United Kingdom built 18 and converted 41. In the end, France and Britain were the only two countries to develop fleets of wooden steam screw battleships, although several other navies made some use of a mixture of screw battleships and paddle-steamer frigates. These included Russia, Turkey , Sweden , Naples , Prussia , Denmark , and Austria . In the Crimean War , six line-of-battle ships and two frigates of

11520-569: The advantages of galley. From around 1450, three major naval powers established a dominance over different parts of the Mediterranean, using galleys as their primary weapons at sea: the Ottomans in the east, Venice in the center and Habsburg Spain in the west. The core of their fleets were concentrated in the three major, wholly dependable naval bases in the Mediterranean: Constantinople , Venice , and Barcelona . Naval warfare in

11680-481: The amphibious abilities of galleys as they could make assaults supported with heavy firepower, and were even more effectively defended when beached stern-first. An accumulation and generalizing of bronze cannons and small firearms in the Mediterranean during the 16th century increased the cost of warfare, but also made those dependent on them more resilient to manpower losses. Older ranged weapons, like bows or even crossbows, required considerable skill to handle, sometimes

11840-653: The army), while the Russian galley forces under Tsar Peter I developed into a supporting arm for the sailing navy and a well-functioning auxiliary of the army which infiltrated and conducted numerous raids on the eastern Swedish coast in the 1710s. Sweden and Russia became the two main competitors for Baltic dominance in the 18th century, and built the largest galley fleets in the world at the time. They were used for amphibious operations in Russo-Swedish wars of 1741–43 and 1788–90 . The last galleys ever constructed were built in 1796 by Russia, and remained in service well into

12000-418: The bow, for instance, the castle was called the forecastle (usually contracted as fo'c'sle or fo'c's'le, and pronounced FOHK-səl). Over time these castles became higher and larger, and eventually were built into the structure of the ship, increasing overall strength. This aspect of the cog remained in the newer-style carrack designs and proved its worth in battles like that at Diu in 1509 . The Mary Rose

12160-589: The bulkier sailing ships, the cog and the carrack , were almost like floating fortresses, being difficult to board and even harder to capture. Galleys remained useful as warships throughout the entire Middle Ages because of their maneuverability. Sailing ships of the time had only one mast, usually with just a single, large square sail. This made them cumbersome to steer. Though equipped to beat to windward, their performance at this would have been limited. Galleys were therefore important for coastal raiding and amphibious landings, both key elements of medieval warfare. In

12320-491: The captain's use was "galley" even though it was issued to the ship by the navy dockyard as a "gig". Among the earliest known watercraft were canoes made from hollowed-out logs, the earliest ancestors of galleys. Their narrow hulls required them to be paddled in a fixed sitting position facing forward, a less efficient form of propulsion than rowing with proper oars , facing backward. Seagoing paddled craft have been attested by finds of terracotta sculptures and lead models in

12480-499: The carrack. It was particularly favored from an early date by the Spanish for their trans-Atlantic trade . The main ships of the English and Spanish fleets in the Battle of Gravelines of 1588 were galleons; all of the English and most of the Spanish galleons survived the battle and the great storm on the voyage home, even though the Spanish galleons had suffered the heaviest attacks from the English while regrouping their scattered fleet. By

12640-414: The castles fore and aft was reduced, now that hand-to-hand combat was less essential. The need to manoeuvre in battle made the top weight of the castles more of a disadvantage. So they shrank, making the ship of the line lighter and more manoeuvrable than its forebears for the same combat power. As an added consequence, the hull itself grew larger, allowing the size and number of guns to increase as well. In

12800-426: The century. Christian and Muslim corsairs had been using galleys in sea roving and in support of the major powers in times of war, but largely replaced them with xebecs , various sail/oar hybrids, and a few remaining light galleys in the early 17th century. No large all-galley battles were fought after the gigantic clash at Lepanto in 1571, and galleys were mostly used as cruisers or for supporting sailing warships as

12960-427: The construction of ancient galleys is fragmentary, particularly in pre-Roman times. Plans and schematics in the modern sense did not exist until around the 17th century and nothing comparable has survived from ancient times. How galleys were constructed has therefore been a matter of looking at circumstantial evidence in literature, art, coinage and monuments that include ships, some of them actually in natural size. Since

13120-568: The defeat of Athens by Sparta and its allies. The trireme was an advanced ship that was expensive to build and to maintain due its large crew. By the 5th century, advanced war galleys had been developed that required sizable states with an advanced economy to build and maintain. It was associated with the latest in warship technology around the 4th century BC and could only be employed by an advanced state with an advanced economy and administration. They required considerable skill to row and oarsmen were mostly free citizens who had years of experience at

13280-458: The design was relatively simple and they carried fewer guns. They were tactically flexible and could be used for naval ambushes as well amphibious operations. They also required few skilled seamen and were difficult for sailing ships to catch, but vital in hunting down and catching other galleys and oared raiders. Among the largest galley fleets in the 17th century were operated by the two major Mediterranean powers, France and Spain. France had by

13440-476: The development of the large merchant galleys was the increase in Western European pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. In Northern Europe, Viking longships and their derivations, knarrs , dominated trading and shipping. They functioned and were propelled similar to the Mediterranean galleys, but developed from a separate building tradition. In the Mediterranean, merchant galleys continued to be used during

13600-416: The earliest conclusive written reference dates to 542 BC. These new galleys were called triērēs (literally "three-fitted") in Greek. Romans later applied the term triremis which is the origin of "trireme" and the name used most commonly today. Until at least the late 2nd century BC, there was no clear distinction between ships of trade and war other than how they were used. River boats plied

13760-423: The early 15th century, sailing ships began to dominate naval warfare in northern waters. While the galley still remained the primary warship in southern waters, a similar transition had begun also among the Mediterranean powers. A Castilian naval raid on the island of Jersey in 1405 became the first recorded battle where a Mediterranean power employed a naval force consisting mostly of cogs or carracks, rather than

13920-666: The early 19th century. It typically had a long, slender hull, shallow draft , and often a low freeboard . Most types of galleys also had sails that could be used in favourable winds, but they relied primarily on oars to move independently of winds and currents or in battle. The term "galley" originated from a Greek term for a small type of galley and came in use in English from about 1300. It has occasionally been used for unrelated vessels with similar military functions as galley but which were not Mediterranean in origin, such as medieval Scandinavian longships , 16th-century Acehnese ghalis and 18th-century North American gunboats . Galleys were

14080-558: The eastern Mediterranean, the Byzantine Empire struggled with the incursion from invading Muslim Arabs from the 7th century, leading to fierce competition, a buildup of fleet, and war galleys of increasing size. Soon after conquering Egypt and the Levant, the Arab rulers built ships highly similar to Byzantine dromons with the help of local Coptic shipwrights from former Byzantine naval bases. By

14240-608: The end of the Middle Ages . Its oars guaranteed that it could make progress where a sailing ship would have been becalmed , and its large crew could defend it against attacks from pirates and raiders. This also made it one of the safest and most reliable forms of passenger transport , especially for Christian pilgrims during the High and Late Middle Ages . For naval combat, galleys were equipped with various weapons: rams and occasionally catapults until late antiquity, Greek fire during

14400-592: The fighting power of armed forces, making individual soldiers more deadly and effective. As offensive weapons, firearms could be stored for years with minimal maintenance and did not require the expenses associated with soldiers. Manpower could thus be exchanged for capital investments, something which benefited sailing vessels that were already far more economical in their use of manpower. It also served to increase their strategic range and to out-compete galleys as fighting ships. Atlantic-style warfare based on large, heavily armed sailing ships began to change naval warfare in

14560-495: The first ship to be sunk by gunfire from other ships in a naval battle. In the early to mid-17th century, several navies, particularly those of the Netherlands and England, began to use new fighting techniques. Previously battles had usually been fought by great fleets of ships closing with each other and fighting in whatever arrangement they found themselves in, often boarding enemy vessels as opportunities presented themselves. As

14720-452: The first to build two-level galleys, and bireme designs were soon adopted and further developed by the Greeks. A third bank of oar was added by attaching an outrigger to a bireme. The outrigger was a projecting frame that gave additional leverage for a third rower to handle an oar efficiently. It has been hypothesized that early forms of three-banked ships may have existed as early as 700 BC, but

14880-584: The fleets of the Royal Navy , the Netherlands , France , Spain and Portugal fought numerous battles. In the Baltic , the Scandinavian kingdoms and Russia did likewise, while in the Mediterranean Sea , the Ottoman Empire , Spain, France, Britain and the various Barbary pirates battled. By the eighteenth century, the UK had established itself as the world's preeminent naval power. Attempts by Napoleon to challenge

15040-413: The galley to be and remain a primarily coastal vessel. The shift to sailing vessels in the Mediterranean was the result of the negation of some of the galley's advantages as well as the adoption of gunpowder weapons on a much larger institutional scale. The sailing vessel was propelled in a different manner than the galley but the tactics were often the same until the 16th century. The real-estate afforded to

15200-408: The galleys as hopelessly outclassed with the first introduction of naval artillery on sailing ships, it was the galley that was favored by the introduction of heavy naval guns . Galleys were a more "mature" technology with long-established tactics and traditions of supporting social institutions and naval organizations. In combination with the intensified conflicts this led to a substantial increase in

15360-496: The growing maritime republics of Italy which were emerging as the dominant sea powers, including Venice , Genoa , and Pisa . Their merchant galleys were similar to dromons, but without heavy weapons and both faster and wider. The largest types were used by Venice, based on galley types like the pamphylon and chelandion . They had tower-like superstructures and could be manned by crews of up to 1,000 men and could be employed in warfare when required. A further boost to

15520-478: The gundeck, while the new French 74s were around 52 metres (171 ft). In 1747 the British captured a few of these French ships during the War of Austrian Succession . In the next decade Thomas Slade (Surveyor of the Navy from 1755, along with co-Surveyor William Bately) broke away from the past and designed several new classes of 51-to-52-metre (167 to 171 ft) 74s to compete with these French designs, starting with

15680-446: The larger vessels were very large with heavier armament than standard Mediterranean galleys, with raised platforms for infantry and some with stern structures similar in height to that of contemporary galleons . Galleys had been synonymous with warships in the Mediterranean for at least 2,000 years, and continued to fulfill that role with the invention of gunpowder and heavy artillery. Though early 20th-century historians often dismissed

15840-622: The largest galley navy in the Mediterranean in the early 17th century. They were the backbone of the Spanish Mediterranean war fleet and were used for ferrying troops, supplies, horses, and munitions to Spain's Italian and African possessions. In Southeast Asia during the 16th and early 17th century, the Aceh Sultanate had fleets of up to 100 native galley-like vessels ( ghali ) as well as smaller rowed vessels, there were described by Europeans as lancarans , galliots , and fustas. Some of

16000-502: The line ever built in the West and the biggest French ship of the line was the Valmy , launched in 1847. She had vertical sides, which increased significantly the space available for upper batteries, but reduced the stability of the ship; wooden stabilisers were added under the waterline to address the issue. Valmy was thought to be the largest sort of sailing ship possible, as larger dimensions made

16160-471: The line was the "74" (named for its 74 guns), originally developed by France in the 1730s, and later adopted by all battleship navies. Until this time the British had 6 sizes of ship of the line, and they found that their smaller 50- and 60-gun ships were becoming too small for the battle line, while their 80s and over were three-deckers and therefore unwieldy and unstable in heavy seas. Their best were 70-gun three-deckers of about 46 metres (151 ft) long on

16320-582: The line". The term "ship of the line" fell into disuse except in historical contexts, after warships and naval tactics evolved and changed from the mid-19th century. Some other languages did keep the name however; the Imperial German Navy called its battleships Linienschiffe until World War I . The heavily armed carrack , first developed in Portugal for either trade or war in the Atlantic Ocean ,

16480-408: The line; a number of purely sail -powered ships were converted to this propulsion mechanism. However, the rise of the ironclad frigate , starting in 1859, made steam-assisted ships of the line obsolete. The ironclad warship became the ancestor of the 20th-century battleship , whose very designation is itself a contraction of the phrase "ship of the line of battle" or, more colloquially, "battleship of

16640-409: The main part of the fleet, and larger three - or even four-deckers with 98 to 140 guns that served as admirals' command ships. Fleets consisting of perhaps 10 to 25 of these ships, with their attendant supply ships and scouting and messenger frigates , kept control of the sea lanes for major European naval powers whilst restricting the sea-borne trade of enemies. The most common size of sail ship of

16800-515: The manoeuvre of riggings impractical with mere manpower. She participated in the Crimean War, and after her return to France later housed the French Naval Academy under the name Borda from 1864 to 1890. The first major change to the ship-of-the-line concept was the introduction of steam power as an auxiliary propulsion system. The first military uses of steamships came in the 1810s, and in

16960-512: The mid-16th century. Heavy artillery on galleys was mounted in the bow, which aligned easily with the long-standing tactical tradition of attacking head on, bow first. The ordnance on galleys was heavy from its introduction in the 1480s, and capable of quickly demolishing the high, thin medieval stone walls that still prevailed in the 16th century. This temporarily upended the strength of older seaside fortresses, which had to be rebuilt to cope with gunpowder weapons. The addition of guns also improved

17120-519: The middle of the first millennium BC, the Mediterranean powers developed successively larger and more complex vessels, the most advanced being the classical trireme with up to 170 rowers. Triremes fought several important engagements in the naval battles of the Greco-Persian Wars (502–449 BC) and the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), including the Battle of Aegospotami in 405 BC, which sealed

17280-449: The navies they fought built vessels that were referred to "galleys" or " row galleys ". These are today best described as brigantines or Baltic-style gunboats . The North American "galleys" were classified based on their military role, and in part due to technicalities in administration and naval financing. In the latter part of the 19th century, the Royal Navy term for the gig (a ship's boat optimised for propulsion by oar) reserved for

17440-510: The new naval forces also made it difficult to find enough skilled rowers for the one-man-per-oar system of the earliest triremes. With more than one man per oar, a single rower could set the pace for the others to follow, meaning that more unskilled rowers could be employed. The successor states of Alexander the Great 's empire built galleys that were like triremes or biremes in oar layout, but manned with additional rowers for each oar. The ruler Dionysius I of Syracuse ( c.  432 –367 BC)

17600-679: The north and were the most numerous warships used by Mediterranean powers with interests in the north, especially France , the Iberian kingdoms and the Italian merchant republics . The kings of France operated the Clos de Galées (literally "galley enclosure") in Rouen during the 14th and 15th century where they had southern-style war galleys built . The Clos was built by Genoese in 1298 and they continued to dominate shipbuilding there until its destruction in 1419 so that they wouldn't fall into English hands. During

17760-406: The number of oars, the number of banks of oars or rows of rowers. The terms are based on contemporary language use combined with recent compounds of Greek and Latin words. The earliest Greek single-banked galleys are called triaconters (from triakontoroi , "thirty-oars") and penteconters ( pentēkontoroi , "fifty-oars"). For later galleys with more than one bank of oars, the terminology

17920-460: The oar. As civilizations around the Mediterranean grew in size and complexity, both their navies and the galleys that made up their numbers became successively larger. The basic design of two or three rows of oars remained the same, but more rowers were added to each oar. The exact reasons are not known, but are believed to have been caused by addition of more troops and the use of more advanced ranged weapons on ships, such as catapults . The size of

18080-449: The oared-powered galleys. The Battle of Gibraltar between Castile and Portugal in 1476 was another important sign of change; it was the first recorded battle where the primary combatants were full-rigged ships armed with wrought-iron guns on the upper decks and in the waists, foretelling of the slow decline of the war galley. The sailing vessel was always at the mercy of the wind for propulsion, and those that did carry oars were placed at

18240-478: The open deck, and likely had "ram entries", projections from the bow lowered the resistance of moving through water, making them slightly more hydrodynamic. The first true galleys, the triaconters (literally "thirty-oarers") and penteconters ("fifty-oarers") were developed from these early designs and set the standard for the larger designs that would come later. They were rowed on only one level, which made them fairly slow, likely only about 10 km/h (6 mph). By

18400-530: The order for battle, there was established the distinction between the ships 'of the line', alone destined for a place therein, and the lighter ships meant for other uses. The lighter ships were used for various functions, including acting as scouts, and relaying signals between the flagship and the rest of the fleet. This was necessary because from the flagship, only a small part of the line would be in clear sight. The adoption of line-of-battle tactics had consequences for ship design. The height advantage given by

18560-640: The other major naval powers in the Mediterranean Sea, the Order of Saint John based in Malta, and of the Papal States in central Italy, cut down drastically on their galley forces. Despite the lack of action, the galley corps received vast resources (25–50% of the French naval expenditures) during the 1660s. It was maintained as a functional fighting force right up until its abolition in 1748, though its primary function

18720-528: The power implied by the ship of the line would find its way into the ironclad, which would develop during the next few decades into the concept of the battleship . Several navies still use terms equivalent to the "ship of the line" for battleships, including the German ( Linienschiff ) and Russian ( lineyniy korabl` (лине́йный кора́бль) or linkor (линкор) in short) navies. In the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean ,

18880-479: The pride of the English fleet, she accidentally sank during the Battle of the Solent , 19 July 1545. Henri Grâce à Dieu (English: "Henry Grace of God"), nicknamed " Great Harry ", was another early English carrack. Contemporary with Mary Rose , Henri Grâce à Dieu was 50 metres (160 ft) long, measuring 1,000–1,500 tons burthen and having a complement of 700–1,000. She was ordered by Henry VIII in response to

19040-465: The primary warships used by the ancient Mediterranean naval powers, including the Phoenicians , Greeks and Romans . The galley remained the dominant type of vessel used for war and piracy in the Mediterranean Sea until the start of the early modern period . A final revival of galley warfare occurred during the 18th century in the Baltic Sea during the wars between Russia , Sweden , and Denmark . In

19200-531: The provinces are found in records. One action in 70 AD at the unspecified location of the "Island of the Batavians" during the Batavian Rebellion was recorded, and included a trireme as the Roman flagship. The last provincial fleet, the classis Britannica , was reduced by the late 200s, though there was a minor upswing under the rule of Constantine (272–337). His rule also saw the last major naval battle of

19360-581: The region of the Aegean Sea from the 3rd millennium BC. However, archaeologists believe that the Stone Age colonization of islands in the Mediterranean around 8,000 BC required larger seaworthy vessels that were paddled and possibly even equipped with sails. The first evidence of more complex craft considered prototypes for later galleys comes from Ancient Egypt during the Old Kingdom (about 2700–2200 BC). Under

19520-559: The rivers of continental Europe and reached as far as the Baltic, where they were used to fight local uprisings and assist in checking foreign invasions. The Romans maintained numerous bases around the empire: along the rivers of Central Europe, chains of forts along the northern European coasts and the British Isles, Mesopotamia, and North Africa, including Trabzon , Vienna, Belgrade, Dover, Seleucia , and Alexandria. Few actual galley battles in

19680-615: The rule of pharaoh Pepi I (2332–2283 BC) these vessels were used to transport troops to raid settlements along the Levantine coast and to ship back slaves and timber. During the reign of Hatshepsut (about 1479–1457 BC), Egyptian galleys traded in luxuries on the Red Sea with the enigmatic Land of Punt , as recorded on wall paintings at the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari . The first Greek galley-like ships appeared around

19840-399: The sailing vessel to place larger cannons and other armament mattered little because early gunpowder weapons had limited range and were expensive to produce. The eventual creation of cast iron cannons allowed vessels and armies to be outfitted much more cheaply. The cost of gunpowder also fell in this period. The armament of both vessel types varied between larger weapons such as bombards and

20000-534: The same time, Italian port towns and city states, like Venice, Pisa, and Amalfi , rose on the fringes of the Byzantine Empire as it struggled with eastern threats. Late medieval maritime warfare was divided in two distinct regions. In the Mediterranean galleys were used for raiding along coasts, and in the constant fighting for naval bases. In the Atlantic and Baltic there was greater focus on sailing ships that were used mostly for troop transport, with galleys providing fighting support. Galleys were still widely used in

20160-547: The second half of the 2nd millennium BC. In the epic poem, the Iliad , set in the 12th century BC, oared vessels with a single row of oarmen were used primarily to transport soldiers between land battles. The first recorded naval battle occurred as early as 1175 BC, the Battle of the Delta between Egyptian forces under Ramesses III and the enigmatic alliance known as the Sea Peoples . It

20320-465: The shallow waters of the Baltic archipelagos. Sweden and especially Russia began to launch galleys and various rowed vessels in great numbers during the Great Northern War in the first two decades of the 18th century. Sweden was late in the game when it came to building an effective oared fighting fleet ( skärgårdsflottan , the archipelago fleet , officially arméns flotta , the fleet of

20480-420: The shape of lotus flowers . They had possibly developed a primitive type of keel, but still retained the large cables intended to prevent hogging. The construction of the earliest oared vessels is mostly unknown and highly conjectural. They likely used a mortise construction, but were sewn together rather than pinned together with nails and dowels. Being completely open, they were rowed (or even paddled) from

20640-406: The ships remaining in line for mutual protection. In order that this order of battle, this long thin line of guns, may not be injured or broken at some point weaker than the rest, there is at the same time felt the necessity of putting in it only ships which, if not of equal force, have at least equally strong sides. Logically it follows, at the same moment in which the line ahead became definitively

20800-503: The short-ranged, low-freeboard Turkish galleys. The Spanish used galleys to more success in their colonial possessions in the Caribbean and the Philippines to hunt pirates and sporadically used them in the Netherlands and the Bay of Biscay . Spain maintained four permanent galley squadrons to guard its coasts and trade routes against the Ottomans, the French, and their corsairs. Together they formed

20960-664: The size of galley fleets from c. 1520–80, above all in the Mediterranean, but also in other European theatres. Galleys and similar oared vessels remained uncontested as the most effective gun-armed warships in theory until the 1560s, and in practice for a few decades more, and were actually considered a grave risk to sailing warships. They could effectively fight other galleys, attack sailing ships in calm weather or in unfavorable winds (or deny them action if needed) and act as floating siege batteries. They were also unequaled in their amphibious capabilities, even at extended ranges, as exemplified by French interventions as far north as Scotland in

21120-459: The smaller swivel guns. For logistical purposes it became convenient for those with larger shore establishments to standardize upon a given size of cannon. Traditionally the English in the North and the Venetians in the Mediterranean are seen as some the earliest to move in this direction. The improving sail rigs of northern vessels also allowed them to navigate in the coastal waters of the Mediterranean to

21280-503: The southern coast. There were two types of naval battlegrounds in the Baltic. One was the open sea, suitable for large sailing fleets; the other was the coastal areas and especially the chain of small islands and archipelagos that ran almost uninterrupted from Stockholm to the Gulf of Finland. In these areas, conditions were often too calm, cramped, and shallow for sailing ships, but they were excellent for galleys and other oared vessels. Galleys of

21440-596: The speed and reliability, during an instance of the famous " Carthago delenda est " speech, Cato the Elder demonstrated the close proximity of the Roman arch enemy Carthage by displaying a fresh fig to his audience that he claimed had been picked in North Africa only three days past. Other cargoes carried by galleys were honey, cheese, meat, and live animals intended for gladiator combat. The Romans had several types of merchant galleys that specialized in various tasks, out of which

21600-463: The term "galley" to oared Viking ships of the Early and High Middle Ages , both their well known longship warships and their less familiar merchant galleys. Oared military vessels built on the British Isles in the 11th to 13th centuries were based on Scandinavian designs, but were referred to as "galleys" because of the similarity in function. Many of them were similar to birlinns (a smaller version of

21760-487: The threat, local rulers began to build large oared vessels, some with up to 30 pairs of oars, that were larger, faster, and with higher sides than Viking ships. Scandinavian expansion, including incursions into the Mediterranean and attacks on both Muslim Iberia and even Constantinople itself, subsided by the mid-11th century. By this time, greater stability in merchant traffic was achieved by the emergence of Christian kingdoms such as those of France, Hungary, and Poland. Around

21920-680: The unified Roman Empire (before the permanent split into Western and Eastern [later "Byzantine"] Empires), the Battle of the Hellespont of 324. Some time after the Battle of the Hellespont, the classical trireme fell out of use, and its design was forgotten. A transition from galley to sailing vessels as the most common types of warships began in the High Middle Ages ( c.  11th century ). Large high-sided sailing ships had always been formidable obstacles for galleys. To low-freeboard oared vessels,

22080-426: The use of broadsides (coordinated fire by the battery of cannon on one side of a warship ) became increasingly dominant in battle, tactics changed. The evolving line-of-battle tactic, first used in an ad hoc way, required ships to form single-file lines and close with the enemy fleet on the same tack, battering the enemy fleet until one side had had enough and retreated. Any manoeuvres would be carried out with

22240-457: The war galleys floated even with a ruptured hull and virtually never had any ballast or heavy cargo that could sink them, almost no wrecks have so far been found. On the funerary monument of the Egyptian king Sahure (2487–2475 BC) in Abusir , there are relief images of vessels with a marked sheer (the upward curvature at each end of the hull) and seven pairs of oars along its side, a number that

22400-536: The waterways of ancient Egypt during the Old Kingdom (2700–2200 BC) and seagoing galley-like vessels were recorded bringing back luxuries from across the Red Sea in the reign of pharaoh Hatshepsut . When rams or cutwaters were fitted to the bows of warships sometime around 700 BC, it resulted in a more distinct split between warships and trade ships. 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

22560-514: The western Mediterranean and Atlantic, the division of the Carolingian Empire in the late 9th century brought on a period of instability, meaning increased piracy and raiding in the Mediterranean, particularly by newly arrived Muslim invaders. The situation was worsened by raiding Scandinavian Vikings who used longships, vessels that in many ways were very close to galleys in design and functionality and also employed similar tactics. To counter

22720-558: Was gallee sottili ("slender galleys"). The later Ottoman navy used similar designs, but they were generally faster under sail, and smaller, but slower under oars. Galley designs were intended solely for close action with hand-held weapons and projectile weapons like bows and crossbows. In the 13th century the Iberian Crown of Aragon built several fleet of galleys with high castles, manned with Catalan crossbowmen, and regularly defeated numerically superior Angevin forces. During

22880-573: Was HMS  Wellesley , which was sunk by an air raid in 1940, during the Second World War ; she was briefly re-floated in 1948 before being broken up. Galley A galley is a type of ship optimised for propulsion by oars . Galleys were historically used for warfare , trade , and piracy mostly in the seas surrounding Europe. It developed in the Mediterranean world during antiquity and continued to exist in various forms until

23040-427: Was also simplified and eventually developed into a system called alla sensile with up to three rowers sharing a single bench, handling one oar each. This was suitable for skilled, professional rowers. This was further simplified to the a scaloccio method with rowers sharing a bench but using just a single large oar, sometimes with up to seven or more rowers per oar in the very largest war galleys. This method

23200-412: Was an early 16th-century English carrack or " great ship ". She was heavily armed with 78 guns and 91 after an upgrade in the 1530s. Built in Portsmouth in 1510–1512, she was one of the earliest purpose-built men-of-war in the English navy. She was over 500 tons burthen and had a keel of over 32 metres (105 ft) and a crew of over 200 sailors, composed of 185 soldiers and 30 gunners. Although

23360-592: Was armed as a conventional ship of the line, but her steam engines could give her a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph), regardless of the wind conditions – a potentially decisive advantage in a naval engagement. Eight sister ships to Napoléon were built in France over a period of ten years, but the United Kingdom soon took the lead in production, in number of both purpose-built and converted units. Altogether, France built 10 new wooden steam battleships and converted 28 from older battleship units, while

23520-403: Was around 25–30 oars per side. By adding another level of oars, a development that occurred no later than c. 750 BC, the galley could be made shorter with as many rowers, while making them strong enough to be effective ramming weapons. The emergence of more advanced states and intensified competition between them spurred on the development of advanced galleys with multiple banks of rowers. During

23680-493: Was better suited than the galley to wield gunpowder weapons. Because of their development for conditions in the Atlantic , these ships were more weatherly than galleys and better suited to open waters. The lack of oars meant that large crews were unnecessary, making long journeys more feasible. Their disadvantage was that they were entirely reliant on the wind for mobility. Galleys could still overwhelm great ships, especially when there

23840-406: Was dependent on keeping the sea lanes open to keep the empire together. In 600–750 AD bulk trade declined while luxury trade increased. Galleys remained in service, but were profitable mainly in the luxury trade, which set off their high maintenance cost. In the 10th century, there was a sharp increase in piracy which resulted in larger trade ships with more numerous crews. These were mostly built by

24000-647: Was dismantled around 1718, Naples had only four old vessels by 1734 and the French Galley Corps had ceased to exist as an independent arm in 1748. Venice, the Papal States, and the Knights of Malta were the only state fleets that maintained galleys, though in nothing like their previous quantities. By 1790, there were fewer than 50 galleys in service among all the Mediterranean powers, half of which belonged to Venice. Oared vessels remained in use in northern waters for

24160-463: Was likely to have been symbolical rather than a realistic depiction, and steering oars in the stern. These vessels have only one mast and vertical stems and sternposts , with the front decorated with an Eye of Horus , the first example of such a decoration. The eye was later used by other Mediterranean cultures to decorate seagoing craft in the belief that it helped to guide the ship safely to its destination. The early Egyptian vessels apparently lacked

24320-420: Was literally a "five-oar", but actually meant that there were more than one rower per oar in a bireme or trireme arrangement. For simplicity, many modern scholars refer to these as "fives", "sixes", "eights", "elevens", etc. Anything above six or seven rows of rowers was uncommon, but even an entirely unique " forty " has been attested from the 3rd century BC. Any galley with more than three or four lines of rowers

24480-406: Was little wind and they had a numerical advantage, but as great ships increased in size, galleys became less and less useful. Another detriment was the high forecastle , which interfered with the sailing qualities of the ship; the bow would be forced low into the water while sailing before the wind. But as guns were introduced and gunfire replaced boarding as the primary means of naval combat during

24640-410: Was more of a symbol of Louis XIV's absolutist ambitions. The last recorded battle in the Mediterranean where galleys played a significant part was at Matapan in 1717, between the Ottomans and Venice and its allies, though they had little influence on the outcome. Few large-scale naval battles were fought in the Mediterranean throughout most of the remainder of the 18th century. The Tuscan galley fleet

24800-416: Was more suitable for the use of forced labour , both galley slaves and convicts . Most galleys were equipped with sails that could be used when the wind was favourable: basic square sails until the Early Middle Ages and later lateen sails . The word galley has been attested in English from about 1300. Variants of the same term were established in many other European languages from around 1500 both as

24960-599: Was present at the Battle of the Solent against Francis I of France in 1545 (in which Mary Rose sank) but appears to have been more of a diplomatic vessel, sailing on occasion with sails of gold cloth. Indeed, the great ships were almost as well known for their ornamental design (some ships, like the Vasa , were gilded on their stern scrollwork ) as they were for the power they possessed. Carracks fitted for war carried large- calibre guns aboard. Because of their higher freeboard and greater load-bearing ability, this type of vessel

25120-524: Was sunk by the British torpedo boat CMB79 in Kronstadt Harbour on 18 August 1919 . The wreck was raised and scrapped. Ship of the line A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle , which involved the two columns of opposing warships manoeuvering to volley fire with

25280-556: Was the precursor of the ship of the line . Other maritime European states quickly adopted it in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. These vessels were developed by fusing aspects of the cog of the North Sea and galley of the Mediterranean Sea . The cogs, which traded in the North Sea , in the Baltic Sea and along the Atlantic coasts, had an advantage over galleys in battle because they had raised platforms called "castles" at bow and stern that archers could occupy to fire down on enemy ships or even to drop heavy weights from. At

25440-535: Was the third ship carrying this name. The ship was designed as a commerce raider and rigged with sails to extend her range. She was built by Baltic Works in Saint Petersburg and launched on 1 July 1888. Her machinery was re-built in 1904 with Bellville boilers . The ship served with the Baltic Fleet , and in 1891–1892 it took part in a Cruise around Asia with Crown Prince Nicholas on board. This led to

25600-407: Was while under Admiral Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Although Victory has been in dry dock since the 1920s, she is still a fully commissioned warship in the Royal Navy and is the oldest commissioned warship in any navy worldwide. Regalskeppet Vasa sank in lake Mälaren in 1628 and was lost until 1956. She was then raised intact, in remarkably good condition, in 1961 and

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