Caribbean Tales - Ships - Galley
Galleys have an extremely long history, dating back to ancient times. They were used until the Russo-Swedish war of 1809. They had one deck and were mainly powered by oars. They were costly to maintain and fell into disuse. However they were still being used by the Barbary corsairs in the Mediterranean. As they were meant to carry soldiers they were used in a few large-scale raids. There was a version of the galley used in the Atlantic by the English. They had a flush deck and were propelled by both oar and sail. They were rigged like frigates. Captain Kidd made his name in one of these, the "Adventure Galley".
Galley - In this instance, it refers to a ship crossed between sail and oar. In essence it was not much different to a frigate or brig with ship rigging, though it had ports in its lower deck for the use of oars, upto 16 per side. It was favoured by pirates so they could catch up on becalmed merchants, or escape naval vessels. Length 42 m, width 9 m at the waterline, armed with up to 34 cannon.