So the players in my campaign have purchased a galley to sail round in, which is not normally used on the open sea...
What would be the consequences of trying?
Galley's are coastal ships that never get too far from land, good for the shallow, calmer waters of places like the Mediterranean.
Fast, narrow vessels, the space needed for the oars, the oarsmen to man the oars, food for the oarsmen means very limited cargo space, and no long cruises.
At least not without constant resupplying, and you can forget packing it with plunder.
The design of the galley means it doesn't do well in deeper waters, someone who knows more of sailing can probably tell you more on that?
How are they going to get oarsmen? Usually a slaves job, so good luck trying to get pirates to row all day.
Also means crew have to drive them, and watch them, a constant threat of slave revolt.
Someone sold your players a real turkey as far as I can see, they need to get rid of it before news gets out and they are the laughing stock of the Shackles.
Galley :
main problem - feeding and supplying the crew
secondar problem - to be truly effective, galleys need to be light, for reaching speed necessary in ramming. this means little freeboard, open ports along the sides for the oars to extend, usually a light keel making sailing very difficult due to drift and the wider flattened bottom. Also decks are minimized, both to provide cooling for th rowers. Hence the galley will be easily swamped by higher waves, more aceptable near the coast or inside the less choppy Mediterranean Sea (where galleys dominated naval warfare for nearly two thousand years ). Also, the strains on the galley's light frame, make them exceedingly vulnerable to siege engine damage
Besides : you need a large crew, most of which will be fatigued and exhausted once you reach combat. Actually, a lot of free men (Greek, phoenecian and romans in the classic age, Venetians and Spaniards in the late 15th-16thvcentury phase ) rowed galleys (and with more enthusiasm) then slaves, which was more of an Ottoman and Knights of Malta technique to provide propulsion. and later up into the 18th centuryserving as a from of hardlabour imprisonment.
If you want to run one...make very certain you have an accurate weather forecast (entire fleets of galleys used to be sunk by sudden thunderstorms or caught out in the open between islands ) and, with some likelyhood, go NECRO you will best be served by some very competent necromancer who "manages" the crew/rowers, Much cheaper to "feed" than a human crew.
If you think in realistic terms, have a look at a galliot, which served more as a mobile (if slow) gun-plattform. Still fragile.
Or something like the "Adventure Galley" used by captain Kid, which was a fully-rigged ship, which could also be rowed in an emergency.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Galley's are coastal ships that never get too far from land, good for the shallow, calmer waters of places like the Mediterranean.
Fast, narrow vessels, the space needed for the oars, the oarsmen to man the oars, food for the oarsmen means very limited cargo space, and no long cruises.
At least not without constant resupplying, and you can forget packing it with plunder.
The design of the galley means it doesn't do well in deeper waters, someone who knows more of sailing can probably tell you more on that?
How are they going to get oarsmen? Usually a slaves job, so good luck trying to get pirates to row all day.
Also means crew have to drive them, and watch them, a constant threat of slave revolt.
Someone sold your players a real turkey as far as I can see, they need to get rid of it before news gets out and they are the laughing stock of the Shackles.
I know this is old but I'd still like to answer.
Galleys were of many types, and the reasoning that they were coastal is correct. They are not the most sea worthy for long travels but very reliable for short. By short I mean a week at sea or so, which is actually a very øomg distance.
Galleys could have sail propulsion too, albeit minor compared to a rigged ship. Their use, in warfare mostly, declined after the battle of Lepanto, where the Ottoman empire's fleet suffered defeat to the Holy League's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto). The heavier sailing ships combined with the rise of firearms overwhelmed the galley tactics and artillery, though both sides were mayorily galley based.
Galleys were not only propeled by slaves or convicts; the Venetian gallyes used paid oarsmen which increased the efficiency of galleys tremendously and they would also bear arms in battle.
The Mediterranean is calmer, in general. It is however, not shallow. The North Sea is far shallower and its storms are staggering. The difference is that the Med is closed and subject to different weather systems. However anyone that has sailed extensively there or has read of this will mention how it is generally calm and otherwise a hell at sea. The unpredictability of its weather and combination of many local systems provides for deadly, intense yet short storms.
The British navy saying that in the Mediterranean there were four ports: June July August and Mahon, Mahon being an extremly safe harbour in the Balearic islands the British used in the Napoleonic times. The meaning behind this is that the Mediterranean was a fickle, and dangerous mistress.
Galleys and the Shackles
The use of Galleys in the Shackles is first portrayed by Gortus Svard, of a vikingish oar ship. The idea is the maneuvrability this affords them. They have limitations in use, no long trans oceanic trips, but otherwise perfect for fast raids and island hopping. The usual pirate needs only raid the shipping lines and return, and if in a galley they will strike when the seas are becalmed, gaining the upper hand vs any sailing ship.
Galleys in the roman/greek/persian/chinese/eastern/european/ essence are war machines able to bring hundreds of troops in surgical strikes. Under a storm they would however be in for disaster.
The Shackles to me sounds more like the Mediterranean than open seas, or more accurately the Caribbean. A tonne of refuges and safe harbours with large populations are a prime environment for galleys. Likely the reason they werent used in the Caribbean was due to their non existance at the time, the longnjourney one would have to do tonget therenfirst and the lack of large ship yards until later times.
So a Galley is perhaps a fantastic tool in the Shackles if used appropriately. Pirates would surely be content with sailing slowly with minor rigging until a prey was spotted, at which time a few hours on the oars would certainly fall under a day's work for a prize (norse raiders, for example), and the lower profile of the galleys an advantage in being unspotted vs the tall masts of oceanic vessels. Just dont try to go to Arcadia with it.