Sharks and Turtles and ... Galleys?

A perfect design is rare. There's something beautiful in the idea, a thing that just can't be improved upon. Our planet teems with life, and evolution proceeds relentlessly, so creatures that can survive for hundreds of millions of years deserve some respect. Two very different creatures that come to mind when I think of enduring designs are sharks and turtles.

Sharks have been around for 450 million years, give or take. They're fast, elegant creatures, masters of their domain, perfectly adapted to their niches in the ocean. And, as you know if you've ever seen a lethal shark close up, they're absolutely terrifying, perfect predators, designed (with a few exceptions) for pure aggression.

The humble turtle, a relative newcomer at only 230 million years, is another design that has survived the test of time. If the shark is pure offense, the turtle represents a brilliant defense. Where I live, box turtles are a common sight, an humble omnivorous reptile that thrives across a wide variety of habitats.

I submit that the rowed galley is a piece of human technology that is a near perfect design. I don't say this lightly. I love boats, and being on the water, and have spent a fair bit of time on quite a few types of boats.

So consider that the first recognizable galleys showed up in Egypt, circa 2500 BCE. They were the ultimate boat in the Mediterranean until around the 15th century CE. That's a run of 4000 years! What other piece of complex tech can claim that sort of longevity?

Yes, 4000 years is dwarfed by 230 million. But like our turtle, the galley was the perfect fit for its niche. Mix manpower, lumber, rope, and sealant in the right proportions, and you're good to go. The Med has its storms, but they're generally nothing like the fury of an Atlantic gale. Galleys usually stayed within sight of shore, and mostly spent nights in sheltered anchorages.

And they could go anywhere! Tin from Spain traded for Chinese silk in the bustling city of Alexandria. German copper for Moroccan grain, Dalmatian lumber for English wool. Galleys made all this possible , tying together a fabulous mosaic of cultures and geographies. For millennia.

Think of that., This boat was the mainstay of international trade for thousands of years. Yes, high culture flourished in the Middle Kingdom and on the Silk Road while the Northern Europeans were still wearing animal skins and getting over runes. But in terms of moving lots of goods over long distances, the options in China were much more limited. A pair of major rivers, and over time, plenty of canals, but still, a pretty constrained geography.

A camel can cary 900 lbs 25 miles in a day. A galley can carry 500,000 to 700,000 lbs perhaps 50 miles in a day. Which would you rather manage, one boat with 200 men, or 500 camels for two days and the men required to manage them? I grew up caring for horses, and the idea of feeding 500 camels makes me want to run away screaming.

Galleys were ships of war as well as commerce. Tactics changed over time, but the form proved remarkably versatile. In the early days, the boss move was Ram-And-Sink, but a successful ram attack was tough to pull off, depending on both skill and luck. The Macedonians and Romans were land based powers who changed the game by putting lots of heavy troops on board. The invention of boarding bridges ended the era of the ram, and set the standard for the next fifteen hundred years.

In the end, it was their skinniness that did them in, Round carracks could haul more cargo, and in trade, that's the game. There was a period of a couple of centuries where armed galleys escorted essentially unarmed merchants, like wolves escorting a flock of sheep.

The heavier designs from the North Atlantic won the day with the widespread adoption of shipboard cannon. The galley frame simply could not take the recoil shock of a side mounted cannon, while a galleon could, so the galley was outgunned. Yes, there were decades, perhaps a century or so, where galleys with front mounted cannon ruled the waves. But it was a blip, a brief swan song that only highlighted the end of the galley's brilliant career.

In my latest work, I put my fascination with galleys to good use, setting a good chunk of the story on a galley en route from Venice to Istanbul, and back. I hope you get a chance to enjoy it.