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galley |
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galleyShip powered by oars, and usually also equipped with sails. Galleys typically had a crew of hundreds of rowers arranged in banks. They were used in warfare in the Mediterranean from antiquity until the 18th century. France maintained a fleet of some 40 galleys, crewed by over 10,000 convicts, until 1748. The maximum speed of a galley is estimated to have been only four knots (7.5 kph/4.5 mph), because only 20% of the rower's effort was effective, and galleys could not be used in stormy weather because of their very low waterline. |
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| While we were comforting ourselves by the fire after our meal, the Jack - who was sitting in a corner, and who had a bloated pair of shoes on, which he had exhibited while we were eating our eggs and bacon, as interesting relics that he had taken a few days ago from the feet of a drowned seaman washed ashore - asked me if we had seen a four-oared galley going up with the tide? A draggled muslin cap on his head and a dirty gunny-sack about his slim hips proclaimed him cook of the decidedly dirty ship's galley in which I found myself. The commander of the first Roman galley must have looked with an intense absorption upon the estuary of the Thames as he turned the beaked prow of his ship to the westward under the brow of the North Foreland. |
galley
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