Sailing ships from the Egyptian times to Columbus.
In Egypt, during the reign of Ptolemy the Third, changes on the large scale took place. He created a 40-bank vessel with 4000 rowers (a concord among those ships) - but it was not put on water at all.
In the first millennium after Christ was born, European sailors and captains used Roman models for war ships. Trade ships were far different - enormous, stable, not fast and not much maneuverable.
More and more sails started to get integrated into sailing, and tended to replace more and more rowers. Both types of ships used only one sail (rectangular form), two topsails (in form of triangle); also an artemon.
The war ships had to be lighter and faster than the cargo ships, logically. So the first had long and narrow hulls also special prow (prow is the foremost part of the ship) rams.
The real blossoming of sails came with the merchant ships, who gradually took more and more sails, until all-sail ships stated to be used exclusively. Galleys were not entirely cast away, even in late Middle Ages. Their main purpose was trade. In 13th century Italian galleys made the boldest voyages - to Africa, England.
The more modern trireme was ushered into practice during the Middle Ages - three oarsmen sat on the same bench, and they had a separate oar, for each one of them. The length of the hulls was 36-39 m. The width was 6 m - so, the heeling was not little.
During the course of time, we, people invent all the time things that make our lives easier. It was clear that men power on these enormous oars-moved ships would be replaced. So later, when the lateen sail was invented, galley became old and imperfect; galley remained to be used only in military actions.
The historic battle at Lepanto (1571) was the last large-scale fight, where galleys took part - and some of them had as many as 200 oarsmen. Imagine what a sight it was - whirlpool and havoc!
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