The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #140533   Message #3930645
Posted By: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
13-Jun-18 - 07:22 AM
Thread Name: New evidence for 'shanty' origins?
Subject: RE: New evidence for 'shanty' origins?
Hard to avoid “rowing” when you have to double check every “galley” in the index:

“Rowing vessels still played an important part in colonial times, and nearly all small sailing men-of-war were fitted to row. Oar ports located between the gun ports, or on lower decks if practical, permitted the large crews to move the vessel in a calm by means of long sweeps or oars, each worked by a number of men. Some vessels were particularly designed to be rowed efficiently, such as some of the sailing “galleys” of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; these ships were usually sharp and light, though otherwise like the regular sailing man-of-war. The true galley type, in which the sails were either dispensed with entirely, or made a mere auxiliary to the oar, had gradually been confined to gunboats and to vessels intended to operate in certain geographical areas exclusively – the Mediterranean, for example. Oars were employed in vessels up to 40 guns in many navies as late as 1820, and in all small men-of-war brigs, schooners, and cutters until the end of the sailing ship period."

[Chapelle, H.I., The History of the American Sailing Navy, (New York: W.W. Norton, 1949, p.15)]


“By the Act of May 4, 1798, the Navy Department was authorized to purchase or build up to ten small vessels of the galley type, to be manned by what might be termed naval militia….

One of the designs used to build the galleys has survived, and Figure 21 probably shows the first one built at Pittsburgh….

Oars
24 of 20 length
4 – 18        “
2 – 16        “
Tholes, iron with rope grommet.”

[ibid, pp.151-152]