Quadriremes

[Cantabrigian]

Could the outriggers have been removable for storage in a shed?

I suspect not.  They seem to be an integral part of the ships structure.  I suspect they must be to support the forces involved.

In Cambridge there's a wooden bridge that was designed to be built without fasteners.  So there's no inherent need to make a build irreversible just for strength.  The lower part of the ship probably does need to be an irreversible build because of the need for waterproofing, but that's not needed for outriggers.

If you have enough labour then it should be possible to disassemble the superstructure as a regular part of the process of docking.

Interestingly, modern rowing eights have riggers that can be removed in less than five minutes.  The limiting factor tends to be lack of spanners.

[DBS]

The problem may be the use of the term outrigger.  Accurate for Athenian triremes, probably not accurate for quadriremes and quinqueremes of the 3rd and 2nd centuries, which are widely held to have employed oarboxes, effectively integral to the hull, with decking overhead (hence the cataphract description).  These would not need to follow the contours of the ship's hull, and would allow the lower hull to enjoy finer lines, thus mitigating the drag imposed by the much greater mass of the vessel.  It is a great shame that the victory ship sheds erected by Augustus at Actium have not survived, or at least not been discovered, as we know that they accommodated the full range of Antonine trophies, from a small "one" up to a "ten".

I honestly believe that the ship sheds were for winter and reserve storage; so yes, at a well managed dockyard with plenty of skilled labour, it is possible that the ships were partially disassembled, but I suspect that becomes less practical with the larger vessels, which are the very ships which are asserted to be too big for the sheds...

In passing, I have not seen any credible suggestion that the larger vessels did not have "outriggers", unless that is a misunderstood reference to them actually having upgraded to oarboxes.

[Erpingham]

The problem may be the use of the term outrigger. 

I think I agree.  To me, the overhanging side that carries oars I have tended to call an outrigger, if only to avoid the mass of Greek technical terms associated with it. However, I am willing to acknowledge that the bit that sticks out of an aphract trireme is not structurally the same as that which sticks out from later cataphract ships.

In passing, I have not seen any credible suggestion that the larger vessels did not have "outriggers", unless that is a misunderstood reference to them actually having upgraded to oarboxes.

In fairness to Nick, I have seen suggestions that some early fours and possibly fives were two level vessels without outriggers.  The finger is usually pointed at the Phoenicians and hence the Carthaginians because of cultural connections.  However, as some ancient sources suggest that the larger vessels originated in Sicily, who we must therefore assume were early adopters even if not actually originators, the Carthaginians had plenty of inspiration from their near enemies.



 

[Nick Harbud]

Let us not forget that the motivation for building quads and quins with their wider hulls had nothing to do with accommodating extra oarsmen, but everything to do with a need for a stable vessel that could transport 120 marines (or an equivalent mass of equipment) on its deck and have a similar manoeuvrabilty to existing triremes

We do not know that; it is simply an inference from the fact that quinqueremes could carry rather more fighting men than the triremes of Salamis were said to have embarked.  Was the form driven by an increased function, or were the extra men simply an exploitation of a design adopted for other reasons?  And how often did the larger ships actually embark so many men?  If you know you are going to fight a big battle close by, then yes, fine.  If, like the Romans at Ecnomus, you are en route for an amphibious invasion of Africa, then yes.  But so many "marines" has almost doubled your food and water burden on a class of warship which really, really hurts to meet the demands of just its oarsmen.

Yes we do.  John Coates, the naval architect, performed stability calculations on the Olympias and determined that it could not carry more than 20 marines without become dangerously unstable.  Furthermore, in order to carry an additional 100 marines, it would be necessary to redesign the vessel with a significantly wider hull.

Why would anyone want to carry more than 20 marines?  Well, consider the galley as means of getting fighting men (that is, marines) into the battle.  In order to deliver 6,000 marines one has the following options:

• 300 triremes with 54,000 oarsmen
• 50 larger vessels with 12,000-15,000 oarsmen

Which one would you pick?

[DBS]

You miss the point I am making.  We do not know whether the decision to adopt the quadrireme and quinquereme was driven by a desire to ship more marines.  It is more usually suggested that the primary driver was for a heavier and more robust vessel better suited than the Salamis era trireme for head-on engagements in close waters (eg harbour attacks or where a weaker enemy has chosen a narrow bay to make a stand) and greater utility in coastal siege operations.  Yes, they can carry more marines than an early aphract trireme (but equally later triremes also embarked more marines than Athens had tended to do so), but this may be a secondary benefit of a heavier, slower, less manouevrable but tougher design.  If you just want to transport an army efficiently, galleys are not your primary choice, whatever their class.  The Roman galleys at Ecnomus were escorting a transport fleet.

As I say, the limiting factor is not just stability, but food and water. A Salamis trireme has about 200 men (170 oarsmen, 30 deck crew and marines).  A quinquereme is 270-300 crew before one even gets to the marines.  If one embarks 120 marines, then you have some 420 people to feed and water.  There are not many places where a squadron, let alone a fleet, can rock up and readily find water for those numbers every couple of days.  As Guilmartin observes in his brilliant work on 16th century galleys, these are the logistic considerations that actually drive Mediterranean naval operations above all else.

[Nick Harbud]

Hi Nick
I went and read Launching Triremes from the Piraeus Shipsheds and from Beaches (I downloaded the report but haven't had time to read it, with other stuff keeping pestering me  )

I can see the issue. I must admit that if I had to overwinter a force of quinqueremes my first thought might be to build 'boat trailers' which would go out under the ship and you then then haul it up onto the beach. All you need is enough oxen 
The problem comes with both the size and cost of trailers because you'd need one per ship and whilst you might be able to take the wheels off it's probably not worth the bother. Indeed it has struck me that, frankly, it might get to the stage where it's cheaper, if you don't have the proper ship sheds, to accept a high level of losses and build new ships every spring 

Unfortunately, as Lipke makes clear, hauling galleys out of the water is not something one does once per year, but an activty that needs to happen every few days or, at the most, every couple of weeks.  Therefore, the option of writing off the galleys at the end of Summer is not viable as the will have been consumed by shipworm long before.

[Nick Harbud]

You miss the point I am making.  We do not know whether the decision to adopt the quadrireme and quinquereme was driven by a desire to ship more marines.  It is more usually suggested that the primary driver was for a heavier and more robust vessel better suited than the Salamis era trireme for head-on engagements in close waters (eg harbour attacks or where a weaker enemy has chosen a narrow bay to make a stand) and greater utility in coastal siege operations.  Yes, they can carry more marines than an early aphract trireme (but equally later triremes also embarked more marines than Athens had tended to do so), but this may be a secondary benefit of a heavier, slower, less manouevrable but tougher design.  If you just want to transport an army efficiently, galleys are not your primary choice, whatever their class.  The Roman galleys at Ecnomus were escorting a transport fleet.

There are a few assumptions here that are not supported by Coates and I would disagree with.  That is, that quads and quins were more robust and less manoeuvrable than triremes. 

The method of construction for all classes was the same mortice and tenon monocoque, which made them equally vulnerable to ramming.  Likewise, the danger of losing one's own ram when approaching from the front of a target would be same.  In addition, I am not sure that heavier ships fighting their way through an enemy in narrow seas would find it that easy.  I mean, the Persians had heavier vessels at Salamis and things did not go too well for them there.

Coates explicitly looked at the manoeuvrabilty and top speed of heavier polyremes when compared to triremes.  There is more mass to shift and the vessels sit lower in the water, but there is significantly more power available from the higher number of oarsmen.  Overall, he concluded that quads would be just as manoeuvrable as triremes, but slightly slower on the sprint.

[DBS]

With all due respect to Coates, other views are available; the argument I have outlined, for example, is one for which Rankov has expressed sympathy (I believe it originated with Murray), and given Boris was the rowing master of Olympias and is, I believe, still chairman of its trust, he is something of a Coates acolyte.

I am not sure there is hard evidence that the Persian ships at Salamis were heavier than the Athenian triremes.  Less adeptly handled perhaps. More burdened with marines, perhaps (which if true suggests marine numbers were no substitute for good handling).

Contemporary sources are careful to distinguish between cataphract and aphract, so there clearly was an appreciable difference.  Reinforced bows worked for the Corinthians at Syracuse, so more robust construction than a standard Athenian trireme was very possible, and a quinquereme with enclosed oarbox and far greater mass would seem inherently more likely to win a headon contest...

[Keraunos]

In Cambridge there's a wooden bridge that was designed to be built without fasteners.  So there's no inherent need to make a build irreversible just for strength. 

If you walk onto the 'mathematical' bridge at my old college you will see that it certainly has metal fasteners - bolts through most of the joints - which were probably part of the original design.  There are quite a lot of myths about it, even though it is of much more recent date than triremes, quadriremes and quinquiremes.

My gut feeling is that the stresses that would be put on an outrigger by the rowers and the movement of the vessel would make a solid structure, integrated into the rest of the hull a necessity in an age that did not have access to the wonders of modern ship construction materials (or spanners, which seem not to have appeared until the Fifteenth Century).

[Keraunos]

What has struck me, going through the ancient citations for Quadriremes and Quinqiremes gathered in the annexes to 'The Age of Titans' is how little we have to go on.  The literary evidence can be supplemented with archaeological evidence, notably the Athenian ship sheds, but this, too, is very limited.  I have just read Henry Hurst's paper on the ship sheds of Carthage and Athens
which makes the point that the ruins at Carthage and Athens are exceptional.  Wooden structures are much more likely to have been used elsewhere, but consequently much more difficult to find evidence for.  What I cannot find is any data on the dimensions of the ship sheds that have been found, apart from those at Athens.  Does anyone have references?

[Erpingham]

This article has quite a bit on Rhodian ship sheds.

[Adrian Nayler]

This article has quite a bit on Rhodian ship sheds.

If you prefer to download a pdf rather than read online this article is available here:

https://www.academia.edu/69407812/The_Rhodian_fleet_and_the_Karian_coast

Adrian.

[Jim Webster]

This article has quite a bit on Rhodian ship sheds.

If you prefer to download a pdf rather than read online this article is available here:

https://www.academia.edu/69407812/The_Rhodian_fleet_and_the_Karian_coast

Adrian.

Thanks
I was going to reply but people have given me so much reading to do 

[Adrian Nayler]

What I cannot find is any data on the dimensions of the ship sheds that have been found, apart from those at Athens.  Does anyone have references?

Perhaps the go-to place for such information would be: "Shipsheds of the Ancient Mediterranean" by David Blackman, Boris Rankov, Kalliopi Baika, Henrik Gerding, Jari Pakkanen. 2013, Cambridge University Press.

Page 91 gives examples of shed lengths (i.e. slipway ramp lengths) for Carthage (sheds 1, 2, 29 and 30 on the Ilot) of c. 27-35m.

Page 93 gives widths for the same sheds as c. 5.3 m (interaxial: c. 6.3 m). The latter dimensions are caveated in note 106: "This is an estimate: the short sheds, 1-2 and 29-30, on the Ilot appear to be c. 0.3 m narrower than the longer sheds, 3-24 and 27-28, as measured from the original 1:200 plan of Hurst 1979: 25 fig. 1."

Much of this volume is available on Google Books but, frustratingly, the catalogue for Carthage is embargoed.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6jZEAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA76&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false

Adrian.

[DBS]

frustratingly, the catalogue for Carthage is embargoed.

I have a copy.  I checked it again last night to refresh my memory of Rankov's views on Murray's arguments on the quads and quins being optimised for slogging matches.  There are two sheds on the Ilot at Carthage, numbers 25 and 26, which are rather larger than most of the other sheds whose dimensions can be calculated, and both 25 and 26 fall comfortably within the most likely size constraints for a quinquereme.  (They might even have taken something bigger, but Rankov points out that no ancient author ascribes anything bigger to the Carthaginians, unlike the Romans with their reported hepteres flagships.)

Also worth noting that Rankov emphasises that one would actually want a ship shed to be a tight fit, at least at the sea end, since one wants the oarbox to rest against something very solid to keep the vessel from tilting over, especially when hauling up or launching down the ramp.  He suggests only a few centimetres clearance would be desirable.