The Galley.

Christopher Columbus's "enterprise of the Indies" and subsequent European overseas expansion would have been unthinkable without a variety of shipbuilding and navigational innovations that made it possible for fifteenth-century Europeans to sail across long stretches of treacherous ocean waters. Throughout the later Middle Ages trade and naval warfare on the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of Europe had been dominated by a class of ships called "galleys." They typically employed one square sail set on a central mast. Their principal source of power, however, was not the sail but rather a large number of oars that lined each side of the ship. Reliance on oar power carried both advantages and disadvantages for the captains and owners of galleys. On one hand the ships were not dependent upon the vicissitudes of the wind for their propulsion, and...