The Slender Giants of the Wine-Dark Sea
A model of a sixteenth-century Maltese galley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galley This is the title of the second chapter of my new manuscript. To put it simply, it is about war galleys in the Mediterranean. I have entered the stage of assessing and developing data. It will take a long time, and I will probably write several blog entries concerning this topic. Why does it take so long? The chapter will have at least four divisions: light galleys, the monster galley, the intricacies of naval warfare, and the shipborne artillery. For each section, I need to read the collected data, decide on its relevance, and write what I call "scraps," i.e., a memorable phrase, sentence, or a paragraph attached to that piece of info. I also need to check the details. For example, one source says that Ottoman shipwrights produced inferior galleys because they used "green" timber (unseasoned wood). An extraordinary claim that may need an additional quest. What was wrong with the O...