Ancient Greece Boats Ships Warships and Sailing

Boating and sailing occupied a crucial place in the Greek way of living. As a matter of fact, the entire Greek civilization was based on boat transportation. The reasons for the same were twofold namely for facilitating the import and export of goods both within Greece as well as outside Greece and also because the mountainous topography of Greece made sailing by default the easiest way.

Additionally, wars also made it vital to have knowledge about sailing as navies became a requisite during such wars. Like for instance, in the Battle of Salamis which took place in 480BC, Athens won over Persia only on the basis of its strong navy. Such was the importance of boating and sailing in ancient Greece.

Ancient Greek boats usually had 2 or 3 sails depending on the size of the boat. These boats were made using large pieces of hard wood. A large sized boat if used for the transportation of stone for the purpose of making statues could carry 100 to 150kg of stone. These boats were also used for the transport of raw materials which were needed for construction purposes like iron, bronze etc. Occasionally, even food items like almonds, barley, fish, olives etc were transported by putting a wax seal on the top.

In the ancient Greece there existed a special road which was called as Diolkos. The specialty of this road was that this road connected two seas. Hence people could travel from one sea to another without having to change their boats. This length of this road was about 175kms. Subsequently, however, this road turned green due to seaweed and barnacles which grew into it.

Primarily, there were three types of boats in ancient Greece.

These were namely the military ship, the cargo ship along with these two were the small crafts. While the military as well as the cargo ships were of great importance, the small crafts were only used for the purpose of transport of just few people. Though initially the ships in ancient Greece were very basic or elementary yet with the passage of time the Greeks made substantial improvements which made the ships travel faster ultimately resulting in making the Greeks powerful sailors.

Beginning with the Greek warships, these were initially long, narrow and single level ships. These ships were basically used for transfer troops to the sight of the battles and hence they were designed in such a manner so as to reach the destination as quickly as possible. These boats consisted of 25 oarsmen on each side who were called as Pentekontors. One of the most prominent warships to be used during this time was called the Trireme which came to be extensively used around 500BC. This trireme was extremely rapid and reached up to 14 knots under good weather conditions. The trireme was 118 feet in length, 18 feet wide and 8.5 feet tall. As many as 170 oarsmen propelled this warship.

However, only 14 soldiers could be carried in one trireme at one time as by then ships were mainly used in naval battles rather than for transporting troops. In spite of all these advantages, this trireme suffered from one major drawback which was that because this boat was light, it could very easily be blown off due to high winds.

Immediately after the warships, the cargo ships were of utmost importance. These ships were mainly used for the purpose of import and export. Hence, the prosperity of ancient Greece could be attributed to these ships. The major advantages of these cargo ships was that they required comparatively lesser time to reach if compared with travel by road. Additionally, due to the complicated mountainous terrain, it was the water transport which was most favored by the people. These ships travelled at an average speed of 5 knots.

Since these ships had to travel into the winds, they usually sailed in zigzag pattern. In the beginning around 40BC, these ships weighed around 150 tons. However, by 240BC, the weight of these ships increased to somewhere between 350-500 tons.

Navigation was crucial for a sailors survival. Hence, every man was expected to not only know the basic intricacies involved in boating and sailing but also to master them in order to be assured of his safe arrival to his destination.

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