Teach me about merchant ships, especially galley ships

[Panda]

I have a chapter where four fugitives (one of whom is severely injured) escape the capital city via a merchant ship. (The captain knows that they're fugitives but he's sympathetic to their cause. The rest of the crew knows better than to ask too many questions.) The ship will be traveling along the coast, starting at a harbor in the capital city and eventually reaching a rebel base near the mountains on the edge of the kingdom. From there, it drops off the fugitives and continues on along the coast until it reaches a city in the neighboring kingdom.

I'm debating making the ship a galley. Slavery is legal in the neighboring kingdom, and some of the oarsmen on the ship would be slaves. This upsets one of the fugitives (a former convict who had to work in a chain gang, and whose best friend is a former slave) and might pose some interesting conflict, both internally (how does he cope with the fact that his escape hinges on the abuse of people he empathizes with?) and externally (does he "bite the hand that feeds" by condemning the captain who's saving his life? Is he stupid enough to try to start a mutiny?) On the other hand, this might overcomplicate things and maybe I should just make it a sailing ship. I haven't decided yet.

Anyhow, I have two problems that I was hoping you guys could help me with. The first is that I need to figure out the overall speed of the ship. I haven't completely worked out the geography of the kingdom yet but, when I do, I'll need to figure out how long it took the ship to get from the capital to the base.

The second is that I need to figure out what the ship looks like. Should I model it on a specific type of ship? I need to keep two of the fugitives (the injured one and the healer who's trying to keep her from dying) separate from everyone else. Would there be a room below deck where they could stay, or would the captain have to give up his quarters to them?

 

[X Equestris]

Medieval ships - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This page would be a good starting place, as it has pictures and links to other pages with more specific information.

 

[ArenRax]

When you have the basic shape down couldn't you try drawing a diagram of the innards of the ship and shap it to what you need. Then you'd have a picture to help you and have the locations of everything. I find it quite helpful to draw things out, like world maps and sometimes a certain building.

 

[stephenspower]

I have galleys in my novel and had to figure out these exact things. The Wikipedia entry on galley's is very good.

No one is really sure of the speed of galleys but I decided something like 6-12 knots depending on how drugged the rowers were.

I modeled my galley on the Olympias because I had the plans as a result of doing Stephen Dando-Collins's book RISE OF AN EMPIRE. That's a trireme, though, and mine were monoremes, so I scaled them down. I also added a foredeck, a stern castle, a lanteen sail and a steering board (the oar from which we get the word starboard), which may not be pure for one time, but my world mashes up technologies from many centuries.

Another book to look into is Angus Konstam's book on the Battle of Lepanto, which has great paintings.

Finally, THE BOYS IN THE BOAT has great details about rowing that I stole. In fact, I modeled the best rower in my galley on the main guy in the UW boat.

 

[Panda]

Thanks, guys.