No, this is not going to be about food, this is the next step in the evolution of the ship. The galley, from Greek γαλέα – galea, is a class of ship that continued to use oars for propulsion, but they also used larger and more efficient sails when the winds were favorable. They were a continued improvement over the trireme and quadreme style of ship.

Galleys are said to have been used from the time of Homer until the advent of Naval gunnery in the 15th and 16th centuries. Since any ship using oars was considered a galley, this it totally possible. We see some depictions of ships from medieval times called galleys and we see a much larger ship than an 8th century BC ship. In reality the galley grew in size over all those centuries, but their basic design remained the same, multiple sets of oars and two small sails.

The last full scale naval combat conducted with galleys occurred in the 1571 Battle of Lepanto. After this warships were predominantly powered by sail and galleys were used more for trade. The early Tudor Navy of Henry the 8th included some galleys along with other pure sailing ships.

The galley had a long slow death in naval registries. Starting way back in 300 BC galleys, triremes, would actually hide behind merchant shipping. The high sided ships introduced around this time began the down fall of the galley style ship. In 1340 the Dutch navy totally dropped the galley in favor for the cog, a shallow draft sail powered ship. Galleys still were used right until the late 17th century. Captain Kidd actually used a galley for his vessel. It was not suited fro combat, but was suited for raiding merchant shipping.

In fact galleys were even used during the American Revolutionary War. Whalers would use galleys to raid Canada to provide much needed supplies fro the Continental Army. The Corsairs of North Africa used galleys for raiding merchant ships well into the 18th century. Even the growing Imperial Russian Navy used galleys in the Baltic and Black Seas.

Galleys of later years differed from the trireme mostly in the heights of their side walls and draft. Later galleys also used much better sail canvass to harness the winds power. Where are the trireme used oars for most of their power and sails to help add speed for battle. Later galleys were just the opposite, oars for a burst of speed and sails for cursing.

The death of the galley came when steam power was introduced to shipping. In various designs galleys served merchants and navies for almost 2000 years.