Port Kar Ships & Boats

Large squarish, enclosed cabin barge
Low flat roof
Windows with slats, slats raise and lower and lock from outside
Several low wooden benches jutting out from walls on both sides
Benches seat 5 women and have ankle & wrist shackles as well as plank collars. We had come to this place, through the northeast delta gate, in a squarish, enclosed barge. It was only through slatted windows that I had been able to follow our passage. Any outside the barge, on the walkways along the canals, for example, could not have viewed its occupants. Such barges, though with the slats locked shut, are sometimes used in the transportation of female slaves, that they may not know where in the city they are, or where they are being taken. A similar result is obtained, usually, more simply, in an open boat, the girls being hooded and bound hand and foot, and then being thrown between the feet of the rowers.

Samos and I rode inside the squarish, covered barge in which we had earlier come to the tam complex in the marshes. It was now shortly after dawn. We were making our way through the canals of Port Kar.

I moved on the low wooden bench, one of several aligned perpendicularly to the interior port wall of the enclosed barge. There was a similar set of benches aligned identically against the starboard wall.
"These benches are uncomfortable," I said to Samos. My legs were cramped.
"They are designed for women," said Samos.
There was room for five women on each bench. With my heel I kicked some light, siriklike slave chains back under the bench. Such chains are too light for a man, but they are fully adequate for a woman. The primary holding arrangements for women on the benches, however, are not chains. Each place on the bench is fitted with ankle and wrist stocks, and for each bench there is a plank collar, a plank which opens horizontally, each half of which contains five matching, semicircular openings, which, when it is set on pinions, closed, and chained in place, provides thusly five sturdy, wooden inserts for the small, lovely throats of women. The plank is thick and thus the girls' chins are held high. The plank is further reinforced between each girl with a narrowly curved iron band, the open ends of which are pierced; this is slid tight in its slots, in its metal retainers, about the boards, and secured in place with a four-inch metal pin, which may or may not be locked in place. Each girl is held well in her place, thusly, not only by the ankle and wrist stocks, which hold her ankles back and her wrists beside her, but by the plank collar as well.

I looked at the benches. Most of them were smooth, and, on many, the dark varnish was all but worn off. Slave girls are normally transported nude.
"Please," said Samos.
"I'm sorry," I said. I closed the window slats by moving one of the slats. They can be most easily closed, of course, by moving the narrow, vertically mounted, central wooden lever, but this lever, as would be expected, is on the outside. The window is designed to be opened and shut from the outside. Too, it can be locked shut, and normally is, from the outside, when cargo is within.

We felt the barge turn slowly in the canal. Then we heard oars being drawn inboard on the starboard side. The barge, then, gently, struck against a landing, moving against the leather coils tied there.
"We are at my holding," I said.
I rose from the low bench and went to the door and opened it, emerging near the stern of the barge. Two of my men were holding mooring ropes, one from the bow of the barge and one from the stern. I climbed to the rail of the barge and ascended from thence to the surface of the landing.

I looked over the low roof of the barge's cabin to the canal beyond.

All from Savages

Leather tubs
Use pole to move along



Most families in Port Kar own their own boats. These boats are generally shallow-drafted, narrow and single-oared, the one oar being used to both propel and guide the boat. Even children use these boats. There are, of course, a variety of types of craft in the canals, ranging from ramships harbored in the courts of captains to the coracles of the poor, like leather tubs, propelled by the thrusting of a pole. Along the sides of the major canals there are commonly hundreds of boats moored. These are usually covered at night.

Long low boat
Propelled by oarsmen
Used in navigation on canals
Used also lowered from ships at sea to approach other ships

I took a longboat ashore, and sent the boat back to my galley.

Outside the holding, on the broad promenade before of the holding, bordering on the lakelike courtyard, with the canal gate beyond, I ordered a swift, tharlarionprowed longboat made ready.

I kissed her and leaped down into the longboat, which was now beside the promenade.

Then I took my seat in the longboat.
I noted that at one of the oars sat the slave boy Fish.

The ship nosed through the canals of Port Kar toward the hall of the Council of Captains.

"Lower a longboat," I told an officer.
"in this sea?"
"Hurry!" I cried.
The boat was lowered to the water. At one of the oars, as though he belonged there, was the slave boy Fish. The oar-master took the longboat's tiller.

Narrow with high curved prows
Anchors at stem and stern
No keleustes (time beater) - strokes are called vocally to rowers by Oar Master
Oar Master sits below tiller deck, facing ships bow
Rowers face stern of ship

Their slaves, their torches extinguished, were loading the narrow, high-prowed barges, treading long, narrow planks extending from the barges to the matting of the island.

The slaves, like fish, were thrown between the rowers benches, and aft, forward of the tiller deck, three or four deep. There were six ships. One beautiful girl was tied to the prow of each ship that, in returning to Port Kar, others might see that the raid had been successful.

The high-prowed marsh barge is anchored at both stem and sternn. Soon, each drawn by two warriors, the anchor-hooks, curved and three-pronged, not unlike large grappling irons, emerged dripping from the mud on the marsh. These anchor-hooks, incidentally, are a great deal lighter that the anchors used in the long galleys, and the round ships.

The officer, standing on the tiller deck of the flagship, lifted his arm. In marsh barges there is no time-beater, or keleustes, but the count to the oarsmen is given by mouth, by one spoken o fas the oar-master. He sits somewhat above the level of the rowers, but below the leve of the tiller deck.
He, facing the rowers, faces toward the ship's bow, they of corse, in their rowing facing the stern.
The officer on the tiller deck, Henrak at his side, let fall his hand.
I heard the oar-master cry out and I saw the oars, with a sliding of wood, emerge from the thole ports. They stood poised, parallel, over the water, the early-morning sun illuminating their upper surfaces. I noted that they were no more than a foot above the water, so heavily laden was the barge. Then, as the oar-master again cried out, they entered as one into the water; and then, as he cried out again, ear oar drew slowly in the water, and then turned and lifted, the water falling in the light from the blades like silver chains.

The oar-master cried out angrily and turned to the helmsman, he who held the tiller beam.
The helmsman stood at the tiller, not moving. He had removed his helmet in the noon heat of the delta. Insects, undistracted, hovered about his head, moving in his hair.
The oar-master, crying out, leaped up the stairs to the tiller deck, and angrily seized the helmsman by the shoulders, shaking him, then saw his eyes.
Soon, shielded by rushes and sedge, we had the first of the narrow, high-prowed barges abeam. This was their flagship. The warriors in the craft, climbing on the rowing benches, were crowed amidships and aft, even on the tiller deck, looking back at the barge line behind them, trying to make out the shouting, the confusion. Some of the slaves, chained at their benches, were trying to stand and see what might be the matter. On the small foredeck of the barge, beneath the high, curved prow, stood the officer and Henrak, both looking aft. The officer, angrily, was shouting the length of the barge to its oar-master, who now stood on the tiller deck, looking back toward the other barges, his hands on the sternrail.

Small flat bottomed boat
Propelled by poles
Square ended

A punt, from the flagship, moved ahead. Two slaves stook aft in the small, square-ended, flat-bottomed boat, poling. Two other slaves stood forward with glaves, lighter poles, bladed, with which they cut a path for the following barges. That path must needs be wide enough for the beam of the barges, and the width of the stroke of the oars.

Deep holds for transporting merchandise
Generally two-masted - permanent masts
Not round, but has wider beam to length of keel, 1-6
Slower and less maneuverable than long ships

These five ships, pertinent to council membership, may be either the round ships, with deep holds for merchandise, or the long ships, ram-ships, ships of war. Both are predominantly oared vessels, but the round ship carries a heavier, permanent rigging, and supports more sail, being generally two-masted. The round ship, of course, is not round, but it does have a much wider beam to its length of keel, say, about one to six, whereas the ratios of the war galleys are about one to eight.

The Rena of Temos, like most round ships, had two permanent masts, unlike the removable mast of the war galleys. The main mast was a bit forward of amidships, and foremast was some four or five yards abaft of the ship's yoke. Both were lateen rigged, the yard of the foresail being about half the length of the yard of the mailsail. We had made good time for a heavy ship, but then the wind had slacked.

On the other hand, whereas the round ships do not carry rams and are much slower and less maneuverable than the long ships, they are not inconsequential in a naval battle, for their deck areas and deck castles can accommodate springals, small catapults, and chain-slings onagers, not to mention numerous bowmen, all of which can provide a most discouraging and vicious barrage, consisting normally of javelins, burning pitch, fiery rocks and crossbow quarrels.

The larger canals in Port Kar, incidentally, have few bridges, and those they have are commonly swing bridges, which may be floated back against the canal’s side. This makes it possible for merchant ships, round ships, with permanently fixed masts, to move within the city, and, from the military point of view, makes it possible to block canals and also, when drawn back, isolate given areas of the city by the canals which function then as moats.

Most single banked, some double and triple banked
Long narrow vessel, shallow draft
Single, lateen-rigged, removeable mast
Heavy class - 128 foot keel and 16 foot beam
Tarns beak shaped ram, shod with iron, rides just below water
Shearing blades on sides of hull

It must be understood that the ship itself is the weapon.
The Dorna, a tarn ship, is not untypical of her class. Accordingly I shall, in brief, describe her. I mention, however, in passing, that a great variety of ram-ships ply Thassa, many of which, in their dimensions, their lines, their rigging and their rowing arrangements, differ from her considerably. The major difference, I would suppose, is that between the singly-banked and the most doubly- or trebly-banked vessel. The Dorna, like most other tarn ships, is single-banked; and yet her oar power is not inferior to even the trebly-banked vessels; how this is I shall soon note.
The Dorna, like most tarn ships, is a long, narrow vessel of shallow draft. She is carvel-built, and her planking is fastened with nails of bronze and iron; in places, wooden pegs are also used; her planking, depending on placement, varies from two to six inches in thickness; also, to strengthen her against the shock of ramming, four-inch-thich wales run longitudinally about her sides. She carrieds a single, removable mast, with its long yard. It is lateen rigged. Her keel, one hundred and twenty-eight feet Gorean, and her beam, sixteen feet Gorean, mark her as heavy class. Her freeboard area, that between the water line and the deck, is five feet Gorean. She is long, low and swift.
She has a rather straight keel, and this, with her shallow draft, even given her size, makes it possible to beach her at night, if one wishes. It is common among Gorean seamen to beach their craft in the evening, set watches, make camp, and launch again in the morning.
The Dorna's ram, a heavy projection in the shape of a tarn's beak, shod with iron, rides just below the water line. Behind the ram, to prevent it from going too deeply into an enemy ship, pinning the attacker, is, shaped like the spread crest of a tarn, the shield. The entire ship is built in such a way that the combined strength of the keel, stempost and strut-frames centers itself at the ram, or spur. The ship is, thus, itself the weapon.
The bow of the Dorna is concave, sloping down to meet the ram. Her stern describles what is almost a complete semicircle. She has two steering oars, or side rudders. The sternpost is high, and fanlike; it is carved to represent feathers; the actual tail feathers of a tarn, however, would be horizontal to the plane, not vertical; the prow of the tarn ship resembles the ram and shield, though it is made of painted wood; it is designed and painted to resemble the head of a tarn.
Tarn ships are painted in a variety of colors; the Dorna, of course, was green.
Besides her stem and stern castles the Dorna carried two movable turrets amidships, each about twenty feet high. She also carried, on leather-cushioned, swivel mounts, two lihgt catapults, two chain-sling onagers, and eight springals. Shearing blades, too, of course, were a portion of her equipment. These blades, mentioned before, are fixed on each side of the hull, abaft of the bow and forward of the oars. They resemble quarter moons of steel and are fastened into the frames of the ship itself. They are an invention of Tersites of Port Kar. They are now, however, found on most recent ram-ships, of whatever port of origin.
Although the Dorna's true beam is sixteen feet Gorean, her deck width is twenty-one feet Gorean, due to the long rectangular rowing frame, which carrieds the thole ports: the rowing frame is slightly higher than the deck area and extends beyond it, two and one half feet Gorean on each side; it is supported by extensions of the hull beams; the rowing frame is placed somewhat nearer the stem that the sternpost; the extension of the rowing frame not only permits greater deck area but, because of the size of the oars used, is expedient because of matters of work space.
The size and weight of the oars used will doubtless seem surprizing, but, in practice, they are effective and beautiful levers. The oars are set in groups of three, and three men sit a single bench. These benches are not perpendicular to the bulwarks but slant obliquely back toward the stern castle. Accordingly their inboard ends are father aft than their outboard ends. This slanting makes it possible to have each of the three oars in an oar group parallel to the others. The three oars are sometimes of the same length, but often they are not. The Dorna used oars of varying lengths; her oars, like those of many tarn ships, varied by about one and one-half foot Gorean, oar to oar; the most inboard oar being the longest; the outblard oar being the shortest. The oars themselves usually weigh about one stone a foot, or roughly founds pounds a foot.
The length of those oars on a tarn ship commonly varies from twenty-seven to thirty foot Gorean. A thirty-foot Gorean oar, the most inboard oar, would commonly weigh thirty stone, or about one hundred and twenty pounds. The length and weight of these oars would make their operation impractical were it not for the fact that each of them, on its inboard end, is weighted with lead. Accordingly the rower is relieved of the weight of the oar and is responsible only for its work. This arrangement, one man to an oar, and oars in groups of tree, and oars mounted in the rowing frame, long and beautiful sweeps, had been found extremely practical in the Gorean navies. It is almost universal on ram-ships. Thie rowing deck, further, is open to the air, thereby differing from the rowing holds of round ships. This brings many more free fighting men, the oarsmen, into any action which might be required. They, while rowing, are protected, incidentally, by a parapet fixed on the rowing frame. Between eacy pair of benches, behind the parapet, is one bowman. The thole ports in a given group of three are about ten inches apart and the groups themselves, center to center, are a bit less than four feet apart. Then Dorna carried twenty groups of three to a side, and so used one hundred and tweny oarsmen.
From this account it may perhaps be conjectured why the oar power of a single-banked ram-ship is often comparable or superior to that of a doubly- or trebly-banked ship. The major questions involve the number and size of oars that can be practically mounted, balanced against the size of ship required for the differing arrangements. The use of extended rowing frame, permitting the leverage necessary for the great oars, and teh seating of several oarsmen, each with his own oar, on a given bench, conserving space, are important in this regard.
If we suppose a trebly-banked ship with one hundred and twenty oarsmen, say, in three banks of twenty each to a side, I think we chan see she would have to be a rather large ship, and a good deal heavier than the single-decked, three-men-to-a-bench typ, also with one hundred and twenty oarsmen. She would thus, also, be slower. And this does not even take into consideration the longer, larger oar possible with the projecting rowing frame. To be sure, they are many factors involed here, and one might suppose triple banks following the model of the single-banked, three-men-oars-to-a-bench type, and so on, but, putting aside questions of the size of vessel required for such arrangements, we may simply note, without commenting further, that the single-banked, three-men-three-oars arrangement is almost universal in fighting ships on Thassa. The other type of ship, though found occasionally, does not seem, at least currently, to present a distinct challenge to the low, swift, single-banked ships. In questions of ramming, I suppose the heavier ship would deliver the heaviest blow, but, even this might be contested for the lighter ship would, presumably, be moving more rapidly. Further, of course, the chances of being rammed by a lighter ship are greater than those of being rammed by a heavier ship, because of the greater speed and maneuverablitity of the former. Other disadvantages to the double- and triple-banked systems, of course, are that many of your oarsmen, if not all, are below decks and thus unable to enter into necessary actions as easily as they might otherwise do; further, in case of ramming or wreck, it is a good deal more dangerous to be below decks than above decks. At any rate, whatever the reasons or rationale, the single-banked tarn ship, of which the Dorna is an example, is the dominant type on Thassa.

Light ram ship - Tesephone
Forty oars, twenty each side
Swift
USed for patrols, swift communication
This galley, one of my swiftest, the Tesephone of Port Kar, had forty oars, twenty to a side. She was single ruddered, the rudder hung on the starboard side. Like others of her class, she is of quite shallow draft. Her first hold is scarcely a yard in height. Such ships are not meant for cargo, lest it be treasure or choice slaves. They are commonly used for patrols and swift communication. The oarsmen, as in most Gorean war galleys, are free men.
Hunters

The "Lower Hold"
Tiny crawl space, 18 inches deep, between first hold and hull
Contains sand for ballast
Contains bilge water
Sand is cool and usually holds perishables - eggs, bottled wines
"Take them to the lower hold," I said.
The lower hold is the tiny crawl space, of some eighteen inches, between the deck of the first hold and the curved hull of the ship, divided by its keel. It is unlit, and cold and damp. It contains much sand, used as ballast for the galley. It also contains the sump, or bilge. It is a briny, foul place.
The girls were carried from the deck. They were handed down the hatch to the first hold, and then, by others, handed down the hatch to the lower hold, which lies near the fore quarter of the ship. I gave the orders that they be placed on the sand well within the lower hold, which lies near the stern quarter, far from the hatch. They were so placed. The heavy grated hatch was then replaced over the opening to the lower hold. Bolts were shoved in place. Then the grating was itself covered, with two sheets of opaque tarpaulin, fastened down at the edges. The lower hold would now be in pitch darkness.
Hunters

The "lower hold" is not actually a hold at all, even of the cramped sort of the first hold. It is really only the space between the keel and the deck of the first hold. It is approximately an eighteen-inch crawl space, unlit and cold, and damp. This crawl space, further, in its center, rather amidships and toward the stern, contains the sump, or bilge. In it the water which is inevitably shipped between the calked, tarred, expanding, contracting, sea-buffeted wooden planking, is gathered. It is commonly foul, and briny. The bilge is pumped once a day in calm weather; twice, or more, if the sea is heavy. The Tesephone, like almost all galleys, is ballasted with sand, kept in the lower hold. If she carries much cargo in the first hold, forcing her lower in the water, sand may be discarded. Such galleys normally function optimally with a freeboard area of three to five feet. Sand may be added or removed, to effect the optimum conditions for either stability or speed. Without adequate ballast, of course, the ship is at the mercy of the sea. The sand in the lower hold is usually quite cool, and, buried in it, are commonly certain perishables, such as eggs, and bottled wines.
Hunters

Several sails on a galley
Three main types - fair-weather, tarn, and storm (each type has varieties)
Fair weather sail is large, used in gentle winds
Tarn sail is common, most often found on the yard
Tharlarion sail is a type of tarn sail, a smaller variety, more mangeagable and used in swift brutal winds
Gorean galleys commonly carry several sails, usually falling into three main types, fair-weather, "tarn" and storm. Within each type, depending on the ship, there may be varieties. The Tesephone carried four sails, one said of the first type; two of the second, and one of the third. Her sails were, first, the fair-weather sail, which is quite large, and is used in gentle winds; secondly, the tarn sail, which is the common sail most often found on the yard of a tarn ship, and taking its name from the ship; third, a sail of the same type as the tarn sail, and, in a sense, a smaller "tarn" sail, the "tharlarion" sail; this smaller "tarn" sail, or "tharlarion" sail, as it is commonly called, to distinguish it from the larger sail of the same type, is more manageable than the standard, larger tarn sail; it is used most often in swift, brutal, shifting winds, providing a useful sail between the standard tarn sail and the storm sail; fourthly, of course, the Tesephone carried her storm sail; if, upon occasion, a ship could not run before a heavy sea, it would be broken in the crashing of the waves. Gorean galleys, in particular the ram-ships, are built for speed and war. They are long, narrow, shallow-drafted, carvel-built craft. They are not made to lift and fall, to crash among fifty-foot waves, caught in the fists of the sea's violence. In such a sea literally, in spite of their beams and chains, they can break in two, snapping like the spines of tabuk in the jaws of frenzied larls. In changing a sail, the yard is lowered, and then raised again. In the usual Gorean galley, lateen rigged, there is no practical way to take in, or shorten, sail, as with many types of square-rigged craft. In consequence, the different sails. The brail ropes serve little more, in the lateen-rigged galley, with its triangular sail on the long, sloping yard, has marvelous maneuvering capabilities, and can sail incredibly close to the wind. Its efficiency in tacking more than compensates for the convenience of a single, multipurposed sail. And, too, perhaps it should be mentioned, the lateen rigging is very beautiful.
Hunter

The canals we traversed were crowded, mostly with small tharlarion boats, loaded with goods, moving this way and that. All who could, it seemed, were fleeing the city.