A row galley was a term used by the early United States Navy for an armed watercraft that used oars rather than sail as a means of propulsion . During the "age of sail" row galleys had the advantage of propulsion while ships of sail might be stopped or running at slow speed because of lack of wind for their sails.
Even row galleys were sometimes fitted with sails.
During the American Revolution, row galleys, such as the USS Spitfire and the Washington, with crews of up to 60 oarsmen, were employed successfully in battle against larger warships.
During the American Civil War, Union Navy and Confederate Navy ships operating in rivers and other interior waterways, would send row galleys to surprise and capture enemy ships anchored for the night.
Famous quotes containing the word row:
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)