> The wars of Peleponnesos, and all that.
I'm closer to Diadochs, the Punic Wars and the siege of Syracuse myself when it comes to classical era naval warfare.
However, my personal corner is sailing in northern Europe, and that coincides with the resurgence of rivaling navies in the Mediterranean.
One might make a case for the Vandal pirate kingdom of Carthage and the Byzantine response to that, but the Mediterranean became "interesting" in terms of navies only when Lebanon, Palestine Egypt fell to the khalifate and there were muslim navies to counter Byzantium.
It is almost as if a Curse of Closing was lifted, and shipwrights had to rediscover ancient technologies, and invent new ones.
Similar with the Hanseatic cities on the Baltic Sea, where carpenters with no shipbuilding experience set out to construct ships. Some of the earliest cogs had the planking overlapping so that the lower part of the plank was inside the lower neighbour and the upper part outside the upper neighbour. A little while later, they seem to have included Viking shipwrights' knowledge, and the high-castled cogs became seaworthy. Then they, like the Greeks, started experimenting with larger ships, with multiple masts, and with sails suspended from the bow.
David Dunham pointed out the absence of the rudder. I'm not certain whether this applies to the Zombie-rowed Kralori behemoths or Mostali swimming castles, and I suppose that the Waertagi used the original tail of the sea dragons for steering, too. Where do the Maslo catamarans have their pins?
David:
> In my game, the quintessential Artmali ship is sort of
> Polynesian:
> "huge carved logs with sails and oars." [Revealed Mythologies p.37]
The dugout hull as a base does not necessarily mean that there was no planking added. I have read about dugouts that had been widened using steam, and then planking was added to regain sufficient freeboard.
Steam-shaping of planks is a technology that was found in the Hjortspring boat (i.e. preceding any rowing or sailing knowledge).
The presence of sails (I read this as multiple sails per boat) implies at least the addition of mast foots.
> The voyaging canoe at <http://www.francispimmel.com/> seems
> plausible (though of course it would be blue).
The rigging might be good, at least for aft masts (it is nicely different from square or lateen sails), but I don't see the Artmali using double-hulled ships. I'd leave those to the East Isles (and Maslo).
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