The ''gallivat'' (or ''galivat'', or ''gallevat'', or ''gallowet'', or ''gallouet'') was a small, armed boat, with

sail A sail is a tensile structure—which is made from fabric or other membrane materials—that uses wind power to propel sailing craft, including sailing ships, sailboats, windsurfers, ice boats, and even sail-powered land vehicles. Sails may ...

s and

oar An oar is an implement used for water-borne propulsion. Oars have a flat blade at one end. Rowers grasp the oar at the other end. The difference between oars and paddles is that oars are used exclusively for rowing. In rowing the oar is connecte ...

s, used on the

Malabar Coast The Malabar Coast is the southwestern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Geographically, it comprises the wettest regions of southern India, as the Western Ghats intercept the moisture-laden monsoon rains, especially on their westward-facing m ...

in the 18th and 19th centuries. The word may derive from Portuguese "galeota"; alternatively, it may derive from

Maratha The Marathi people (Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as a M ...

"gal hat" - ship.

Hobson-Jobson ''Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive'' is a historical dictionary of Anglo-Indian words and terms from Indian languages which came in ...

has an extensive discussion of the origins of the term and its usage. The gallivat typically had one or two masts with a

lateen A lateen (from French ''latine'', meaning "Latin") or latin-rig is a triangular sail set on a long yard mounted at an angle on the mast, and running in a fore-and-aft direction. The settee can be considered to be an associated type of the same o ...

sail, and some 20 benches for oarsmen, one on each side. They were generally under 70 tons ( bm) in size, and had a prow much like that of a grab. One of the ablest admirals of the 18th Century

Maratha Navy The Maratha Navy was the naval wing of the armed forces of the Maratha Empire, which existed from around mid-17th century to mid-18th century in India. Formative years Historian Sir Jadunath Sarkar noted: In medieval India, the Muslim rul ...

Kanhoji Angre Kanhoji Angre (Marathi: कान्होजी आंग्रे, Help:IPA/Marathi, anʱod͡ʒiː aːŋɡɾe, also known as Conajee Angria or Sarkhel Angré (August 1669 – 4 July 1729) was a chief of the Maratha Navy in present-day Ind ...

(a.k.a. Angria), made great use of gallivats. Generally, each of his grabs would have an attendant gallivat, both to tow it in calms and to carry extra men. On 26 December 1735 Angre attacked the

East Indiaman East Indiaman was a general name for any sailing ship operating under charter or licence to any of the East India trading companies of the major European trading powers of the 17th through the 19th centuries. The term is used to refer to vesse ...

off

Suvarnadurg Suvarnadurg ( mr, सुवर्णदुर्ग - translation: ''Golden Fort'', also spelt ''Severndroog'' in English, a spelling sometimes also used for Savandurga) is a fort that is located between Mumbai and Goa on a small island in th ...

. He deployed nine galleys, five grabs, and fifteen gallivats. ''Derby'' eventually struck her colours after having had seven men killed and five wounded. Angre kept the surviving crew prisoners for 11 months until the Governor of Bombay ransomed them. Maratha ships scroll

In 1754, a listing of Sidhi vessels seized by the EIC and held at Surat in 1759 gives the names of seven gallivats. The largest, ''Manzul'', had a length of 44 feet, a breadth of 17 feet, and a hold depth of 4 feet. The length and breadth measurements translate into a burthen (bm) of 52 ton. The smallest galivat, ''Ram Chand'', had a length of 29 feet, a breadth, of 13 feet, a hold depth of 4 feet, yielding a burthen of 19 tons. A gallivat that the EIC captured in 1775 measured 84 feet in length, and 24 feet in breadth, which yields a burthen of 213 tons. She had a single, forward-raked mast, and 24 oars, and carried ten 6-pounder guns. This would seem to be at the upper end of the size for a galivat, and represent a vessel more in the range of sizes for a grab.

Gallivats of the Bombay Marine

The British

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

made some use of gallivats, particularly for the

Bombay Marine The Royal Indian Navy (RIN) was the naval force of British India and the Dominion of India. Along with the Presidency armies, later the Indian Army, and from 1932 the Royal Indian Air Force, it was one of the Armed Forces of British India. Fr ...

, which was the British

's (EIC) navy.

1754

The largest gallivat, ''Shark(e)'', had a crew of six Europeans, six "Christian

topasses Topasses (Tupasses, Topas, Topaz) were a group of people led by the two powerful families – Da Costa and Hornay – that resided in Oecussi and Flores. The Da Costa families were descendants of Portuguese Jewish merchants and Hornay were Dutch ...

", 20

lascar A lascar was a sailor or militiaman from the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the Arab world, British Somaliland, or other land east of the Cape of Good Hope, who was employed on European ships from the 16th century until the middle of the 2 ...

s, and 16 soldiers. The smallest gallivat, ''Swift'', had a crew of two Europeans, 14 lascars, and 11 soldiers. Her smallest guns (½-pounders) were possibly

swivel gun The term swivel gun (or simply swivel) usually refers to a small cannon, mounted on a swiveling stand or fork which allows a very wide arc of movement. Another type of firearm referred to as a swivel gun was an early flintlock combination gun wi ...

s.''Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency'', Vol. 26, Part 3, p. 220. (Government Central Press, 1894). The soldiers were frequently from the Bombay Marine Battalion. In 1759, the Bombay Marine had 13 gallivats, six at Bombay and seven at Surat. Each had a crew consisting of two Europeans, some two to six Christian

(

Luso-Asians Luso-Asians (Portuguese: ''luso-asiáticos'') are people whose ethnicity is partially or wholly Portuguese and ancestrally are based in or hail primarily from Portugal, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. They historically came under the ...

), and 14 to 20

s. They carried from five to seven guns of various sizes.

1766

In 1773 the

Bombay Dockyard Bombay Dockyard, also known as Naval Dockyard, is an Indian shipbuilding yard at Mumbai. The superintendent of the dockyard is a Naval Officer of the rank Rear Admiral, known as the Admiral Superintendent. Background Shipbuilding was an establ ...

built ''Hawke'', a gallivat, for the Bengal Pilot service. By 1802 the Bombay Marine had no gallivats in service.

Notes, citations and references

Notes Citations References * * * * {{Sailing vessels and rigs Maratha Navy Sailboat types