Galleons

History

Galleons were also used militarily in the Mediterranean, where terse winds and waters usually made more practical to employ rowed galleys. In 1478, the Knights Hospitaller started fielding galleons or carracks in their galley squads to capitalize on their artillery and cargo. Spain also started introducing galleons in the Mediterranean since at least the 1535 conquest of Tunis, which saw the fleet of Andrea Doria and Álvaro de Bazán the Elder using galleys to tow the galleons whenever necessary. The conquest saw the deployment of the Portuguese galleon São João Baptista. A Spanish galleon squad captained by Carlo d'Avalos was slated to participate in the Battle of Lepanto, but due to adverse winds it arrived too late to fight. In the 16th century, corsairs Jack Ward and Zymen Danseker joined the Ottoman Barbary corsairs and taught them to use galleons and other western sailing ships. In response, Spanish admiral Luis Fajardo deployed his own fleet and destroyed the corsair ships in a raid in La Goulette, the first large scale operation undertaken without the support of rowing ships in the Mediterranean. These battles showed the galleon was started to displace the galley entirely. The trend peaked in 1616 with the battle of Cape Gelidonya, where a Spanish sailing fleet headed by galleons repulsed a huge Ottoman galley fleet.