Punishment according to the Laws of the Sea

"Every such person…shall suffer death."
Horrific and cruel laws relating to all seamen dates back centuries and many of those regulations remained unchanged for hundreds of years.

The first laws affecting seamen were prepared by Richard the Lionheart when he headed off, by ship, on his first Crusade. The Ordinance or Usages of the Sea of Richard 1 was recorded in the 13th century. According to these regulations:

He who kills a man on shipboard, shall be bound to the dead man, and thrown into the sea; if the man is killed on shore, the slayer shall be bound to the dead body and buried with it.
Anyone convicted by lawful witness of having drawn his knife to strike another, or who shall have drawn blood of him, he is to lose his hand.
Anyone convicted of theft shall be shorn …; boiling pitch shall be poured on his head and he shall be set ashore at the first land the ship touches.

From this early set of ordinances, the Black Book of the Admiralty emerged in the 15th century.
The punishment, according to the Black Book, for the first offense of sleeping on watch, was mild. The sailor suffered a bucket of sea-water to be poured over his head. But if caught for a fourth time, the punishment usually proved fatal.
The offender was slung in a covered basket hung below the bowsprit. Within this prison he had a loaf of bread, a mug of ale and a sharp knife. An armed sentry ensured that he did not return aboard if he managed to escape from the basket. Two alternatives remained – starve to death or cut himself adrift to drown in the sea.

The Articles of War, formalized by an Act of Parliament in 1661, were based on this old Admiralty code of discipline and apart from some amendments made in the 18th century much of the content, and the brutal punishments they carried, remained the same throughout the age-of-sail.
As readers of nautical fiction are aware, the penalty for many minor misdemeanours, as well as serious offenses, carried the death penalty. Crimes ranged from abusive behaviour, negligence of duty, disobeying orders and mutiny, and the Articles of War applied equally to the lowliest ship’s boy as to the senior naval officers. Every man aboard ship was reminded of them on a regular basis – usually on a Sunday following the public Worship of God Almighty, which was also stipulated in the Articles.
While crimes and subsequent punishments at sea seemed exceedingly harsh, in 1800, the courts in England listed hundreds of minor offenses that were punishable by death. Crimes ranged from common assault, to burglarizing, to stealing a loaf of bread. For the lucky ones – mostly young males, a plea for clemency resulted in the sentence being commuted to transportation to the colonies – over the seas and beyond the seas. However, for some, enduring years of depravity in chains and subjected to the lash, resulted in a lingering death.

On land, death at the end of a rope usually came as the result of asphyxia. With a short drop through the trap door (the long drop was not introduced till later), the noose tightened but failed to separate the vertebrae, failed to cut off the blood supply and therefore failed to cause unconsciousness. Depending on where the rope was placed around the man’s neck, the victim gasped for breath as his neck muscles attempted to protect his windpipe from being crushed and the root of his tongue being forced further up his throat.
Writhing in mental, if not physical agony, it could take up to half-an-hour before a man was declared dead. Hence the body was left dangling for that time to ensure the hangman had done his job satisfactorily. It was not unknown, on land, for friends of a condemned man, or members of his family, to leap forward and pull down on his feet in order to tighten the noose and hasten his demise.

At sea, the most common punishment for a man sentenced to suffer death was to be hung from one of the upper yards. This was done by reeving a sturdy rope through a block on the end of a yardarm. After his hands were tied behind his back and his ankles lashed together, the condemned man was then blindfolded or hoodwinked and a noose placed around his neck. The slack on the other end of the rope was taken up by a dozen men – often the worst types on board, and when the signal was given, the drums rolled, a gun was fired and the line was hauled lifting the condemned man from the deck and up into the rigging. Once aloft, the signal was given to belay hauling and secure the line to a pin on the rail.

With the body jerking, the face livid, the eyes and the tongue protruding, the assembled ship’s company continued to observe until the writhing stopped. However, to make sure the man was dead, his body remained hanging in the rigging for half-an-hour before it was lowered to the deck. After examination by the ship’s doctor, confirmation of death was pronounced.
But hangings were not a punishment which could be meted out by a single captain. For crimes which carried the death penalty a Punishment Warrant from the Admiralty or a Court Martial had to be convened. Without this body of senior officers to hear the case, captains were limited in the punishments they could deliver aboard their ships. Floggings, therefore, were a common form of shipboard punishment.

During the Nelson era, according to Admiralty regulations, one dozen strokes of the cat o’ nine tails was the maximum that could be given. Some captains appear to have ignored this ruling, while others were loath to flog their men arguing that it bred hatred and did not foster respect.
The barbaric sentence of being flogged around the fleet could only be delivered by a Court Martial. The result of such a cruel punishment was tantamount to a death sentence, plus it guaranteed a far more painful death than the short drop from the gallows.
When a man was sentenced to such a punishment, he was delivered into a ship’s boat in which a frame had been erected. With his hands and feet lashed to the frame, the victim was rowed to every ship of the fleet where a Bosun’s mate would inflict the prescribed number of lashes. The addition of a left-handed flagellator, approved by some sadistic captains, created a criss-cross pattern of stripes drawn by the leather thongs on the victim’s back.

The doctor, attending the proceedings in the boat, was not on hand to halt the punishment, but to advise if and when the man was dead. In some cases the floggings were continued on a lifeless corpse.
A speedy and far less painful exit from this life could be achieved when sentenced to death by shooting. One such sentence was carried out in 1757. The findings of a British Court Martial determined that Admiral John Byng, while serving in the Mediterranean, had contravened one of the Articles of War. He was accused of failing ‘to do his utmost’ to defend and hold the port of Minorca, which, as a result, was taken by the French. Byng’s argument, that his fleet had been poorly supplied by the Admiralty and was under-manned, was ignored and pleas for clemency were rejected by King George ll.
Admiral Byng was taken aboard HMS Monarch in the Solent, and in front of his own men and the company of other ships, he knelt on the quarterdeck and was summarily executed by a firing squad.
Byng’s only consolation was that this mode of punishment provided him with a quick death, whereas men put ashore on a deserted island or cast adrift in an open boat faced a lingering death – death from exposure, thirst, starvation, and eventual madness. The events surrounding the life of Alexander Selkirk were famously fictionalized by Daniel Defoe in his book Robinson Crusoe. Cast ashore, after arguing with the captain, on Juan Fernandez Island in the Pacific Ocean, Selkirk did not die, as most expected, but survived alone for several years.

In other circumstances, when sailors found themselves adrift following the sinking of their ship, the survivors adopted the role of judge and jury, and passed sentence on the first unlucky victim who was to be slaughtered and eaten. Cannibalisation is not uncommon in the annals of history and if survivors were eventually found, their only defence was to quote the unwritten law of the sea. In his book, The Custom of the Sea, Neil Hanson quotes dozens of recorded incidences of cannibalism.

Finally, the most diabolical sentence handed out aboard ships of various nations was keel hauling. While it was not a death sentence per-se, it invariably resulted in the sailor’s relatively quick but cruelly painful demise. Rigged on a line that was run below the ship’s keel, the victim’s hands and feet were tied. The rope around his chest tightened as a group of sailors hauled him from the deck, dropped him into the water and pulled him under the vessel.

As he was dragged across the barnacle-encrusted hull, the razor-sharp shells ripped the skin from his face, arms and body. The more months the ship had been at sea, since its bottom had been scraped, the more lethal the punishment it provided. If the victim did not drown in the process, he did not survive long from his shocking injuries.
Keel hauling, in the Royal Navy, was discontinued in 1720 but continued until 1750 in some other European navies.

For any man who would suffer death at sea, death on the gun deck from an enemy’s broadside was a far sweeter alternative to being punished according to the Royal Navy’s Articles of War, which changed little over the centuries.

A tip for self-published authors - Having trouble selling your titles?

Are your E-books slow to sell?
Have your titles flat-lined?
If so, here is a proven tip to breathe life back into those dead books.
A few months ago, I noted the sales of some of my self-published e-books had fizzled to only a handful each a month.

Offering Freebies or Countdown incentives was not the answer. So, I decided to repackage three of my historical fiction titles by combining them as a Box Set through Amazon Kindle.
With a purposely designed Box Set cover, I presented the three stories under the umbrella of YORKSHIRE GRIT, a title that reflects the stories’ settings. After uploading the manuscripts to KDP, I offered the Set at an attractive price ($4.99 US).

For two months, this Box Set has performed well, particularly on Amazon UK, selling over 300 copies a month returning £2000 (approx. $4000) over 8 weeks. I am currently selling a dozen copies a day – a result which has both surprised and pleased me.
With very little effort it is possible to breathe life into titles that are otherwise dead in the water.
If you have titles which are in danger of going under – why not give it a try?
You can find YORKSHIRE GRIT here for US readers or here for UK readers.

The three titles in the Box Set are SEA DUST, THROUGH GLASS EYES and THE BLACK THREAD. These are all still available individually and as paperbacks through LULU.
Margaret Muir is author of seven novels and two other books. Nautical Fiction stories in the Oliver Quintrell Series are published under the by-line M.C. Muir.

Launceston, Tasmania - City Park

The ornate cast iron fountain was presented to the city in 1887 by the children of Launceston (Tasmania) on the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The land was the originally part of the first Government Farm where cattle and sheep were raised to feed the new colony.

In 1838 the Horticultural Society leased a portion to establish gardens with plants and trees from the Royal Society in England. It was intended as a promenade and pleasure ground for the people of Launceston. Today it the venue for musical events, carols, and Festival - one of the best food and wine festivals in Australia.

The John Hart Conservatory was built in 1891 for the International Exhibition in Launceston which attracted a quarter of a million people to the town of only 18,000 inhabitants. Entering the conservatory is like stepping back into the Victorian era.

Since settlement in the early 1800s, Launceston’s City Park (Tasmania) has been a home to a variety of wild or endangered animals, including the thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger – now extinct) and from the late 1800s to 1979, a troop of Rhesus monkeys.

When the last monkey died, 10 Japanese macaque monkeys arrived from Japan. This exhibition, with water features and glass enclosure, was a gift from the Japanese city of Ikeda – Launceston’s sister city. Japanese macaques are also known as Snow Monkeys.

“The best historical novels ever written” (Richard Snow) – a hard act to follow!

Apart from being a narrow genre with a limited readership, writing nautical fiction, set in the age-of-sail, is far from plain sailing for an aspiring author.

Portsmouth Harbour 1770

While all forms of historical fiction demand high standards of prose, readers of this sub-genre, particularly those weaned on the stories created by Patrick O’Brian (POB) and CS Forester, are a very discerning group. It is not unusual for the aficionados to revisit all 21 volumes of the Aubriad in a never ending literary continuum. From a writer’s standpoint, the challenge of presenting one’s work to such a knowledgeable and demanding crew can be daunting.

Without statistical evidence, I would assess that the demographics of classic age-of-sail (particularly POB) readers fall predominantly into the category of middle-class, English-speaking, Caucasian males with a reasonably high level of education. These readers know exactly what they want and they are quick to express their disappointment if a work of fiction fails to fall within the parameters of their expectations.

So what are the literary prerequisites needed to satisfy such astute readers?

Firstly, the story must be strong and engaging with liberal servings of conflict and tension that increase as the story rises to its final denouement. Both POB and CS Forester were inveterate storytellers whose faultless prose will continue to be enjoyed by future generations of readers.

In addition, the protagonists must be credible and their behaviour patterns dependable. Dialogue should be appropriate to each man’s background and his station in life. Descriptive passages, necessary to convey scene and atmosphere, have their place but must not be excessive. Action, either on the guns or as hand-to-hand combat should be exciting and should draw the reader into the heat of the battle. Where the story is enmeshed in a famous naval encounter, the facts should be recounted faithfully. Anachronisms are not readily forgiven.

But, unfortunately for the writer, not all armchair critics agree on the balance of the above parameters. There are those who desire sea battles to be the greater part of any nautical adventure. For them, time on land is regarded as an interruption to the progress of the story. Yet it can be argued that the age of fighting sail was halted at various times by periods of peace and at times captains found themselves languishing on the beach awaiting their next commission. Furthermore, most captains were married men who had homes, wives and sweethearts who they spent small amounts of time with.

The question of romantic interludes in nautical fiction is also argued for-and-against. Illicit affairs of the heart are accepted by some readers as roguish behaviour that adds spice to the story. Others condemn such actions as scandalous, signalling a flaw in the character’s nature.

The aim of the nautical fiction writer is to immerse their readers in a world of fighting ships, of unforgettable sea battles and voyages to exotic locations. As with any historical novel, it must be both engaging and credible allowing the reader to slide effortlessly into the era. To achieve this, extensive research is necessary.

Battle of Santa Maria

This raises the question: how much historical fact should be included in the story? Descriptions of ports, harbours, seascapes are introduced to create atmosphere. They provide a backcloth albeit in the vibrant colours of an exotic location, or the drab stinking cobbles of an English fish market running with brine and bleeding fish-guts. Some readers enjoy such passages, others comment that excessive description slows the story. So just how much is enough?

Despite the readers’ expectations, authors are basically storytellers who cannot be experts in every field. Therefore to pen a manuscript to the satisfaction of every reader is not an easy task. However, feedback from readers, in the form of on-line reviews, is a useful tool that is both welcome and helpful. Honest critiques allow the author to recognize the demands placed on them and, when writing a series, constructive criticism allows them to bend to the readers’ demands in a subsequent title – if appropriate.

But the primary requirement of a novel in any genre is undoubtedly solid characterization. Whether the protagonists are of aristocratic birth or pressed men taken from the streets, they must present as strong, well-rounded characters who will continue to grow throughout the book or series. But aside from displaying ambition, courage and leadership qualities, they should also exhibit some human failings.

Richard Snow (New York Times Book Review -1991) regards the works of POB as, “The best historical novels ever written”, but comments: “In the end it is the serious exploration of human character that gives the books their greatest power.”

For today’s author, the challenge to create characters as lasting as Jack Aubrey, Stephen Maturin or CS Forester's Horatio Hornblower is a formidable and seemingly impossible task. And with informed reviewers drawing comparisons with the great Bards, perhaps this is one reason few authors take up the pen to compete in this arena.

This article by M.C. Muir was first published in QUARTERDECK - Winter 2014 (Jan)

Yorkshire Grit

Three gritty stories, set in the north of England, from the pen of author, Margaret Muir.
Though the author now lives in Tasmania (Australia), her roots were firmly set in Yorkshire soil.
Her historical novels, set in the difficult days of the late 1800s, reveal the darker side of family life and the struggles that confronted young women at the time.

Book 1 – SEA DUST – Tells of Emma’s torrid life in Whitby with a cruel husband. The escape she plans for herself and her young son and an eventful voyage to the far side of the world.
Book 2 – THROUGH GLASS EYES – A family saga, much of the intrigue revolves around the theft of an expensive doll.
Book 3 – THE BLACK THREAD – Set on the Leeds Liverpool canal – a story of treachery, deception and murder.

The three e-book set is available at a greatly discounted price on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Set of three E-Books - Oliver Quintrell Trilogy

With the continuing success of the Oliver Quintrell nautical fictions series, the author has released a Box-set which combines the first three e-Books in one. Though each book is a stand-alone story, it is good to read the early adventures in sequence. The Box-set is available from Amazon Kindle.

Book 1 - FLOATING GOLD - a seemingly impossible mission, cloaked in mystery, takes the ship deep into the frozen waters of the Southern Ocean where intrigue, murder and near-mutiny threaten the lives of everyone aboard.
 
Book 2 - THE TAINTED PRIZE - heading south again to locate a missing Royal Navy frigate, Captain Quintrell navigates the Magellan Strait and makes a shocking discover before heading north to the coast of Chile and Peru. Aside from several encounters with the enemy, unexpected and disturbing occurrences make this an unforgettable story.

Book 3 - ADMIRALTY ORDERS - Captain Quintrell is ordered to Gibraltar to give assistance to the garrison and colony. Hemmed in by strict quarantine regulations, the dangers which unfold are more insidious than either the French or Spanish fleets. What Book 3 lacks in battle action it makes up for in its handling of the human toll from the colony's battle with an unseen enemy - malignant fever. 

Jebel Musa - the southern Pillar of Hercules on the Strait of Gibraltar.

Following on from the Trilogy, THE UNFORTUNATE ISLES is Book 4 in the series.
When given permission to leave Gibraltar, Captain Quintrell heads across the Atlantic. Putting into the Azores - better known as 'the Fortunate Isles' - to careen the ship, captain and crew have the misfortune of crossing tracks with a sadistic and tyrannical pirate who follows him across the pond. Can they escape the villain and finally serve retribution on him for his evil deeds?

Having reached Rio de Janeiro, the captain awaits sailing orders. Unexpectedly, he is ordered to return to England in the company of a British man-of-war. THE SEVENTY-FOUR is Book 5 in the series. While the enemy sails the seas, Captain Quintrell soon discovers that danger also lurks below deck.

All books are available individually as E-Books or paperbacks from Amazon.

Sailing full and by - an author's voyage into the world of nautical fiction

A full head of sail - bark Europa

Surprisingly, neither the young Richard Patrick Russ nor Cecil Louis Troughton Smith served aboard naval vessels, yet they became the most prolific and well-respected exponents of nautical fiction of all times. Writing under the pen-names, O’Brian and Forester, they shared a seemingly intimate relationship with the sea that flowed freely across the pages of their classic adventures. It is, therefore, hard to imagine where the salt in their veins stemmed from.
Today, several latter-day authors have a distinct advantage in that they can proudly boast a career in the modern navy seeing active service. Other writers, having grown up living by the sea, have salt in their veins. But, there are those who live hundreds of miles from the ocean and have little chance to savour the experience first hand.

HMS Victory - Portsmouth naval dockyard

Today, the opportunity to step aboard an original fighting ship from the age-of sail is slim. HMS Victory, Nelson's ship at the Battle of Trafalgar, is still in commission but is in permanent dry-dock. Nevertheless, to walk the decks is enough to inspire the imagination of anyone who visits Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. Across the pond, USS Constitution is the oldest commissioned ship still afloat and very occasionally her canvas is loosed and she sails out from her berth in Boston harbour. But very few people have the opportunity of sailing aboard her.
So, without the advantage of a seafaring background to call on, what does the aspiring lubberly writer do to become acquainted with the changing moods of the sea?

For one author, the only answer is to sail aboard a tall ship.
“To cross the ocean beneath a press of square sails, to stand on a heeling deck in the beating rain as the sea rushes in through the scuppers; to take the helm in the blackness of night wishing and waiting for the moon to rise; to watch the masts drawing infinite circles on the star-studied heavens; to listening intently for the luff of the t’gallant when the ship heads too close to the wind; to marvel at the endless array of sunsets; to sway to the rhythm as the deck pitches and rolls, is an unforgettable experience.”

Sailing the Australian Bight

Over the last eight years, the writer, has sailed on numerous voyages on sail training ships and replica vessels. In August 2013, this aspiring nautical fiction author embarked on a 23-day voyage of 2500 miles along Australian Bight aboard the 100-year old Dutch ship, Bark Europa.

Sailing close hauled under a press of canvas, in a latitude just one degree north of the band of the Roaring Forties, the bow of the 3-masted bark sliced through the waves making a very commendable nine-and-a-half knots. Apart from the chill factor, the winter cold fronts were not unkind and the voyage was uneventful. Only two weeks later, however, as Europa headed north towards Sydney, the 303 ton ship was hit by a sudden 55-knot squall (reported as Force 10) and lost its mizzen topmast.
Muir was not on board to witness this, but remembers an Atlantic crossing a few years earlier aboard the 2,200-ton modern passenger barquentine, Star Clipper.

Europa displays a pyramid of sail

“It was the tail-end of the hurricane season and we were nearing the islands of the Caribbean when Star Clipper was hit by an unexpected tropical squall. As most of her sails were still flying when the Force 9 hit, suddenly everything went over. Crockery and glasses crashed to the floor and passengers were thrown from their beds (modern facilities). The screech of the wind and the noise of the rain dancing on the sea were horrendous, obliterating any chance of conversation.” Such an experience left the writer with an indelible memory.

The endless ocean, in all its guises, is a formidable element of nature and is regarded by some authors as the primary player within a work of nautical fiction. And it was their stories set against the ever-changing backdrop of sea that made the novels of Patrick O’Brian and C.S. Forester so evocative, timeless and appealing, and has carried their readers on the crest of each new adventure to the far side of the world.

M.C. Muir is author of the Oliver Quintrell series of nautical fiction adventures set in the age-of-sail.
This article appeared in Nov/Dec issue of ‘Quarterdeck’, 2013.

"Neptune" - Roman Polanski's Pirate ship in Genoa

On my recent visit to Italy, I paid a special visit to "Il Galeone Neptune”.
She is berthed in the harbour at Genoa.

This remarkable ship was built in the early 1980s in Tunisia as a movie ‘prop’ for the Roman Polanski film, “Pirate”. The movie starred Walter Matthau but a DVD edition was never released due to Polanski's personal/political problems.

Though suffering from neglect (though some restoration work is going on below decks) the intricate detailed carving of her bow and sterncastle galleries are breathtaking.

Weighing 1500 tons, 65m long and 16.4m beam, the ship is impressive as it is larger than an actual Spanish Galleon.

'Neptune is a fully rigged ship but beneath her elaborate wooden facade she has a steel hull and is equipped with a diesel motor.
Internally she has spacious gundecks and cabins. And some restoration work is being done below decks.

It cost only 5 euros to step aboard but few people seemed to be taking advantage.
Of for few coats of paint and varnish!

'Santa Maria' replica of Christopher Columbus's famous ship

This replica of the Christopher Columbus’s 15th century, ‘Santa Maria’, was commenced in 1997. It was built by Dutchman, Rob Wijntje, a resident of the island of Madeira.
As no original plans existed, Rob sourced information from books in an effort to construct a replica as close to the original as possible. The resulting ship is 22 meters long, has 3 masts - the tallest being 16 meters high, and built entirely of mahogany.
Today the ‘Santa Maria’ sails regularly out of Funchal, taking passengers along the rugged south coast of Madeira.

Historically: ‘La Santa María de la Inmaculada Concepción’ or ‘La Santa María’ was a medium sized carrack and was the largest of the three ships used by Christopher Columbus in his first voyage. It was the flagship of his expedition which sailed to discover a new route to the spice islands of the east.

The other ships of the Columbus expedition were the smaller caravel-type ships Santa Clara, remembered as La Niña ("The Girl"), and La Pinta ("The Painted"). All three ships were second-hand and were not meant for exploration.

The ‘Santa María’ was built in Spain's north-east, having a single deck and three masts.
She was the slowest of Columbus's fleet but performed well in the Atlantic crossing. However, on Christmas Day, 1492, she ran aground on the coast of Haiti.

As the ship was beyond repair, Columbus ordered his men to strip the timbers from the ship.
These were later used to build a fort which he called La Navidad (Christmas).

Royal Galley - spectacular exhibit in Barcelona's Maritime Museum

One of the highlights of my recent holiday was a visit to the Maritime Museum in Barcelona. I went there specifically to see the magnificent replica of the royal galley of Don John of Austria.
This amazing vessel was the flagship of the fleet of the Holy League which comprised Spain, the Venetian Republic, the Holy See and Malta. On 7 October 1571, this powerful naval force confronted and defeated the Turkish League under the command of Ali Pasha at Lepanto.

Before the replica was built in 1971, a small model was constructed. In the picture the position of the oars and the sail configuration is included.

The oars were manned by 290 galley slaves/rowers. (This image photographed from a simulated video playing in the museum). Imagine what an arduous job it would have been to power such a vessel.

The following details are from Wikipedia:
“The ship was 60 metres (200 ft) long and 6.2 metres (20 ft) wide.

It had two masts, and weighed 237 tons empty. It was equipped with three heavy and six light artillery pieces, was propelled by a total of 290 rowers and, in addition, carried some 400 sailors and soldiers at Lepanto.
Fifty men were posted on the upper deck of the forecastle, 50 on the midships ramp, another 50 each along the sides at the bow, 50 each on the skiff and oven platforms, 50 on the firing steps along the sides near the stern, and 50 more on the stern platform behind the huge battle flag.

To help move and maneuvre the huge ship, it was pushed from the rear during the battle by two other galleys.
Befitting a royal flagship, it was luxuriously ornamented and painted in the red and gold colors of Spain.

Its poop was elaborately carved and painted with numerous sculptures, bas-reliefs, paintings and other embellishments, most of them evoking religious and humanistic inspirational themes.”
A cut-away section revealed the interior with ample room for storage of provisions and weaponry.

The maritime museum which houses the great galley has just undergone a period of 3 year's restoration.

The Barcelona Royal Shipyard (Drassanes Reials de Barcelona) houses the Barcelona Maritime Museum. Construction of the yards started during the 13th century under the rule of Peter III of Aragon. From the 13th to 18th century numerous war and merchant ships were built under its grand vaulted roof. The shipyard's restoration was finished in early 2013.
From 1381, the building had eight naves, 8.4m high and 8.4m wide. The naves were, approximately, 60m long, consisting of 17 columns 77 cm wide and 6 m high.

The purpose of the shipyard was to build galleys for the Aragonese Armada and during the rule of Alfonso V of Aragon, the shipyard experienced its highest activity.
In 1423, twelve galleys were built simultaneously. In 1571, the Royal Galley of John of Austria, commonly known as the Real, was built at the shipyard. This galley was the flagship at the Battle of Lepanto.

In 1935 the building was given to the Barcelona city who decide to use it as a maritime museum. It was opened in 1941. The 1976 the building was declared a Cultural Site of National Interest.

Pics by Margaret Muir