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} |} ''Adventure Galley'', also known as ''Adventure'', was an English sailing ship captained by William Kidd, the notorious privateer. She was a type of hybrid ship that combined square rigged sails with oars to give her manoeuvrability in both windy and calm conditions. The vessel was launched at the end of 1695 and was acquired by Kidd the following year to serve in his privateering venture. Between April 1696 and April 1698, she travelled thousands of miles across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in search of pirates but failed to find any until nearly the end of her travels. Instead, Kidd himself turned pirate in desperation at not having obtained any prizes. ''Adventure Galley'' succeeded in capturing two vessels off India and brought them back to Madagascar, but by the spring of 1698 the ship's hull had become so rotten and leaky that she was no longer seaworthy. She was stripped of anything movable and sunk off the north-eastern coast of Madagascar. Her remains have not yet been located. ==Design and purchase== The vessel was acquired for Kidd by a consortium of investors who backed a scheme to hunt down pirates, recover their booty and redistribute it among the investors. He had enlisted the support of Richard Coote, 1st Earl of Bellomont and governor-general of the British Province of New York and the ambitious Robert Livingston the Younger, who later became the mayor of Albany, New York. With Coote's backing, Kidd obtained a commission from King William III to operate as a privateer. The other investors who came aboard the scheme after it met with the king's approval were the Earl of Oxford, the Earl of Romney, the Duke of Shrewsbury, the Lord Chancellor, Sir Edmund Harrison and John Somers. The king himself was not an investor but was nonetheless entitled to one tenth of the proceeds.〔Donnelly, p. 9〕 The vessel was purchased for £8,000 (£ today) in August 1696.〔Donnelly, p. 10〕 She had been launched on 4 December 1695 from Captain William Castle's dockyard in Deptford on the outskirts of London.〔Graham, p. 106〕 Her design combined sails and oars, an unusual combination for warships at that time, that incorporated three ship-rigged masts and two banks of oars. This allowed her to make under full sail and under oar. Although rowing was slow it enabled the ship to manoeuvre against the wind, or in calm conditions where other vessels that relied on sails alone could not make any progress.〔 A number of British warships had been built to similar designs following the lessons learned from the wars against the Barbary pirates of North Africa, whose galleys had proved formidable opponents, and trading companies such as the East India Company (EIC) also built oared frigates.〔 Castle's yard, where ''Adventure Galley'' was built, was one of the largest private shipyards in England and was a supplier of vessels to the EIC.〔Fumerton, p. 89〕 ''Adventure Galley'' was well-armed with a complement of 32 guns (saker or light cannon).〔 It is not clear whether she was in fact a new vessel or had originally been intended for the navy; she may have been a commercial vessel under refit at Castle's yard before she was acquired by Kidd's consortium. She does not appear to have been particularly well-built, to judge from the problems that Kidd faced with her seaworthiness during her short career in his service. It was not uncommon for shipyards to cut corners and use sub-standard materials, and to pocket the difference in costs as extra profit.〔Graham, p. 107〕 Although no picture has survived of ''Adventure Galley'', HMS ''Charles Galley'', which was recorded in contemporary paintings, provides a good example of how the English adapted the oared frigate design for warfare.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Adventure Galley」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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