Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
If you would like to write a summary for this topic, email phil [at] gyford [dot] com
Per L&M Companion ‘Large Glossary’:
Large open rowing boat plying on Thames.
“Being through bridge I found the Thames full of boats and gallys, and upon inquiry found that there was a wager to be run this morning. So spying of Payne in a gully, I went into him, and there staid, thinking to have gone to Chelsy with them. But upon, the start, the wager boats fell foul one of another, till at last one of them gives over, pretending foul play, and so the other row away alone, and all our sport lost.”
http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1661/05/18/
It is uncertain if a galley had only one or more than one waterman or oarsman as crew and they would appear to be appear to be similar to:-
Model of a “Navy Board style” barge or Shallop, circa 1691
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/explore/object.cfm?ID=SLR0380
In Pepys usage a ‘barge,’ ‘Navy Office Barge’, ‘Royal Barge’, ‘Livery Company Barge,’ though based on the same or similar hull form seems to be a formally decorated craft with an enclosed cabin in the stern and crewed by a number of watermen. For later surviving examples see:-
Commissioners Barge of the Royal Navy, mid c 18th.
http://www.nhsc.org.uk/index.cfm/event/getVessel/vref/1958
Prince Frederick’s Barge circa 1732
http://www.nhsc.org.uk/index.cfm/event/getVessel/vref/617