Gallery · Ship · SHP-001
Adventure Galley
Launched: 1695 To: 1698 Highly Probable
Purpose-built privateering vessel fitted for sail and oar.
No contemporary image of the Adventure Galley survives; she is exhibited here through the paper record alone.
The Adventure Galley was built for the venture, launched at Deptford late in 1695, and rigged for both sail and oar. The oars were the point: a ship that could move in calm air could run down prey that a pure sailing vessel could not.
She is also where the voyage's worst day happened. William Moore, her gunner, died on her deck on 31 October 1697, the day after Kidd struck him. The ship herself fared little better. By 1698 she was worm-eaten and no longer seaworthy, and Kidd abandoned her at Ile Sainte-Marie off Madagascar, moving into his captured prize. Whether she was burned or simply left to founder is contested between Kidd's account and his crew's, so the record carries that detail as possible rather than settled. Her specifications, builders and exact crew complement remain open research items, stated here only when the sources are in hand.
A purpose-built hunter that ended the voyage as a liability is a fair emblem of the venture that commissioned her.
Connections
- William Kidd commanded Adventure Galley
- William Moore served aboard Adventure Galley
- Adventure Galley connected to William Moore
Open research
Specifications, builders and exact crew complement remain open. She was launched at Deptford late in 1695 (Probable) and abandoned, worn out, at Ile Sainte-Marie in 1698; whether she was burned or left to founder is contested (Possible).