John Coates Memorial Lecture on the Greek trireme

By Ashley Holt

On Tuesday 11th October Professor Boris Rankov gave a lecture on triremes at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution. Alan and I attended this fascinating talk, held in memory of John Coates who was the designer of the Olympias, the reconstruction of an ancient Greek trireme currently housed in dry dock in Athens.

We heard a resume about the life of John Coates from his son, Julian, who described his father’s love of naval engineering which saw him being awarded an OBE for designing and testing a new style of lifejacket, and eventually rising to the rank of Chief Naval Architect for the Admiralty.

Professor Rankov took the stage to explain why John’s contribution to our understanding of the Greek trireme is so exceptional. J.S. Morrison and R.T. Williams collected evidence about Greek triremes in their book ‘Greek Oared Ships: 900 – 322B.C.’ and although the book was widely praised, it was almost universally acknowledged that a three-banked system of oars for the trireme was impossible and that the name in fact referred to three rowers on each oar.

John Coates decided to work with the authors to produce what he termed a ‘floating hypothesis’ about the feasibility of a three-banked warship. The completed trireme was called the Olympias and upon her launch in 1987, underwent several years of sea trials in the sea off Athens.

Her ‘engines’ were a crew of 170 rowers and during the trials she reached speeds of 9 knots, which is not at all bad for a 50 ton oar-powered vessel. Performance data indicates that a cruising speed of 5-6 knots could be maintained for an hour. A tight turn could be executed in a turning circle of 62m, which is less than twice the length of the Olympias. At 3 degrees of turn per second this rivals a modern warship! She could go from 0 to 7 knots in 30 seconds (which sounds like an old car I once owned!) both forwards and backwards, meaning that ancient naval conflicts could have begun the engagement with the opposing forces very close together.

Interesting factors about the operation of triremes has to take into account the data collected from these trials. One fact that I had not considered was the crew’s consumption of 1.7 tons of water in a day – this not only has to be carried and made accessible to the crew, but also needs to be collected, transported and stored!

We were treated to a video of the last trails (by luck a film producer was holidaying in the area and couldn’t resist the opportunity to get involved). The link to the film on You Tube is below – marvel as we did at the graceful speed of the trireme rowing through the still waters of the Aegean, the rhythm of the oarsmen rocking forwards and backwards as their oars dip into the water, the count of the oarsmaster and the splash of the oars. The wake of the sea at the bow and ram complete the scene..........now just imagine marines and archers on deck.......just imagine the HA on deck.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcsrNrRkQis

The finale of the talk was some exciting information:

1. The video is available for purchase from BRLSI (see www.brlsi.org)
2. The performance data will be available in a book coming out soon (but no mention was made as to whether this will be an appendix of the existing book, or a new book)
3. The Olympias is being sold to the American Greek community and will be being transported to America very soon