Greek Triremes

[MarkLindsay]

A friend of mine says that the Greek's used to beach their Triremer ships stern on, and disembark from the back of the ship, is this true as it seems to me a bit risky when going into battle and having to turn around and go in ass-end first when they could just speed into the beach prow first

[Ewood27]

I don't know if it's true, but it could be.  Triremes had a bronze rammer protruding from the bow under water to make a mess of any enemy ship they rammed.  That would dig into any beach and either slew the ship round or break off.  They didn't go in much for using triremes like WW2 landing craft, blasting ashore under fire and disembarking quickly to engage the enemy, so there would be no problem turning round and going in stern first.  Steering was by an oar over the starboard quarter, so no rudder to damage, and also they were then positioned for moving off again.

[Octavius]

It may well be, but considering the nature of warfare, I imagine that they would have just rammed the thing up on the beach.  With the layout of the trireme (oarsmen on 3 different levels) it would have been quite a slow process to reverse in (since all the 170 oarsmen would have to reverse their rowing in unison).  For general beaching (not in battle) the steering oars could be removed to allow beaching - which I guess would mean backwards.  It would seem even less likely that the ship would have been 'backed' in under sail.

 

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/trireme.htm

[simms]

The size of a trireme implies it spent all it's life afloat unless properly dry-docked on supports. They were big vessels and would distort badly if beached or run aground. They were intended for sea-battles or rapid transit and I expect sending troops ashore would be done from different vessels