Sailing the galley has given thousands of hours of pleasure to the hundreds who have sailed on her. She has enabled us to explore how to sail a boat not used for several hundred of years and to discover she has real advantages over modern Yachts. The islands and skerries that make up the Hebrides are laced with rocky channels and inlets where a boat of shallow draft like the galley could escape from the weather or a pursuing enemy galley. The rig enables the yard to be lowered in heavy weather to bring the centre of effort down and as a result the galley is very stable even in winds up to force 10. She rows well though with difficulty into a sea above a force 4. Additionally being a light boat (under three tons) she could be pulled up a beach by the crew if she was forced to land on a lee shore. Historically galleys could be pulled or carried over a narrow isthmus (in Gaelic Tairbeart) with the help of the local villagers. When the Aileach was launched she was carried on the backs of 40 villagers of Moville, Co Donegal from the shed where she was built to the pier.
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Aileach pages provided by Mallaig Heritage Centre