Talk:Turtle Ship/@comment-26283073-20180223010122/@comment-27726014-20180315094423

Indeed, you can actually see that because it has ores. Ships powered by ores are always faster than those powered by sails. They also are more manouverable and have always the same power regardless of wind conditions unlike sailing ships which can't move if there is no wind (Very gentle wind allows them to move. Truly windless conditions are rare). The big disadvantage of ore powered ships and the reason they went out of fashion is manpower and cost. Rowing in unison takes quite a bit of skill and so training hundreds of people for that is expensive. Also those people need to eat so ships powered by rowing can't really operate in the open ocean as they would deplete their supplies too quickly.

Before when ships were very expensive and didn't have the structural strength for the open ocean rowing was common. But as ship technology advanced the price of large vessels dropped. As the price of the ship goes down the comparitive price of the rowers goes up. The last major power to use ore powered ships were the Ottomans who were contrained to the Mediterean unlike the European powers who were sailing the ocean.