Building the Trireme Hardcover – January 1, 1988

This is the companion book to "The Athenian Trireme" by J. S. Morrison.I bought this book through AbeBooks from a nautical bookshop in Southampton (UK) in 2006.Synopsis:The academic proponents, having decided to build a replica trireme, prepared construction drawings and floated a public subscription to raise the necessary funds for the project.It had always been intended to build the trireme in the UK and trial it on an English lake. But the difficulty in finding an enthusiastic boat builder together with the daunting prospect of having to comply with Department of Health and Safety regulations sank the project as far as the UK was concerned. So the proponents sought out boat builders in Greece where, coincidentally, health and safety issues were not an impediment to authentic design.By this time the Greek government had become aware of the project and wanted to come on board, having in mind its Olympic's bid then under consideration. It offered to fund half of the cost from its general funds. When the time came for the proponents to award the contract the British subscription had all but foundered. But the Greek Navy kept the project afloat by offering to pay for the outstanding balance out of its naval funds on condition that the trireme would fly the Greek ensign and become the property of the Greek Navy. Only at the launching did the proponents find out that the trireme had been named "Olympias" after the muses of Olympia.Location:The "Olympias" is now in its own dry dock at Trocadero quay within the Museum of Naval Ships (Μουσίο Πολεμικου Ναυτκού) at Palaio Faliro (παλαιό Φάληρο). Get a taxi at Piraeus and ask to be taken to the museum ship "Georgios Averof" (Γεώργιος Αβέρωφ) since this warship is well known to Greeks. The "Olympias" is a stone's throw away. There's no point in asking to be taken to the trireme "Olympias" because most Greeks have never heard of it.

Aside from the introduction, which reads like 'how clever I am - here's a list of my Cambridge University Colleges and my Admiral buddies' with name-dropping ahoy, this book is really a detective story.How did the ancient Hellenist world build and operate ubiquitous, heavy but exceptionally maneouverable triremes (triereis) primarily powered by banks of oarsmen and in what ways would this arrangement have been practical? And why hasn't this question been solved before? The author compares triereis with East Roman dromons and Venetian galleys before describing some breathtaking work on a 1/1 scale replica.John Nettles would know the answer. Perhaps a TV documentary is called for. All rather exciting, so I recommend this book wholeheartedly.

Very informative - just what I needed!!