Adventure Galley and William Kidd’s Privateering Voyage

Adventure Galley shipwreck was an English merchant vessel captained by William Kidd that became famous for her role in one of history’s most notorious privateering ventures. Launched in late 1695, the ship combined square-rigged sails with oars to operate in both windy and calm seas. Between 1696 and 1698, she crossed the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in search of pirates, but when Kidd found none, he turned to piracy himself, ultimately leading to the ship’s abandonment off Madagascar.

A Hybrid Design for Pirate Hunting

Adventure Galley was built at Captain William Castle’s dockyard in Deptford, London, and launched on 4 December 1695. Her design was unusual for the time, featuring three ship-rigged masts paired with two banks of oars. This combination allowed her to reach 14 knots under full sail and 3 knots under oar alone, giving her flexibility that conventional sailing ships lacked. The oars proved especially valuable in calm conditions or when sailing against the wind, situations where sail-only vessels could make no headway.

The hybrid design reflected lessons learned from wars against North African Barbary pirates, whose swift galleys had proven formidable in combat. British warships and trading companies such as the East India Company adopted similar designs, and Castle’s yard was one of England’s largest private shipyards, regularly supplying vessels to the EIC. Adventure Galley carried 32 guns and was purchased for £8,000 in August 1696 by a consortium of investors backing Kidd’s privateering scheme. Among the backers were Richard Coote, 1st Earl of Bellomont and governor-general of New York, and Robert Livingston the Younger. King William III granted Kidd a commission to operate as a privateer, and other prominent investors included the Earl of Oxford, the Earl of Romney, and the Duke of Shrewsbury.

The Atlantic and Indian Ocean Crossing

Adventure Galley departed Deptford on 6 April 1696, sailed to Plymouth, and set out for New York on 23 April. Kidd captured a French fishing vessel during the Atlantic crossing and condemned it as prize in New York around 4 July. After recruiting additional crew, he sailed again on 6 September bound for the Indian Ocean, calling at Madeira on 8 October and Boa Vista in Cape Verde on 19 October for supplies. The long voyage down Africa’s western coast and around the Cape of Good Hope lasted until 27 January 1697, when the ship made landfall at Tuléar in Madagascar.

By then, Adventure Galley needed fresh sail and rigging, suggesting the dockyard had installed substandard equipment. After a month in Tuléar, Kidd sailed to Johanna in the Comoros on 18 March, where East India Company vessels regularly refitted. Unable to obtain credit for new rigging, he took the ship to another island for careening, a process that cleaned the hull of barnacles and weeds over about a month. However, up to a third of the crew died during an epidemic disease outbreak, possibly malaria or yellow fever. Kidd returned to Johanna and this time secured credit for new sails and rigging.

From Privateer to Pirate

By 25 April 1697, Kidd had been at sea for over a year with no prize money to show for his efforts. He had found no pirates to capture, so he turned to piracy himself. Adventure Galley travelled to the Bab el-Mandeb strait at the mouth of the Red Sea, where she reportedly attempted unsuccessfully to attack a Mughal convoy. In September 1697, she reached the Malabar Coast of India, where Kidd captured two merchantmen sailing under French passes, the Rouparelle and the Quedah Merchant. The capture of Quedah Merchant proved disastrous because she was captained by an Englishman, and when news reached London, Kidd was publicly condemned as a pirate.

Adventure Galley’s final voyage took her to Île Sainte-Marie, a pirate haven off Madagascar’s north-eastern coast, arriving around 1 April 1698. By then the hull had become severely rotten and leaky. Most of the crew deserted to join pirate captain Robert Culliford, and the crew sank the Rouparelle. Kidd was left with only thirteen men. Accounts of her final moments differ. According to crew member William Jenkins, Kidd ran Adventure Galley ashore and the remaining men stripped her furnishings and set her on fire to recover the ironwork. Kidd’s own account stated his skeleton crew could not prevent the ship from sinking and abandoned her for the captured Quedah Merchant.

Search and Discovery Debate

No confirmed remains of Adventure Galley have been located. In 1999 to 2000, the Discovery Channel commissioned underwater explorer Barry Clifford to search for the wreck as part of its Quest series. Clifford identified what he believed were the wrecks of Adventure Galley, Rouparelle, and several other pirate-era vessels off Madagascar. Excavations recovered English oak timbers and artifacts, and in 2015 Clifford recovered a 50-kilogram metal bar marked with letters S and T, which he claimed was silver. However, a UNESCO expert team rejected these conclusions, stating the site was merely broken port construction and identifying the metal bar as 95 percent lead, likely ballast material. The accuracy of Clifford’s findings remains disputed among scholars.

Understanding Hybrid Vessels and Careening

Hybrid ships like Adventure Galley combined sail and oar propulsion, a design that had ancient roots but saw renewed use in the 17th century. The oars were worked by crew members at rowing benches, allowing the vessel to maintain steerage and manoeuvrability in conditions that would leave a purely sailing ship helpless. Careening was the process of beaching a ship and tilting her on her side to expose the hull for cleaning and repair. Shipworms, barnacles and seaweed accumulated underwater and slowed a vessel considerably, so careening was essential on long voyages, though it required a sheltered anchorage and took weeks to complete. Prize in maritime law meant a captured enemy vessel and its cargo, legally condemned and sold for profit. Privateer was a ship captain licensed by a government to attack enemy merchant vessels during wartime, a legal form of warfare that blurred the line between commerce and combat.

Further Reading

Wikipedia and maritime archives hold further details on Adventure Galley, William Kidd’s privateering commission, and the historical debate over underwater discoveries off Madagascar. The wreck remains one of the most sought-after vessels from the golden age of privateering.