The Dread Pirate Galleys of Pusheen Emir

"You might consider these war galleys a residue of olden times, no longer worthy of a Commander's attention; but beware, for our ancestors had used the very same instruments in battling the Heathen for hundreds of years, and not all times were they successful..."

(Captain Nathaniel Murdock, RN's letter to his nephew serving at the Home Fleet, dated 09.07.1752.)

As night falls, the ships consisting the international squadron, blockading the infamous Pirate Bay on the northern Barfrican coast, light their deck lamps. Three red speckles in the dark Mediterranean eve signal an allied ship. 

Within the bay itself, silent oars stroke the surface of lukewarm seawater; the galleys of the great predator, Pusheen Emir, also called the Black Moon of the West, prepare to slip through the blockade, using the waning attention of on-board sentries. 

By morning, the commanding Admiral steps on the bridge of his flagship, and all he is able to see is black smoke rising on the horizon from burning ships, and all he can hear are the cries of the enslaved, carried over the calm waters of the Bay...

These are a pair of scratch-built vessels, mostly of balsa wood. There is no fixed scale, somewhere between 1/500 and 1/600. As I'm using multiple nominal scales such as 1/600, 1/500 and 1/450, I mostly do an eye measurement so that ships fit in size and don't differ so much. This way, these large war galleys are about the length of the 38-gun frigate Dachshund. 

The fourteen pairs of oars are borrowed from the Revell Spanish Galeon. I found it more useful to slice them off the oar deck's side, then drill new holes for them into the balsa walls of the galley. I was sort of astounded by the lack of superstructure on the vessels - no cover, not even any awnings for the oarsmen. But I guess they were disposable in a way.

The colors are fictional, the ships are going to be part of the imaginary Schultze-Böhnstadt Navy's adversaries. Using oar-driven vessels adds a layer of complexity to otherwise calculable conditions of fighting at sea.

Next up are more sailing ships, hopefully, if my motivation lasts.