Historically, a galiot was a type of ship with oars, also known as a half-galley, then, from the 17th century forward, a ship with sails and oars. As used by the Barbary pirates against the Republic of Venice, a galiot had two masts and about 16 ranks of oars. Warships of the type typically carried between two and ten cannons of small caliber, and between 50 and 150 men. According to Philip Carse's The Age of Piracy (Hale, 1959), it was a Barbary galiot, captained by Barbarossa I, that captured two Papal vessels in 1504.
North Sea (17th century–19th century)
A galiot was a type of Dutch or German 20 to 400 GRT trade ship, similar to a ketch, with a rounded fore and aft like a fluyt. They had nearly flat bottoms to sail in shallow waters. These ships were especially favored for coastal navigation in the North Sea and Baltic Sea. To avoid excessive leeway, or leeward drift due to their flat bottoms, smaller vessels were usually fitted with leeboards. After 1830, a modernised type of galiot was developed that featured a sharper bow similar to a schooner. These vessels rarely had leeboards.
Naval ships (17th century–19th century)
A galiote was a term for a French bomb vessel, a type of naval warship the size of a corvette based on galiot trade ships, that carried one or more cannons for shelling coastal towns.
^Jonas, Wolfgang (1990). Nordfriesisches Schiffahrtsmuseum Husum, ed. Schiffbau in Nordfriesland [Shipbuilding in North Frisia]. Schriftenreihe des Nordfriesischen Schiffahrtsmuseums Husum (in German) 1. Husum Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft. pp. 38–39. ISBN3-88042-522-1.
^La Loire – les peuples du fleuve, par Abel Poitrineau. Ed. Horvath, Saint-Etienne, 1989. pp. 21–26.