ABSTRACT
The ships of Joinville and of other Crusaders who sailed from Marseilles with him were all sailing round ships. Nowhere in his narrative did Joinville mention oars. On the other hand he did mention the sails several times as well as the trouble his ship had in passing Cape Bon at the North-East tip of Tunisia against the current. For Louis IX's 1270 Crusade to Tunis he leased at least eight sailing round ships and four salandria from Genoa especially to carry horses. The dimensions of these salandria resemble those of contemporary horse-carrying taride although their beam:length ratio was higher than that of the latter. The surviving evidence suggests in fact that the bulk of Louis's fleet, with the exception of twelve taride leased from Genoa, was comprised of large round ships which needed deep water and wharf facilities to land their horses.
