dec 31, 241 BC - 241 BC - Archimedes builds the Syracusia

Description:

Syracusia was designed by Archimedes and built around 240 BC by Archias of Corinth on the orders of Hieron II of Syracuse. The historian Moschion of Phaselis said that Syracusia could carry a cargo of some 1600 to 1800 tons and a capacity of 1,942 passengers.[5] She reputedly bore more than 200 soldiers, as well as a catapult. She sailed only once to berth in Alexandria, where she was later given to Ptolemy (Ptolemaios) III Euergetes of Egypt and renamed Alexandreia (Greek: Αλεξάνδρεια, literally "of Alexandria").[6][2]

A discussion of this ship, as well as the complete text of Athenaeus (a late 2nd-century Greek writer who quotes a detailed description of Syracusia from Moschion, an earlier, now lost, writer) is in Casson's Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World.[5]

Of particular interest in the discussion of the construction of the ship is the detailed description of the efforts taken to protect the hull from biofouling, including coating it with horsehair and pitch.[2] This may be the first example of proactive antifouling technology (designed to prevent the attachment of fouling organisms, rather than to remove them).

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