Galleas, Dutch

The Dutch galleas (galjas) was a North Sea and Baltic coasting cargo vessel of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, unrelated to the oared Mediterranean galleass despite the shared name. It was a small, full-bodied two-masted trader, typically ketch or galliot-rigged with leeboards and a shallow draft suited to the tidal flats and shifting channels of the Wadden Sea and the Dutch and German coasts. The type carried bulk cargoes such as grain, timber, and brick between small harbors that larger ships could not reach.