Imagine, if you can, Grand Harbour busy with craft of all sizes during the reign of the Order of the Knights of St John.
Among these vessels would be common galleys which formed the backbone of the fleet of the Order.
Joe Abela, a restorer of antique ship models at the Maritime Museum in Vittoriosa, has just completed a scale model of a galley for one Flavio Pallaoro from Trento, Italy.
Ing. Pallaoro had been fascinated by a model of a galley when he visited the Maritime Museum in Vittoriosa, Mr Abela said.
"After reading an article in the Italian magazine Il Meridiano about my work, Ing. Pallaoro commissioned a model of an 18th-century Maltese galley.
"The model is made of oak as were the galleys built by the knights. It took me over six months to complete," he added. "I constructed a 1:48 scale model based on plans by Fredric Henric af Chapman who was a Swedish naval architect and author of Architectura Navalis Mercatoria (1768).
"The colours of the sails and the woodwork are the same as those used at the time. It took me over six months to complete the model."
Galleys were warships propelled by oars with most of the deck taken up by rowers. The warships were rated according to the number of benches which, in turn, determined their speed which could be improved with the use of sails.
The galleys were built at the arsenal of the Order in Vittoriosa which was regularly occupied with galley-building till the end of the 18th century.
The average galley was 50 metres long and six metres wide. It had either 24 or 26 benches on each side. There could be four rowers to each bench meaning that with 26 benches, a galley would have 108 rowers apart from the crew and knights, Mr Abela said.
An oar measured about 10 metres. An 18th century galley which took about eight months to build was seaworthy for about 10 years. The galley squadron in the late 17th century consisted of eight galleys and in the mid-18th century of four galleys.
The squadron was based in Porto delle Galere now known as Dockyard Creek lying between Vittoriosa and Senglea.
This is the fourth model by Mr Abela that is exhibited abroad. The other works are Don Juan's flagship galley of 1571 at the Lepanto Museum in Greece, a rescue boat at the Norwegian Navy Museum in Moss, Norway, and a luzzu for Focal Maritime Services Company Ltd which presented it to Evergreen Line in Taiwan on the celebration of their 40th anniversary this year.