The fusta or fuste (also called foist) was a narrow, light and fast ship with shallow draft, powered by both oars and sail—in essence a small

galley A galley is a type of ship optimised for propulsion by oars. Galleys were historically used for naval warfare, warfare, Maritime transport, trade, and piracy mostly in the seas surrounding Europe. It developed in the Mediterranean world during ...

. It typically had 12 to 18 two-man rowing benches on each side, a single mast with a

lateen A lateen (from French ''latine'', meaning "Latin") or latin-rig is a triangular sail set on a long Yard (sailing) , yard mounted at an angle on the mast (sailing) , mast, and running in a fore-and-aft direction. The Settee (sail), settee can be ...

(triangular) sail, and usually carried two or three guns. The sail was used to cruise and save the rowers’ energy, while the oars propelled the ship in and out of harbor and during combat. The fusta was the favorite ship of the North African corsairs of Salé and the

Barbary Coast The Barbary Coast (also Barbary, Berbery, or Berber Coast) were the coastal regions of central and western North Africa, more specifically, the Maghreb and the Ottoman borderlands consisting of the regencies in Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, a ...

. Its speed, mobility, capability to move without wind, and its ability to operate in shallow water—crucial for hiding in coastal waters before pouncing on a passing ship—made it ideal for war and piracy. It was mainly with fustas that the Barbarossa brothers, Baba Aruj and Khair ad Din, carried out the Ottoman conquest of North Africa and the rescue of

Mudéjar Mudéjar were Muslims who remained in Iberia in the late medieval period following the Christian reconquest. It is also a term for Mudéjar art, which was greatly influenced by Islamic art, but produced typically by Christian craftsmen for C ...

s and

Morisco ''Moriscos'' (, ; ; "Moorish") were former Muslims and their descendants whom the Catholic Church and Habsburg Spain commanded to forcibly convert to Christianity or face compulsory exile after Spain outlawed Islam. Spain had a sizeable Mus ...

s from Spain after the fall of

Granada Granada ( ; ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada (Spain), Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence ...

, and that they and the other North African corsairs used to wreak terror upon Christian shipping and the islands and coastal areas of the Mediterranean in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Portuguese used this vessel extensively in the 15th and 16th century in north-Africa as well, and introduced it to the Indian Ocean where it was especially suitable for patrolling and raiding in shallow coastal and river waters. In 1535, Portuguese navigator Diogo Botelho Pereira sailed a fusta from India back to Portugal.K.M. Matthew
History of the Portuguese Navigation in India, 1497-1600
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References

Further reading