The Thousand Isles, not unsurprisingly given its geography and descent from the Annwyn Empire is extremely advanced in shipbuilding technology. The entire region looks to the sea, both in matters of resource extraction, Trade, and Warfare . The sea is the lifeblood of economic activity in the region and ships snd naval technology is all important.
This makes the region substantially in advance of most other parts of the world, though still behind the height achieved by the Annwyn Empire. Roughly both metallurgy and shipbuilding technologies are equivalent to the mid to late 1600’s on Earth.
Ships in the thousan isles mostly fall into two classes.
Galley’s rely primarily on oars for their motive force and are mostly found in the navies of the The Inner Archipelago. Traditional and used for centuries, the major governments of the archipelago maintain large fleets of such ships, able to be fielded in a moments notice to strike at their enemies.
However these ships do not handle heavy seas well and are short range, so struggle with the heavy seas and long distances of the Resches, especially the Northern Reach. They also have no chance in making the long voyages to accompany the yearly trade fleetsValtentis or Mbo.
As a result of these limitations, a second approach to naval technology, Deepwater Fleets have arisen. These ships primarily rely on the wind for their motive force (though many also carry sweeps to be used in emergencies). They are generally have between one and three masts, square rigged and robustly built to handle long voyages.
Though slower on the sprint then Galleys some of the smaller deep water ships like the Sloop can be quite fast, especially over longer distances.
Deepwater ships range in size from the small coastal Barks to the larger ocean going Sloops and Tartanas to the mid sized Brigantines and Fluyts. Finally the massive Galleons are the biggest ships afloat, virtual floating castles carrying hundreds of sailors, the pride of the The Merchant Houses.
Generally The Thousand Isles does not purpose build deep water ships for war. While they do sometimes convert hulls to support sailplanes that are more effective in combat (the Sloop of War as an example) they tend to be traditional and rely on their galley fleets as their primary military deterrent. In the event they need to perform military operations in areas they are not conducive to galleys, they draft and refit merchantmen, especially Galleons and Brigantines which have put been quite effective (as the The Pirate Crusade showed). The exception to this is Etmarch whose location in the wilder Etish Sea has lead them down the path of primarily relying on a Deepwater navy of war Galleons.
The pirates of the The Northern Reach are a different story. They are constantly innovating especially in searching for better combinations of speed and firepower. Recently these pirates have been attempting to revive the Frigate, a design that was heavily utilities by the Annwyn Empire back in its hay day.