AHC: Ottomans build a fleet of galleys with all-silver anchors, all-silk ropes, and all-satin sails

After the calamity at Lepanto, the Ottoman court in Constantinople was debating how the Ottoman fleet should be rebuilt. The sultan was pessimistic, saying that "to complete five or six hundred anchors and the other implements for two hundred new ships – cables, ropes, and sails – that would be impossible."

The Grand Vizier, Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, replied:

Your majesty, you still do not understand this great empire of ours. Believe me, this empire is such an empire that, were it your wish, every anchor of the fleet could be made of silver, every rope of silk thread, and every sail of satin without imposing the least hardship upon it.
In the end, the Ottoman fleet was entirely rebuilt just a year after Lepanto, though with iron anchors and cotton sails.

Here's the AHC; prove Sokollu right. With a POD of 1471, have the Ottomans, at any point in their history, build a fleet of galleys with all-silver anchors, all-silk ropes, and all-satin sails. "Fleet" here means more than twelve full-size war galleys.
 
Aside from the obvious "but why", maybe as some kind of diplomatic event? Like Field of the Cloth of Gold equivalent? Twelve galleys all spectacularly wasteful seems like a one-off for some kind of diplomatic summit, later to be given away as gifts or disassembled for materials. They certainly couldn't fight.
 
Aside from the obvious "but why", maybe as some kind of diplomatic event? Like Field of the Cloth of Gold equivalent? Twelve galleys all spectacularly wasteful seems like a one-off for some kind of diplomatic summit, later to be given away as gifts or disassembled for materials. They certainly couldn't fight.
Wellll they could, in a pinch and it will be stupid to do so, but they could, the anchors aren´t important for battle, the satin sail still are cotton sails, and galley anyways use mostly oars in battle, and the silk ropes are more resistant than the normally used hemp ropes, but as you say 12, maybe as the official Sultan galleys, could do as a form to show how big powerful and rich is the Empire, and apart of a dick waving show off, they have little practical use, then again we could argue a lot of really good things were doing with dick measuring competence in mind.
 
Wellll they could, in a pinch and it will be stupid to do so, but they could, the anchors aren´t important for battle, the satin sail still are cotton sails, and galley anyways use mostly oars in battle, and the silk ropes are more resistant than the normally used hemp ropes, but as you say 12, maybe as the official Sultan galleys, could do as a form to show how big powerful and rich is the Empire, and apart of a dick waving show off, they have little practical use, then again we could argue a lot of really good things were doing with dick measuring competence in mind.

Honestly the sails and ropes are fine if stupidly expensive, but silver anchors is just asking for trouble if you don't want your galley dragged by the tide because your anchor bent. Maybe they have iron ones in addition to the silver.
 
Honestly the sails and ropes are fine if stupidly expensive, but silver anchors is just asking for trouble if you don't want your galley dragged by the tide because your anchor bent. Maybe they have iron ones in addition to the silver.
I was thinking more in iron core- silver plated anchors, they look like silver from the distance, and have the advantage of being rust resistan, still stupidly expensive but more "realistic"
 
The Qing dynasty restored its Summer Palace after the Second Anglo-French War with funds set aside for the navy, and the Palace's marble boat (though not actually constructed during this restoration) is sometimes remarked on in books about the period as a metaphor for wasting resources on retreats into opulence instead of national defense. Maybe a similar situation of factional struggle in the Ottoman Empire could lead to a reactionary leadership not just embezzling funds from a reformist Navy, but publicly snubbing it by building such a fleet. Of course, I don't think such a situation could arise in a post-Tanzimat OE, and even before the 1800s reforms I think the Janissaries would give any Padishah who tried it a firm-talking to and a permanent retirement.
 
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