She was a type of hybrid ship that combined square rigged sails with oars to give her manoeuvrability in both windy and calm conditions.

Adventure Galley succeeded in capturing two vessels off India and brought them back to Madagascar, but by the spring of 1698 the ship's hull had become so rotten and leaky that she was no longer seaworthy.

[8] The long voyage down the western coast of Africa and around the Cape of Good Hope took the rest of the year and it was not until 27 January 1697 that Adventure Galley made landfall at Tuléar (now Toliara), Madagascar.

After staying a month in Tuléar, Adventure Galley sailed on to Johanna (now Anjouan) in the Comoros on 18 March, where East India Company ships often refitted.

However, Kidd was unable to obtain credit from local merchants to buy new rigging or sails, and chose instead to take Adventure Galley to another island – either Mayotte or Mohéli – for careening, to clean her hull of encrusted barnacles and weeds.

Adventure Galley did not go immediately to India but travelled to the Bab el-Mandeb strait at the mouth of the Red Sea, where she is said to have unsuccessfully tried to attack a Mughal convoy.

In September 1697, Adventure Galley arrived on the Malabar Coast of India, where Kidd finally managed to capture two ships travelling under French passes – a pair of merchantmen, Rouparelle and Quedah Merchant.

The Discovery Channel commissioned Barry Clifford, a well-known underwater explorer, to find Adventure Galley as part of its "Quest" series in 1999–2000.

He identified what were believed to be the wrecks of Adventure Galley and Rouparelle/November, as well as Culliford's Mocha Frigate, William Condon's Flying Dragon and Captain Chivers' New Soldado.

[14] Excavations recovered timbers made from English oak and a few scanty artifacts which were identified by Clifford as coming from Adventure Galley.

[15] A UNESCO expert team subsequently rejected Clifford's conclusions, declaring the apparent shipwreck site to be only a broken part of the port constructions and identifying the metal bar as being 95% lead and probably a piece of ballast.