[2] The Persians were able to construct large ships suited for long voyages as far as the marginal seas of the north of the Indian and west of the Pacific Oceans.
[2] The Sasanian navy played an important role in Ardashir I's conquest of the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf as well as in Shapur II's Arab campaign.
[6][3] An attempt by Khosrow I to establish a Sasanian fleet in the Black Sea via the ports of Lazica in 540s, which was able to directly threaten the heart of the Byzantine Empire, was thwarted by the defeats at Petra and Phasis in the last stage of the Lazic War.
[7][8][9][10] Since the Sasanians did not use to have a fleet in the Mediterranean, it has been suggested that their forces were transported either by the captured Byzantine ships in the newly conquered ports (e.g. Alexandria, Antioch, and Rhodes) or by vessels built in Egyptian or Syrian shipyards especially for them.
[3] Later in that war, they were forced to rely on monoxyla of their allied Slavs in order to transport the 3,000 troops across the Bosphorus which they had promised the khagan of the Avars.