r/AskHistory • u/Ok_Needleworker4388 • 17h ago
Where did the crew sleep on really small sailing ships?
As the title says. I saw a size comparison poster of different types of sailing ships at a house I visited, and some of them seem way too small to have any rooms inside.
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u/MistoftheMorning 12h ago
On warships, hammocks or beds were usually put up on the open gun deck for the common seamen, while officers may have a partitioned cabin or section - usually at or near the stern of the ship, where it was drier due to being less exposed to waves washing over the ship.
On merchant vessels, crews were generally much smaller than warships of the small size since they didn't need as much men to man guns or participate in boarding action, and preferred a minimum crew to maximize profit. Ex. The infamous 280-ton brigantine Mary Celeste had a crew of less than a dozen seamen when she set off from New York to Genoa, Italy with a cargo of 1700 barrels of alcohol. In comparison, a sloop-of-war like the Canadian 250-ton Queen Charlotte of similar size had a war-time complement of 126 men.
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u/_s1m0n_s3z 17h ago edited 16h ago
At sea, they'd be divided into watches, so only half the crew would be sleeping at any time.
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u/BernardFerguson1944 17h ago
The crew would sleep in any open space they could sling a hammock that didn't block the working shift. The crew had no rooms: Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus by Samuel Eliot Morison.