Regarding capturing vs. destroying an enemy vessel: The artillery at the time could only rarely inflict damage below a ship’s waterline (the marines’ job during battle included making sure no cowards were trying to hide in the hold where it was safe). I believe the main powder hold was for that reason always below the waterline (and IIRC, the surgeon’s pit and sickbay as well). Add in the fact that ships were wooden, and a ship could be shot half to splinters without sinking.
A few things to consider. One is that it’s unfair to compare the conditions on a 18th century sailing ship to 20th century civilian conditions - that wasn’t an option on the table for those people. They had a choice of living in a 18th century sailing ship or an 18th century city or village. Conditions which we would see as unliveable were considered normal to them. Studies have shown that navy sailors were generally healthier than civilian sailors or a random collection of citizens of the same age, so their living standard was probably equal to or better than average.
Naval ships were heavily manned but that was considered a good thing by the crews - it meant there were more other people to divide the work up between. Serving on a naval ship was regarded as easier work than serving on a commercial ship for that reason.
Battles did kill people but not all that many. To start with, there really weren’t all that many battles - most of the naval warfare of the era was blockade duty. The casualties in a naval battle were not as high as the casualties in a land battle. The British had 449 people killed at Trafalgar; 218 killed at the Nile; 138 killed at Algeciras Bay; 74 killed at San Domingo; 39 killed at Cape Finisterre; and 105 killed at Grand Port, which was the worst British naval defeat of the war. Compare this to the 22,000 who were killed at Waterloo.
Ship killing wasn’t really an option. These ships were after all made of wood and were virtually unsinkable. The only way a ship could be destroyed was if it caught fire and burned and there was a naval convention that ships didn’t use incendiary weapons and intentionally try to set opposing ships on fire.
But there were many more Brits engaged at Waterloo than at any of those sea battles, weren’t there? I wonder if your chances were really any better on a per capita basis aboard one of His Majesty’s Ships.
On a merchant shihp the crew lived in the fos’le in the forward part of the ship. The officers lived aft in their cabins. The captians cabin and office were fairly small by our standards. Depending on the size of a ship you could have a 1st mate on a small ship. Or a 1st and 2nd mates.
The watches were port and starbord normally 4 hour watches. Half the crew was on each watch. so only 1/2 the crew would be in the fos’le at a time. In bad weather the call for “All hands on deck” would bring the of watch crew members on deck to help out.
The bunks were stacked one above the other. Showers unless there was no wind was a bucket dropped over the side and pulled up. If you had to go to the can you went out on the jib spar and did your business. Yuo were susposto go out past the figuree head on the bow of the ship, thus “the Head” for the bathroom.
The book Two Years Before the Mast did start the change of the sailors life.
Do you happen to have a cite for that? It was my understanding that shore batteries commonly used heated shot specifically to set ships on fire, and that using fire ships to break blockades wasn’t particularly uncommon either. Lack of incendiary weapons had more to do with not setting yourself on fire accidentally than restraint in trying to light the other guy up. I’d be happy to be shown wrong, though.
On another note, I would point out that while sinkings were uncommon in battles themselves it wasn’t very uncommon for the captured ships to be so badly damaged that they were scuttled, or else founder in bad weather before they made port for repairs. More’s the pity, or we might have Santisima Trinidad moored alongside Victory.
I first have to admit I made a mistake in my previous post. I gave the figure of 22,000 killed on the British side at Waterloo. That was actually the figure for all casualties, dead and wounded. The actual death toll alone was 4700.
The British figures for the battle (there were British and Germans fighting against the French) were 68,000 fighting for the British of which 3500 were killed. A death rate of just over five percent.
I had a relatively hard time finding out total manpower figures for naval battles - they’re generally listed by the number of ships were present rather than the number of men. But I did find that there were 18,000 men on the British side at Trafalgar. 449 deaths would represent just under two and a half percent. So a Royal Army soldier was twice as likely to be killed at Waterloo as a Royal Navy sailor was at Trafalgar.
I happen to be re-reading Keegan’s The Price of Admiralty this week. On page 109:
So land-based heated shot and fire-ships might have been allowed. But ships didn’t use explosive projectiles (or other incendiary weapons) against each other.
I haven’t got the figures at the moment but I think you would find a different pattern - a much higher death rate - if you looked at casualties in the French and Spanish navies at the same battles. Partly this just reflects which side was winning but, as I understand it and no cites handy, it also reflects a different tactical doctrine. French (and Spanish) practice was to fire at the masts and rigging in the hope of dismasting the enemy ship before it got close, RN practice was generally to get in close and fire hard and fast into the hull, dismounting guns, killing the crew and forcing a surrender. During most of the Napoleonic war the British could rely on their crews being much better trained and capable of firing much faster giving them a significant advantage.
(If I have this wrong and it is just a legend, no doubt someone will be along to put me right.)
Allow me to recommend a book, although it’s marketed for children you will never find a more detailed look about how a sailing warship was laid out.
Cross-Sections Man of War by Stephen Biesty
Cutaway drawings of the ship from stem to stern, the complete layout, you won’t be disappointed.
I’ll just add, you can tour HMS Victory in Portsmouth, and it is well worth the trip. You will get an idea of the conditions (as well as plenty of historical legends 
) from the guides. It is certainly fun.
And Victory is still a commissioned Naval vessel, and is used for Royal dinners and the like.
Si
I have always wanted to see the Victory she has about 30 years on our own Constitution. Although Constitution is on the water and actually briefly sailed a few years ago, sadly Victory is dry-docked.
How magnificent it would be to see Victory under sail again, probably not possible.
There weren’t a ton of huge battles involving ships of the line. There were a huge amount of battles invoving a few frigates, sloops of war, and privateers. I don’ think it takes away from your larger point, but I wanted to clarify.
HMS Victory is also still the flagship of the CINC of the Royal Navy’s Home Command.
As a young man, I worked for a summer on an actual, original 1800’s sail ship, now a permanently anchored tourist site. 150 years ago the ship took cargo from the Baltic all the way to South America, and I can tell you everything on the ship was t-i-n-y. I’m 5’10" and was 140 lbs, but couldn’t dream of fitting into one of the beds, which were not only short but unbelievably narrow, as well. Nowhere in the living quarters could I stand up straight, and the kitchen for feeding a dozen men on a months-long journey was all of a couple square feet of space, a little stove and a couple pots. Tough, small guys on board, I tells ya.
Those old sailing ships were so dangerous to their sailors that modern conceptions of safety would probably prevent any truly authentic voyage.
They may have been more dangerous than a modern ship, but sailors weren’t dying on an hourly basis on these ships. Old style farming and craft methods were more dangerous than modern ones but plenty of museum villages replicate these without a body count. Similarly, you could take an old sailing ship out on a routine voyage without any significant worry of casualties. You’d probably want to cut back on the authentic alcohol rations though and eliminate the skylarking.
I spent a week in Maine learning how to sail a traditionally rigged schooner (no engine). We essentially did all the ship work ye olde sailors would have done, except that only the professional crew went up in the rigging and they did it with safety harnesses. (In regular daily sailing there isn’t much call to climb the ratlines on a boat like that, evidently.) Of course we had GPS and radio and such, but we learned to sail without them. Good lord is it a lot of work. A lot of annoying work.
Of course, a square rigged ship of the line is a completely different kettle of fish - more climbing, if nothing else. I don’t think I’d have paid good money to wriggle up to the crow’s nest by the futtock shrouds. (Also, the food was really, really good, which keeps you going.)
Indeed. I’m currently reading The Wars of Louis XIV, 1667-1714 by John J. Lynn ( 1999, Addison Wesley Longman ) and in it he notes that in France’s greatest naval victory of the 17th century, Beachy Head, where 77 French rated ships came up against an Anglo-Dutch fleet of 57, the allies lost only 6 ships, of which one actually sank in the course of the fighting. Meanwhile at Barfleur-La Hogue, the worst French naval defeat of the Nine Years War, the French fleet of 44 rated vessels was pounded by an Anglo-Dutch fleet of 99, but lost zero during the actual fight ( the Barfleur engagement, the Allies lost two ), but in the messy aftermath ( called La Hogue, where 12 of 15 were lost ) they lost 15 ships in inadequately defended anchorages not to cannonades, but to Anglo-Dutch attackers from longboats that captured, then burnt the ships.
During the late 17th century French armies at least consistently fielded about one artillery piece per thousand men. At Neerwinden in 1693, 80,000 French troops fielded a total of 71 guns. Meanwhile at Beachy Head in 1690 the French fleet carried 4,600 guns.
Cite as above.
I just finished reading a book on Cochrane (the man Aubrey and Hornblower are largely modelled on). There is a line in there about one tall captain of a smallish vessel who would put his head and shoulders out of the skylight of his cabin, lay his mirror, brush and razor on the deck, and shave standing upright. Can’t remember who it was.
You likely wouldn’t get 6 feet of clear headroom in the captain’s quarters unless you were on a decent-sized two-decker, and maybe not even then.
nitpick: I think you mean foc’sle, which is shortened slang for forecastle. I’ve never seen is spelled fos’le before.