Sailors Taking Women On Ships As Stowaways

I have seen a couple of movies and TV shows where the woman escapes form prison (or something similar) and then runs down to the docks to pick up a sailor. The the sailor makes arangments for the woman to come on board with her

OK I get this and it makes sense to the plot, the woman gets away and the sailor gets sex.

But does this happen in real life? I was thinking how is it possible to hide a woman on a ship. I assume if it’s like a merchant marine type ship, (which is they type in the movies) the sailors aren’t gonna get their own room, so how do they do this.

Or is this one of those things that doesn’t happen in real life, but only on TV and in the movies

Did it happen once? Or Twice? Pretty sure it did, stowaways are not unknown.

Did it happen often? Lets see, one woman, a stowaway thus without a modicum of protection ion a ship full of men who possibly won’t see another woman for ages.

I think prison was safer.

So unless she for the Captian, I doubt it was something that happened often/

The big problem would be hiding her from everyone else. Most sailors would have had shared cabins, with nowhere to hide an extra person. In addition, you’d have to feed her, and an extra set of meals might be hard to explain. I don’t think it would be easily done, except by the captain.

I have yet to see a movie or a television show where a woman escapes from prison and becomes a stowaway on a ship. In fact I’ve only seen a few movies where female inmates escape from prison. Given the relative obscurity of this incident happening in media…I’m going to say it is a rarity in real life.

Titles please. I’m curious.

Is this in a modern setting? I know that in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series, set around Napoleonic times, it was described as being commonplace for sailors to sneak “wives” aboard while they were in port, and sometimes try to hide them on a voyage. Despite the fact that the series is fiction, it’s well enough researched that I doubt he would have made that up.

So you’re saying “Titles or GTFO”? :smiley:

Aussie Soap: Prisoner Cell Block H, Ros picks up a sailor and he gives her a dollar and Ros goes to buy candy and meet him, and the sailor tells his buddy, “Hey guys, wanna see what I bought for a dollar?” :slight_smile:

Coincidentally, in the news yesterday I saw that there is a journal from the 1830s that is coming up for auction. This journal details a voyage from England to Australia. The Captain was boinking a preacher’s two daughters and an entire gang of prostitutes was on board. Drunken fights and all manner of debauchery were common. The author of the journal expressed some amazement at the fact that they actually managed to make it to their destination considering the drunken and unprofessional nature of the crew.

Yes, on a lot of ships go to Australia in the late 18th and early 19th century there were women being transported as convicts: some would have been petty thieves, but a lot would have been prostitutes, who would have seen nothing wrong in carrying on their trade on board in order to get a more comfortable voyage. The sailors and marines would have had to sort it out among themselves who got the more attractive ones.

I believe I saw some mention of the practice of smuggling women aboard a ship in the documentary “Yellowbeard”. :wink:

“One pet per sailor, parrots preferred!”

Also, was it true that women on board were considered “bad luck”? Considering what sort of fighting could break out with one woman and a hundred men, probably true.

There’s documented cases of women disguising themselves to join ships or the army, often successfully for years. The Hudsons Bay Company archives describe one women who was found out when she gave birth after being in the trading post for many years. I recall another I heard discussed on a history program, where the soldier was not “exposed” until she died many years later.

The officers on a merchant ship have their own rooms. The Captian and the Chief Engineer also have an office connected to the room. But the BR man comes into the room daily to clean it, so that would be a bad place to hide a woman.

The unlicienced crew’s folcles have 2 to 4 men per room.

If you were going to hide a woman on a ship it would almost have to be in the chain locker (been done, but was bloody) or a cargo hole.

Merchant vessels have seafarers rather than sailors. Accommodation standards vary but all crew having their own cabin is not uncommon. A number of years ago I used to see women with lots of garish makeup and short skirts (usually Filipino) and no obvious role to play who were somehow able to get on board vessels here while in port. I haven’t seen that in recent years. Port security has become hella tight since 9/11 (which is a PITA for me because it tends to increase the amount of time my staff and I spend waiting around organising to get onto vessels).

I suspect that outside first world countries, and in more minor ports, it would still be easy enough for the crew to smuggle a member of the opposite sex on board. I think it would be hard for them to remain on board for any length of time without at least some other crewmembers in on it because living quarters are tight. However, certainly pre-9/11 and probably now, I don’t doubt it could be done for at least some period of time before the Master and Officers found out: the crew would cover for one another and the officers don’t inspect living quarters every day (or at all I suspect in the case of some more slackly managed vessels).

Does it happen? Back in 1997 a couple of NZ teenage twin girls managed to end up on a Malaysian vessel that called here. They were on board for a couple of months before the Master realised. An unknown number of the crew knew. We never did get to the bottom of the story but they seemed to have a relationship with one male crewmember (Twin teenage girls! Impressive. Bet he had trouble keeping his eyes open when on watch. Boom chicka chicka wow wow etc etc). You don’t believe me? Check this and this out.

I doubt this is commonplace (particularly the twin teen girls thing!) but I doubt it’s unheard of, even post 9/11.

This is ever so slightly offensive to those in the industry. People vary, natch, but as a rule seafarers are not slavering rapists, they are averagely law abiding. Many are Filipino, and as a rule I find them if anything above averagely polite and kind people.

Officers don’t inspect living quarters. The unllicienced crew are not children.

No doubt it depends on the management style of the company and the master, but your blanket statement is quite wrong. I know of masters who inspect in a general way every week or so as a matter of personal management style, and I know of companies where it is in their standing orders that this must occur. Crew may not be children, but given that these days (especially in this country) a vessel can be detained by authorities for substandard living conditions on board, it’s good policy to make sure the living quarters are of at least the standard that won’t cause concern.

The punchline, of course, is that the ship in question was the Staten Island Ferry.

things must have changed since I came ashore. If told to inspect the crews quarters most mates and masters that I knew would laugh, and if they came in black gangs area they would have been bounced out. And I doubt that you could get an Engineer to do any inspection.

I did not make myself clear. I meant women in on board in the age of sail, as opposed to now, with the highly professional enviroment that exists

I was going to mention the Ingham twins - not only did they stow away with the crewmember (only one of the twins was involved with him, allegedly), but when they were discovered by the Master, they escaped from a locked cabin and jumped from the ship off the Queensland coast wearing lifejackets. They made it through the salt water marshes (and the salt water crocs) to land and were found a few weeks later.

Absolute nutters.

Si