I believe that is a “watch”. I don’t know if there would be two or three.
Just think of what it would have been like for the crew of an English man-of-war on picket duty off the coast of Toulon during the Napoleonic era. These ships were crewed up to be able to man all the (100) guns, sail the ship, and still have enough men to make up boarding parties. 500 dudes with almost nothing to do, sailing back and forth, day after day, year after year.
The English watch system comprised two watchs ( Starboard and larboard ), 4 hours on and four hours off. Only four hours sleep at a time for years on end.
“Tossing the log”?
I’m listening to a Patrick O’Brian book right now, and just today I ran across a passage describing this various situation. According to him, it was tedious, but also very busy. In a big fleet of ships like that, they were all constantly having to adjust the sailing of the ship to keep the correct position relative to the two neighbors on top of doing the back-and-forth sweep of the fleet as a whole and accounting for the ever-changing wind. So there was constant adjusting of sails and trim and other nautical terms I don’t know how to use, but the captains had no big decisions to make. All of the nitpicky annoying parts of sailing and none of the fun.
‘Do you see that barrel down there on the deck? The one with the bung hole?’
‘Aye, Captain.’
‘We use that. Go ahead and give it a try.’
[After ‘using’ the barrel] ‘That was great, Captain! I’m going to do that every day!’
‘You may do every day but Thursday.’
‘Why can’t I use it Thursday, Sir?’
‘Thursday is your day in the barrel.’
Columbus thought he was going to Asia, so the interpreter must have been chosen with that in mind.
A piece of wood on a string was used to determine speed. The amount of string that was pulled away with the stick in a certain time. Hence “knots” from the number of spaced knots that ran out.
Marines as boarding party perhaps, but were there enough crew to fight guns on both side and attend to sail? Some of each gun crew were called upon to adjust sail. Were they replacements for riggers killed or wounded?
Beat me to it…
“Perhaps this isn’t the routine of an ordinary sailor: floggings, stockings, keelhaulings, kneeling on our knuckles, having things dropped on our heads, being pushed down stairs, and so on. But occasionally, there would be time for activities such as steering the ship, and trying to make the sails fill up with wind. Captain Ned took a warm, personal interest in my welfare, and if a night was stormy, or even mildly choppy, he would come to my cabin to comfort me.”
nm
[HerbieTheDentist] “But Captain Columbus… I don’t Want to be a Goldsmith. I want to be a Dentist…!” [/HerbieTheDentist]
[/MrSnowmanNarator]“Oh, life on the voyage wasn’t happy for Herbie after that. Not happy at All…” [/MrSnowmanNarator]
Not quite the same period, but you can check out “Two Years Before the Mast” for a good account of a sailor’s everyday life (in 1834).
The second half of Chapter III, available on gutenberg.org, describes how adjusting the sails regularly and maintaining the ship keeps the crew busy pretty much full time:
[QUOTE=R.H.Dana]
When I first left port, and found that we were kept regularly employed for a week or two, I supposed that we were getting the vessel into sea trim, and that it would soon be over, and we should have nothing to do but to sail the ship; but I found that it continued so for two years, and at the end of the two years there was as much to be done as ever.
[…] When first leaving port, studding-sail gear is to be rove, all the running rigging to be examined, that which is unfit for use to be got down, and new rigging rove in its place; then the standing rigging is to be overhauled, replaced, and repaired in a thousand different ways
[…] all the small stuffs'' which are used on board a ship— such as spun-yarn, marline, seizing-stuff, &c., &c.— are made on board [...] Another method of employing the crew is setting-up’’ rigging. Whenever any of the standing rigging becomes slack (which is continually happening), the seizings and coverings must be taken off, tackles got up, and, after the rigging is bowsed well taut, the seizings and coverings be replaced, which is a very nice piece of work. There is also such a connection between different parts of a vessel, that one rope can seldom be touched without requiring a change in another.
[…] If we add to this all the tarring, greasing, oiling, varnishing, painting, scraping, and scrubbing which is required in the course of a long voyage, and also remember this is all to be done in addition to watching at night, steering, reefing, furling, bracing, making and setting sail, and pulling, hauling, and climbing in every direction, one will hardly ask, ``What can a sailor find to do at sea?‘’
[/QUOTE]
Don’t forget the dog-watches, which are curtailed.
Once you’re well out to sea, the trade winds are pretty reliable. You don’t have to adjust for every little gust. Any sail handling can probably wait until you’ve got enough men available to handle the lines.
If you’re the crew, someone will find something for you to do. You’ll spend more time cooking, cleaning, oiling, and maintaining[sup]*[/sup] than you will just pulling on ropes.
- At least they probably didn’t have to worry too much about rust.
But also in Two Years Before the Mast he notes that sometimes the crew didn’t have anything to do, so the captain kept them busy by hauling the anchor on deck and scraping it clean.
Still, I think sailing was easier than lumber jacking or working as a navie on railroads. Constant busywork, but most of the time not backbreaking labor that caused musculoskeletal disorders. You could do it well into middle age.
Yes, there would be different watches (again, by Napoleonic times at least, English ships were two watches, four hours on and four hours off), but when something big needed to be done, they’d wake everyone up and get them to work.
Wouldn’t an interpreter come in handy for a multi-ethnic crew too?
In those days I doubt anyone would hire a crew member who couldn’t understand orders or communicate with the rest of the crew. And there were probably at least a few crew members who were multilingual in other European languages so an interpreter wouldn’t be necessary within the crew.
Each spent his time awaiting his turn in the barrel.