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BASIC SEAMANSHIP

Terminology

Sailors use many traditional nautical terms for the parts of or directions on a vessel; starboard (right), port (left), forward or fore (front), aft (rearward), bow (forward part of the hull), stern (aft part of the hull). Vertical spars are masts, horizontal spars are booms (if they can hit you), gaffs (if they're too high to reach) or poles (if they can't hit you).

Other terms

Walls are called 'bulkheads' or 'ceilings', while the surfaces referred to as 'ceilings' on land are called 'overheads'. Floors are called 'soles'. The toilet is traditionally called the 'head', the kitchen is the 'galley'. Sails in different sail plans have unchanging names, however.

Sailing terms have entered popular language in many ways. "Broken up" was the fate of a ship that hit a "rocky point." "Pooped" refers to the aftermost deck of a ship, taken from "puppis" the Latin word for "stern". "In the doldrums" referred to being becalmed, windless, especially in the narrow band of hot windless water "the doldrums", near the equator. "Adrift" meant literally that a ship's anchor had come loose, and the ship was out of control near land and therefore in serious danger. "Keel-hauled and hung out to dry." was the rather nasty process of attaching a sailor to a rope, and drawing him under the sailboat while underway, and then hanging him from a yard-arm (under his shoulders usually, not by his neck), where officers and crew could mock him. This was a particularly unpleasant punishment; apart from the risk of drowning, the sailor would be lacerated by the barnacles on the ship's hull.

International maritime signal flags

The system of international maritime signal flags is a way of representing individual letters of the alphabet on ships or in nautical situations.

The flags can also be used to signal other things than alphabetical messages. For example, divers will often raise the flag representing the letter A as a marker to other sea traffic in the area.

The flags are also used, with a different set of special meanings, in yacht racing and dinghy racing, where (for example) the P flag is used as the "preparatory" flag to indicate an imminent start, and the S flag means "shortened course".

Navigation

Modern methods

There are several different branches of navigation, including but not limited to:

celestial navigation - navigation by observation of the sun, moon and stars
pilotage - using visible natural and man made features such as sea marks and beacons
dead reckoning - using compass and log to monitor expected progress on a journey
waypoint navigation - using electronic equipment such as radio navigation and satellite navigation system to follow a course to a waypoint
position fixing - determining current position by visual and electronic means
collision avoidance using radar

Knowing the ship's current position is the main problem for all navigators. Early navigators used pilotage, relying on local knowledge of land marks and coastal features, forcing all ships to stay close to shore. The magnetic compass allowing a course to be maintained and estimates of the ship's location to be calculated. Nautical charts were developed to record new navigational and pilotage information for use by other navigators. The development of accurate systems for taking lines of position based on the measurement of stars and planets with the sextant allowed ships to navigate the open ocean without needing to see land marks.

Later developments included the placing of lighthouses and buoys close to shore to act a marine signposts identifying ambiguous features, highlighting hazards and pointing to safe channels for ships approaching some part of a coast after a long sea voyage. The invention of the radio lead to radio beacons and radio direction finders providing accurate land-based fixes even hundreds of miles from shore. These were made obsolete by satellite navigation systems.

Traditional maritime navigation with a compass uses multiple redundant sources of position information to locate the ship's position. A navigator uses the ship's last known position and dead reckoning, based on the ship's logged compass course and speed, to calculate the current position. If the set and drift, due to tide and wind, can be determined, an estimated position can also be calculated.

Periodically, the navigator needs confirm the accuracy of the dead reckoning or estimated position calculations using position fixing techniques. This is done by correctly identifying reference points and measuring their bearings from the ship. These lines of position can be plotted on a nautical chart, with the intersection being the ship's current location. Addition lines of position can be measured in order to validate the results taken against other reference points. This is known as a fix.

Celestial navigation systems are based on observation of the positions of the Sun, Moon and stars relative to the observer and a known location. Anciently the home port was used as the known location, currently the Greenwich Meridian or Prime Meridian is used as the known location for celestial charts.

Navigators could determine their latitude by measuring the angular altitude of Polaris any time that it was visible. Determining latitude by the sun was a little more difficult since the sun's altitude at noon during the year changes for a given location.

Calculating the anticipated altitude of the sun for a given day and known position is done easily using Calculus. But prior to its invention by Newton around 1700, tables of the sun's altitude during the year for a known port were used. The sun's angle over the horizon at noon was measured, and compared to the known angle at the same date as the known port. Local noon is easily determined by recording periodic readings of the altitude of the sun. Since periodic readings of the altitude will plot a sine wave, the maximum reading is the one used for local noon.

Longitude is calculated as a time difference between the same celestial event at different locations. Noon was an easy event to observe. Local noon is determined while shooting the azimuth as described above. The time of the maximum altitude is easily determined by interpolating between periodic readings. The time of noon at the known location is carried by the navigator on an accurate clock. Then the local time of local noon is observed by the navigator. The difference of longitude is determined knowing that the sun moves to the west at 15 degrees per hour.

The need for accurate navigation led to the development of progressively more accurate clocks. Once accurate clocks were available, detailed tables for celestial bodies were created so that navigational activities could take place anytime during the day or night, rather than at noon.

In modern celestial navigation, a nautical almanac and trigonometric sight-reduction tables permit navigators to measure the Sun, Moon, visible planets or any of 57 navigational stars at any time of day or night. From a single sight, a time within a second and an estimated position, a position can be determined within a third of a mile.

Conceptually, the angle to the celestial object establishes a ring of possible positions on the surface of the Earth. A second sighting on a different object establishes an intersecting ring. Usually the navigator knows his position well enough to pick which of the two intersections is the current position. The math required for sight reduction is simple addition and subtraction, if sight-reduction tables are available. The numerous celestial objects permit navigators to shoot through holes in clouds. Most navigation is performed with the sun and moon.

Accurately knowing the time of an observation is important. Time is measured with a chronometer, a quartz watch or a short wave radio broadcast from an atomic clock.

A quartz wristwatch normally keeps time within a half-second per day. If it is worn constantly, keeping it near body heat, its rate of drift can be measured with the radio, and by compensating for this drift, a navigator can keep time to better than a second per month.

Traditionally, three chronometers are kept in gimbals in a dry room near the center of the ship, and used to set a watch for the actual sight, so that no chronometers are ever risked to the elements. Winding the chronometers was a crucial duty of the navigator.

The angle is measured with a special optical instrument called a "sextant." Sextants use two mirrors to cancel the relative motion of the sextant. During a sight, the user's view of the star and horizon remains steady as the boat rocks. An arm moves a split image of the star relative to the split image of the horizon. When the image of the star touches the horizon, the angle can be read from the sextant's scale. Some sextants create an artificial horizon by reflecting a bubble. Inexpensive plastic sextants are available, though they have less accuracy than the more expensive metal models.

The LORAN system is based on measuring the phase shift of radio waves sent simultaneously from a master and slave station. Signals from these two point establish a hyperbolic curve for possible positions. A third source along with dead-reckoning will generally resolve to a single position.

GPS uses 3D trilateration based on measuring the time-of-flight of radio waves using the well-known speed of light to measure distance from at least three satelites. This can be accomplished using low cost quarts clocks because the satellites send time correction signals to the GPS receivers.

History

In the West, navigation was at first performed exclusively by dead-reckoning, the process of estimating one's present position based on the navigators' experience with wind, tide and currents.

Most sailors have always been able find absolute north from the stars, which currently rotate around Polaris, or by using a dual sundial called a diptych.

When combined with a plumb bob, some diptychs could also determine latitude. Basically, when the diptych's two sundials indicated the same time, the diptych was aligned to the current latitude and true north.

Another early invention was the compass rose, a cross or painted panel of wood oriented with the pole star or diptych. This was placed in front of the helmsman.

Latitude was determined with a "cross staff" an instrument vaguely similar to a carpenter's angle with graduated marks on it. Most sailors could use this instrument to take sun sights, but master navigators knew that sightings of Polaris were far more accurate, because they were not subject to time-keeping errors involved in finding noon.

Time-keeping was by precision hourglasses, filled and tested to 1/4 of an hour, turned by the helmsman, or a young boy brought for that purpose.

The most important instrument was a navigators' diary, later called a rutter. These were often crucial trade secrets, because they enabled travel to lucrative ports.

The above instruments were a powerful technology, and appear to have been the technique used by ancient Cretan bronze-age trading empire. Using these techniques, masters successfully sailed from the eastern Mediterranean to the south coast of the British Isles.

Some time later, around 300, the magnetic compass was invented in China. This let masters continue sailing a course when the weather limited visibility of the sky.

Around 400, metallurgy allowed construction of astrolabes graduated in degrees, which replaced the wooden latitude instruments for night use. Diptychs remained in use during the day, until shadowing astrolabes were constructed.

After Isaac Newton published the Principia, navigation was transformed. Starting in 1670, the entire world was measured using essentially modern latitude instruments and the best available clocks.

In 1730 the sextant was invented and navigators rapidly replaced their astrolabes. A sextant uses mirrors to measure the altitude of celestial objects with regard to the horizon. Thus, its "pointer" is as long as the horizon is far away. This eliminates the "cosine" error of an astrolabe's short pointer. Modern sextants measure to 0.2 minutes of arc, an error that translates to a distance of about 0.2 nautical miles.

At first, the best available "clocks" were the moons of Jupiter, and the calculated transits of selected stars by the moon. These methods were too complex to be used by any but skilled astronomers, but they sufficed to map most of the world. A number of scientific journals during this period were started especially to chronicle geography.

Later, mechanical chronometers enabled navigation at sea and in the air using relatively unskilled procedures.

In the late 19th century Nikola Tesla invented radio and direction-finding was quickly adapted to navigation. Up until 1960 it was commonplace for ships and aircraft to use radio direction-finding on commercial stations in order to locate islands and cities within the last several miles of error.

Around 1960, LORAN was developed. This used time-of-flight of radio waves from antennas at known locations. It revolutionized navigation by permitting semiautomated equipment to locate geographic positions to less than a half mile. An analogous system for aircraft, VOR and DME, was developed around the same time.

At about the same, TRANSIT, the first satellite-based navigation system was developed. It was the first electronic navigation system to provide global coverage.

Watchstanding

Watchstanding, or watchkeeping, in nautical terms concerns the division of qualified personnel to operate a ship continuously around the clock. On a typical sea going vessel, be it naval or merchant, personnel keep watch on the bridge and over the running machinery. The generic bridge watchstanders are a lookout and an officer or mate who is responsible for the safe navigation of the ship. Safe navigation means keeping the vessel on track and away from dangers as well as collision avoidance from other shipping. An engineering specialist ensures that running machinery continues to operate within tolerances and depending on the vessel, this can also be accomplished from the bridge. A secondary function of watchkeeping is the ability to respond to emergencies, be it on own ship or involving other ocean users.

Duration

Watch durations will vary between vessels due to a number of reasons and restrictions. The traditional three-watch system from the days of sail where the ships company was divided into three and the day divided into six watches of four-hours duration, such that an individual would keep two four-hour watches each day separated by an eight-hour time for sleep or recreation. Examples of other systems include 4 by 6-hour and 7's and 5's when a warship has half its ships company on watch at a time.

Ropework

Ropework is commonly defined as the set of processes of making and repairing ropes; some, however, also include any other work that can be done with ropes, such as tying knots and splicing.

Actually, only a few of the "ropes" on a boat are called ropes, most are called lines.

Ropes or wires that hold up masts are collectively known as standing rigging and are called shrouds or stays (the stay connecting the top of the mast to the bow is called the forestay or headstay).

Ropes or wires that control the sails are known collectively as running rigging or lines. Those that raise sails are called halyards while those that strike them are called downhauls. Ropes that adjust (trim) the sails are called sheets. These are often referred to using the name of the sail they control (eg. "main sheet", or "jib sheet").

Ropes used to tie the boat up when alongside are called docklines.

Some knots: 1. Splice 2. Manrope knot 3. Granny knot 4. Rosebud stopper knot 5. Matthew Walker knot 6. Shroud knot 7. Turks head knot 8. Overhand knot, Figure-of-eight knot 9. Reef knot or Square knot 10. Two half hitches

There are some ropes: A few examples, the bell rope (to ring the bell), a bolt rope (attached to the edge of a sail for extra strength), a foot rope (on old square riggers for the sailors to stand on while reefing or furling the sails), and a tiller rope (to temporarily hold the tiller and keep the boat on course). A rode is what keeps an anchor attached to the boat when the anchor is in use.

Making a rope

To make a rope, take a long length of twine or yarn and tie it to a rod of strong material. Loop it around a second rod, held at a distance. Take it back to the first rod, loop it around, and then once more back to the second, to which it is then tied. There should be three lengths of twine running between the two rods. Each person holding a rod then moves backward until the lengths are taut and then begins turning his rod counterclockwise. This continues until the twine has been tightly twisted; at this point, the securing knots are untied. The twine is then secured to the rods again (as if the piece of three twisted lengths is one) and run between them as before was, with three lengths between the rods. The holders again pull the material taut and begin turning, this time in the opposite direction. When the rope is tightly twisted, each end is whipped (see below) and then cut between the whipping and the rod.

Whipping frayed ropes

A whipping knot is a type of knot used to hold the frayed end of a rope together. The simplest sort, the common whipping, is done by taking a two-foot-or-greater length of strong string, forming a loop with it, three or four diameters of the rope in length, and lying it on the rope near the frayed end. The rest of the length is then tightly wrapped without overlapping around the rope, moving up the loop. When the end of the loop is nearly covered, pull the remaining free length of the string through the loop and then pull on both ends, which will pull the end of the loop under the whipping. Cut off the end of the rope close to the edge of the whipping and then cut off the two free lengths of string.

A somewhat simpler method is merely to cut off the fraying and wrap a few layers of tape, usually electrical tape, around the cut end.

Fusing frayed ropes

Fusion is a method of repairing a frayed end of a nylon or plastic rope through use of heat. Cut off the fraying at the end, light a candle or cigarette lighter, and hold the cut end a few inches above the flame until the fibers have melted and fused together. Allow the end to cool before touching it or setting it down.

Another method of fusing, somewhat weaker, is simply to cut the end, dip it in paint, and allow it to dry.

Sailing

Sailing is motion across a body of water in a sailing ship, or smaller boat, powered by wind.

How sailing works

The force of the wind is used to create motion by using one or more sails. The movement of air over the sails acts in the same way as air moving over an aircraft's wing. Just like on an airplane, air flowing over the sail is deflected and accelerated. This generates lift, which acts to pull the sail, and thus the boat ahead, but also slightly downwind. The downwind component is offset by an underwater hydrofoil (centerboard or keel), whose shape resists lateral movement while offering little resistance to forward motion. Without a keel or centerboard, sailing upwind or across the wind would be virtually impossible. (Other sailing hydrofoils include daggerboards and leeboards).

The lifting force of the sails also acts to lean the boat over to one side, which is called heeling. This is counteracted by ballast, either in the form of dense material located in the keel (usually lead or iron) or in the form of human or water ballast located near the windward rail.

Today, for most people, sailing is a hobby. Pleasure sailing can be further divided into two areas: Racing and Cruising.

In ancient times (see Odysseus), ships used following or rear-quarter winds. Therefore, they had to wait in port or at sea for the right wind directions.

Basic sailing techniques

Turning a sailing boat

There are four basic maneuvers a sailing boat can perform while underway. They are:

Tacking is turning the boat so that the bow passes through the eye of the wind (or "no go zone").
Gybing (or wearing) is turning the boat so that the stern of the boat turns through the wind. Gybing causes the boom to swing from one side to the other, sometimes rapidly, as the wind catches the leach of the mainsail on its new upwind side.
Heading up is turning the boat to sail closer to the direction the wind is coming from.
Bearing away (or falling off) is turning away from the direction the wind is coming from.

Trim
An important aspect of sailing is keeping the boat in "trim". And remembering to let go of the rope. To achieve this a useful mnemonic (memory aid) is the phrase:

Can This Boat Sail Correctly?

This helps the crew to remember these essential points;

Course to Steer - Turn the boat using the wheel or tiller to the desired course to steer. See points of sail. This may be a definite bearing (e.g steer 270 degrees), or towards a landmark, or at a desired angle to the apparent wind direction.
Trim - This is the fore and aft balance of the boat. The aim is to adjust the moveable ballast (the crew!) forwards or backwards to achieve an 'even keel'. On an upwind course in a small boat, the crew typically sit forward, when 'running' it is more efficient for the crew to sit to the rear of the boat. The position of the crew matters less as the size (and weight) of the boat increases.
Balance - This is the port and starboard balance. The aim, once again is to adjust weight 'inboard' or 'outboard' to prevent excessive heeling.
Sail - Trimming sails is a large topic. However simply put, a sail should be pulled in until it fills with wind, but no further than the point where the front edge of the sail (the luff) is exactly in line with the wind.
Centreboard - If a moveable centreboard is fitted, then it should be lowered when sailing "close to the wind" but can be raised up on downwind courses to reduce drag. The centreboard prevents lateral motion and allows the boat to sail upwind, and also provides stability to keep the boat from rolling over. A boat with no centreboard will instead have a heavy permanent keel built into the bottom of the hull, which serves the same purposes.

Running Downwind

Sailing the boat within 30 degrees of straight downwind is called a run. This is the easiest point of sail, but it can also be the most dangerous. Sailing upwind gives you the everpresent possibility of stopping the boat easily by steering into the wind. Running gives a sailor no such easy out. Be careful and either use your boom vang or adjust the mainsheet to prevent an accidental gybe.

Beating an upwind course

A basic rule of sailing is that it is not possible to sail directly into the direction the wind is coming from. Generally a cruising boat can sail 45 degrees off the wind, a racing boat may aproach 35 degrees. However since it is often necessary to move towards the wind direction, it is necessary to 'beat' upwind.

Beating is simply a series of 'tacks' where the boat sails as close to the wind on each tack as possible, and then switches sides and repeats the process. By this method, it is possible to travel directly into the wind. The heavier the wind the harder the beat, and since you are sailing into oncoming waves at an angle, boat movement can be heavy. This movement can feel like the boat is beating its hull into the waves, hence the name. Since the boat is sailing over oncoming waves, a beat will feel faster than its actually moving.

During a beat, it is important to watch your heading, since the wind will tend to push an unbalanced boat into or away from the wind, depending on the balance problem. If you find yourself having to overcorrect at the helm for sail pressure into the wind, then you are in a condition called weatherhelm, and you are actually slowing the boat with your rudder. To correct this, reduce sail.

Reducing sail

An important safety aspect of sailing is to adjust the amount of sail to suit the wind conditions. As the wind speed increases the crew should progressively reduce the amount of sail. On a small boat with only jib and mainsail this is done by furling the jib and by partially lowering the mainsail, a process called 'reefing the main'.

Reefing basically means reducing the size of a sail without changing them. Ideally reefing does not only result in a reduced sail area but also in a lower center of effort from the sails, keeping the boat more upright.

There are three core methods of reefing the mainsail: - Slab reefing, which involves lowering the sail by about one-quarter to one-third of its luff length and tightening the lower part of the sail using an outhaul through a cringle at the new clew, and hook through a cringle at the new tack. - In-mast (or on-mast) roller-reefing. This method rolls the sail up around a vertical foil either inside a slot in the mast, or affixed to the outside of the mast. It requires a mainsail with either no battens, or newly-developed vertical battens. - In-boom roller-reefing, with a horizontal foil inside the boom. This method allows for standard- or full-length horizontal battens.

Mainsail furling systems have become increasingly popular on cruising yachts as they can be operated shorthanded and from the cockpit in most cases, however, the sail can become jammed in the mast or boom slot if not operated correctly. Mainsail furling is almost never used while racing because it results in a less efficient sail profile. The classical slab-reefing method is the most widely used. Mainsail furling has an additional disadvantage in that its complicated gear may somewhat increase weight aloft. However, as the size of the boat increases, the benefits of mainsail roller furling increase dramatically.

Sail trimming

As noted above, sail trimming is a large subject. Basic control of the mainsail consists of setting the sail so that it is at an optimum angle to the wind,(i.e. no flapping at the front, and tell tales flowing evenly off the rear of the sail).

Two or more sails are frequently combined to maximise the smooth flow of air. The sails are adjusted to create a smooth laminar flow over the sail surfaces. This is called the "slot effect". The combined sails fit into an imaginary aerofoil outline, so that the most forward sails are more in line with the wind, whereas the more aft sails are more in line with the course followed. The combined efficiency of this sail plan is greater than the sum of each sail used in isolation.

More detailed aspects include specific control of the sail's shape, e.g.:

reefing, or reducing the sail area in stronger wind
altering sail shape to make it flatter in high winds
raking the mast when going upwind (to tilt the sail towards the rear, this being more stable)
providing sail twist to cope with gusty conditions

Heeling

When a boat rolls over to one side under wind pressure, it's called 'heeling'. As a sailing boat heels over beyond a certain angle, it begins to sail increasingly inefficiently. Several forces can counteract this movement.

The buoyancy of that part of the hull which is being submerged tends to bring the boat upright.
Pressure on the centreboard or keel moving at a slight 'leeway' angle through the water tends to balance the rolling force.
Raising the centreboard can paradoxically increase leeway, and therefore reduce heeling.
A weighted keel provides additional force to right the boat.
The crew may move onto the high (upwind) side of the boat, called hiking, changing the centre of gravity significantly in a small boat.
They can trapeze where the boat is designed for this. The underwater shape of the hull relative to the sails can be designed to make the boat tend to turn upwind when it heels excessively: this reduces the force on the sails, and allows the boat to right itself.
The boat can be turned upwind to produce the same effect.
Wind can be spilled from the sails by 'sheeting out', i.e. loosening the sail.
Lastly, as the boat rolls farther over, wind spills from the top of the sail.
Most of the above effects can be used to right a heeling boat and to keep the boat sailing efficiently: if however the boat heels beyond a certain point of stability, it can capsize.

Sailing close to the wind
How close a boat can sail to the wind depends on the wind speed, since what the boat "sees" is the apparent wind, i.e., the vector sum of the actual wind and the boat's own velocity. The apparent wind is what the windex on top of the mast shows. Because of this, people often talk about how close a boat can sail to the apparent wind. A good, modern sloop can sail within 25 degrees of the apparent wind. An America's Cup racing sloop can sail within 16 degrees, under the right conditions. Those figures might translate into 45 degrees and 36 degrees relative to the actual wind. The angles at which the wind meets the boat are described by the points of sail.

Sailing safety

First and foremost:

Learn to swim!
Wear a life vest!
Sailing is intrinsically dangerous, since water is not our natural element. All sailors therefore should take precautions, and when engaged in publicly organized activities they must take certain precautions, as detailed by the authority which regulates the training or racing.

Safety measures include:

Provision of a safety boat for rescue purposes
Appropriate first aid and firefighting equipment
Carrying of a knife suitable for cutting rigging or netting which may entrap a sailor underwater
Wearing of buoyancy aids
Understanding and practice of man overboard procedures such as the Anderson turn, the Williamson turn, and the Scharnow turn.

Also, know the 'rules of the road':

Port tack gives way to Starboard tack (when the paths of two boats on opposite tacks cross, the boat with its port side to windward must give way)
Windward gives way to the leeward, or downwind boat (if on the same tack)
Overtaking boat gives way if above do not apply
Non-Commercial Powerboats usually give way to sailboats (but be careful in shipping lanes, and use common sense)
It is everybody's responsibility to avoid a collision, and avoiding action must be taken if these rules are ignored.

Sailing hulls and hull shapes

Sailing boats can have one, two, or three hulls. Boats with one hull are known as monohulls, while those with two or more are known as multihulls. Multihulls can be further subdivided into catamarans (two hulls), and trimarans (three hulls). A sailing boat is turned by a rudder which itself is controlled by a tiller or a wheel. Smaller sailing boats often have a stabilizing, raise-able, underwater fin called a centreboard (or daggerboard); larger sailing boats have a fixed (or sometimes canting) keel. As a general rule, the former are called dinghies, the latter yachts.

Multihulls use flotation and/or weight positioned away from the centre line of the sailboat to counter the force of the wind. This is in contrast to heavy ballast that can make up to 1/3 of the weight of a monohulled sailboat. In the case of a standard catamaran there are two similarly sized and shaped narrow hulls connected by a deck superstructure. Another catamaran variation is the proa. In the case of trimarans, which have an unballasted centre hull similar to a monohull, two relatively smaller amas are situated parallel to the centre hull to resist the sideways force of the wind. The advantage of multihulled sailboats is that they do not suffer the performance penalty of having to carry heavy ballast, and their relatively smaller hulls reduce the amount of drag caused by friction and inertia when moving through the water.

Types of Sails and layouts

On a modern yacht, the mainsail or main is usually the primary driving sail, triangular in shape, and fixed to the largest (or often the only) mast. A headsail, either a jib or genoa, is set in front of the mainsail, attached in such a way that the trailing edge extends back alongside the main. This is also known as an overlapping headsail (pronounced hedsal). Two or more headsails can be used. In addition, some sailboats, ketches and yawls, have another smaller mast called the mizzen mast, on which is set a smaller sail similar to the mainsail and called the mizzen sail.

A spinnaker is a large, full sail that is only used when sailing off wind either reaching or downwind, to catch the maximum amount of wind.

Sailing regulations

There are two very basic rules for avoiding a collision at sea: 1) Power gives way to sail 2) Port gives way to starboard. This second point means that yachts who have their sails set for a breeze coming from the left hand side of the boat (the port side) must give way to yachts that have their sails set for a breeze coming from the opposite side of the boat (the starboard side). If both yachts have their sails set on the same side of the boat, then the yacht closer to where the wind is coming from must give way. This rule is described as the windward boat must keep clear of the leeward boat.

However there are many other rules besides and sailors are expected to know the essentials of boating safety which include;

The rules of the road or International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea set forth by the International Maritime Organization are particularly relevant to sailors because of their limited maneuverability compared to powered vessels.
The IALA International Association of Lighthouse Authorities standards for lateral marks, lights, signals, and buoyage and various rules designed to support safe navigation.
The SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) regulations place the obligations for safety on the owners and operators of any boat. These regulations specify the safety equipment needed and emergency procedures to be used.

Sailing traditions and etiquette

There are many, more esoteric, etiquette rules, traditions, and customs that will demonstrate to others advanced knowledge of boating protocol. Fenders should be pulled up outside ports, the flag of the host country should be shown, flags are to taken down at night, one should not walk on other's forecastle, no whistling aboard etc.

Sail

A sail is a surface intended to generate thrust by being placed in a wind; basically it is a vertically oriented wing. Depending on the incident angle of the wind on the surface of the sail, one side of the sail will have a higher air pressure than the other one according to Bernoulli's principle. The difference in pressure will generate lift, causing the sail to be pulled towards the side of lower pressure. On a sailing boat, a keel or centreboard is used to convert this lateral force into forward movement of the boat with some sideways leaning, or 'heel'.

Use of sails

Sails are primarily used at sea, on sailing ships as a propulsion system. For purposes of commerce, sails have been largely superseded by other forms of propulsion, such as the internal combustion engine. For recreation, however, sailing vessels remain popular.

The most familiar type of sailboat, a small pleasure yacht, usually has a sail-plan called a sloop. This has two fore-and-aft sails: the mainsail and the jib.

The mainsail extends aftward and is secured the whole length of its edges to the mast and to a boom also hung from the mast. The sails of tall ships are attached to wooden timbers or "spars".

The jib is secured along its luff to a forestay (strong wire) strung from the top of the mast to the bowsprit on the bow (nose) of the boat. A genoa is also used on some boats. It is a type of jib that is larger, and cut so that it is fuller than an ordinary jib.

Fore-and-aft sails can be switched from one side of the boat to the other, in order to alter the boat's course. When the boat's stern crosses the wind, this is called jibing; when the bow crosses the wind, it is called tacking. Tacking repeatedly from port to starboard and/or vice versa, called "beating", is done in order to allow the boat to follow a course into the wind.

A primary feature of a properly designed sail is an amount of "draft", caused by curvature of the surface of the sail. When the sail is oriented into the wind, this curvature induces lift, much like the wing of an airplane. Modern sails are manufactured with a combination of broadseaming and non-stretch fabric (ref New technology below). The former adds draft, while the latter allows the sail to keep a constant shape as the wind pressure increases. The draft of the sail can be reduced in stronger winds by use of a cunningham and increasing the downward pressure of the boom.

Sail construction is governed by the science of aerodynamics

Parts of the Sail

The lower edge of a triangular sail is called the "foot" of the sail, while the upper point is known as the "head". The halyard, a line which raises the sail, is attached to the head. The lower two points of the sail, on either end of the foot, are called the "tack" (forward) and "clew" (aft). The tack is shackled to a fixed point on the boat such as the gooseneck in the case of a mainsail or the deck at the base of a stay in the case of a jib or staysail. The clew is movable and is positioned with running rigging, an outhaul on the mainsail and a sheet for a headsail.

The forward edge of the sail is called the "luff", from which derives the term "luffing", a rippling of the sail when the angle of the wind fails to maintain a good aerodynamic shape near the luff. The aft edge of a sail is called the "leech". If incorrectly tensioned, the leech of a sail may "flutter" noisily.

Modern sails are designed such that the warp and the weft of the sailcloth are oriented parallel to the luff and foot of the sail. This places the most stretchable axis of the cloth along the diagonal axis (parallel to the leech), and makes it possible for sailors to reduce the draft of the sail by tensioning the sail, mast and boom in various ways. A cunningham may be rigged on the mainsail to control sail shape.

An alternative approach to sail design is that used in Junks, originally an oriental design. It uses horizontal sail curving to produce an efficient and easily controlled sail-plan.

New technology

Sail producers are competing hard with the latest technology to produce the best, i.e. the most efficient sail: North sails with their 3DL sail, Doyle the 4D and Elvström Sobstad the Genesis sail. These sails are produced with carbon fibers and are glued/baked, compared to the old sewed cotton sails.

Why is a rope called a sheet?

Sheet is a term we use to name a line that is attached to a sail and used to control its angle relative to the wind or boat. ... There are a few instances of rope on boats. To strengthen the very leading edge of a sail we use a bolt rope. And, hanging from the clapper of our ship's bell is the bell rope.

Sailing terms can be confusing or, so my students tell me. Why not just call it rope and be done with it? Well, because we can convey greater meaning if we use unique terms. Line is the general term for rope that is on a boat and there can be several different named lines because they perform different functions. For instance, when we attach a line to the mainsail (usually at the end of the boom) we now call it the main sheet. Sheet is a term we use to name a line that is attached to a sail and used to control its angle relative to the wind or boat.

If we attach the line to an anchor or the anchor chain then that line becomes a part of the anchor rode. Attach a line to a dinghy so we can tow it and that line is now termed a painter. One very common use for line on boats is for dock lines. These are usually made up of 3 strand nylon because it is very stretchy and easily absorbs shock. This is the type of line in the above photo.

There are a few instances of rope on boats. To strengthen the very leading edge of a sail we use a bolt rope. And, hanging from the clapper of our ship’s bell is the bell rope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjBYRUZbU4Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUakTKXdHmA

A carronade is a short, smoothbore, cast iron cannon which was used by the Royal Navy and first produced by the Carron Company, an ironworks in Falkirk, Scotland. It was used from the 1770s to the 1850s. Its main function was to serve as a powerful, short-range, anti-ship and anti-crew weapon. Wikipedia

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https://www.quora.com/Where-did-sailors-get-drinking-water-during-very-long-voyages-in-the-times-of-Columbus

Where did sailors get drinking water during very long voyages in the times of Columbus?

Jeanne Pockel, 28 years full-time blue water sailing/cruising, 50 countries

Answered Aug 28 2016 · Author has 2.1k answers and 1.9m answer views

First some numbers, though approximations all, and only for the first expedition: Length of the three ships, about 50 feet on deck each. Number of crew on each ship, about 30. Time at sea: 3 days from Lisbon to the Canaries; about 34 days from Canaries to first landfall in the Bahamas. It took longer for the ships to return to Europe, but not extraordinarily longer.

Some considerations regarding time at sea. Bathing, probably none, but that would have been not much different from standard hygiene in those days anywhere in Europe. The smell? Probably pretty awful but from personal experience I can verify that “nose blind” is a fact. I doubt that the sailors would have noticed, let alone been nauseated by, the smell.

Water: carried in casks aboard, and replenished upon making landfall as well as at sea whenever there was a storm. 35 days’ supply of fresh water wouldn’t have been dreadful - 900 gallons of water, perhaps, carried in 50 gallon casks. It would have served as ballast as well. I would expect that wine and rum would have also been carried, both of which, mixed with water to make it drinkable, could reasonably disinfect the water. Moreover, I think that sailors of that time (and perhaps the general population) had a more robust immune system than modern day people considering the general poor sanitation of the times.

One shouldn’t try to compare a 50′ modern sailing yacht to a 15th century 50′ Caravel. The ~ 7′ draft of a caravel would mean perhaps 3,500 cubic feet of cargo space below the water line because all of its draft would be hull below water line. A 50′ modern sailing yacht might have 1,200 cubic feet below the water line because its ballast is an external keel and perhaps 1 foot of hull below the water line. Huge difference.

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Art Dallas, Colloidal silver manufacturer

Answered Dec 16, 2015

Explorers travelling by sea brought water, wine, and beer to drink. When silver was available, all of these were either kept in silver vessels for storage or had silver coins placed within containers to kill pathogens in these fluids. Water and beer went bad first, when no silver was available, so these were consumed first. Wine kept longer and was also used to add to the water to disinfect drinking water, so they often drank watered-down wine (or wined-up water). Alcohol alone results in dehydration in roughly 10-14 days, even in humid ocean environment. If silver was on board, when the ship had landed on new territory, new water was again purified with silver vessels and coins. Silver kills the microbes in water, wine, beer, etc, in about 6-10 minutes. (Wait 15 mins to be certain, and stir or shake fluid once or twice) Today, colloidal silver can be added to disinfect questionable drinking water, etc, by adding 1 ounce of 10ppm colloidal silver to each gallon of water, or wine, beer, etc, then wait 15 minutes before drinking. If the fluid you wish to disinfect has a high PH value, add 3 ounces of colloidal silver per gallon instead of just one ounce, or use 3 times as many silver coins, etc.

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Augusto Gesualdi, Sailed Around South America in a 27 sail Tall Ship.

Answered Oct 8, 2014 · Author has 79 answers and 276.7k answer views

In every long sailing trip you carry drinking water loaded from land. Ships' capacity for drinking water is huge, to the point where you actually use drinkable water to shower, wash dishes, etc.
Modern ships can desalinate sea water through reverse osmosis, but still most water is obtained from the docks (as the desalination process is obscenely expensive).

Ok, so everyone here is kinda right. Old ships carried water in wooden casks.

But there's a problem with fresh water, it stagnates easily.

Wine, on the other hand, because it had a sufficient concentration of ethanol, didn't stagnate and could be preserved for much longer after the cask was opened and exposed to oxygen and bacteria.

Water was kept for high ranking officers, while wine was the primary drink for the sailors.

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Michael Bast, Technical, Media, and Marketing Professional

Answered Sep 27, 2017 · Author has 999 answers and 1.6m answer views

The sailors packed fresh water, but that would go bad rather quickly so they had a level of alcohol in it to keep it fresh. When they could they got fresh water from rain, and they drank kegs of mead or a sort of ale. They also carried wine.

At times they had made a “punch” or a cocktail with flavoring using some citrus (fight off skurvy) plants and mixed it with alcohol and flavoring to make it more palatable.

The captain had to maintain the supply of water, and if there was a source of fresh water on their journey they would stock up again. If the supply ran down or out the sailors would go crazy drinking water with too much salt in it, which would cause psychosis and is likely the cause of some mutany situations.

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Michel Verheughe, I have sailed for half a century from the Mediterranean to Norway

Answered Sep 4, 2016 · Author has 5.2k answers and 4.8m answer views

Charlie, I have sailed small sailboats along the coast of Europe for sixty years and the history of navigation is my hobby. I have read, I think, everything about the voyages of Columbus. I can’t remember anything about the water they took other than, it was the first duty when getting ashore: filling up the barrels of fresh water.

Incidentally, in the 1950s, Alain Bombard crossed the Atlantic in a tiny rubber dinghy without any fresh water. He survived by drinking a bit of sea water, sucking the water out of the eyes of the fish he caught and out of the plankton. His kidneys suffered damages but, today the Bombard liferafts are well known.

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Fred Apstein, 50 years sailed, built, repaired, bought, sold, sunk and salvaged boats

Answered Mar 26, 2016 · Author has 2.1k answers and 1.5m answer views

They carried as much water as they could, in barrels and casks. When it rained hard, they caught rain water. There are many accounts of ships that ran out of water, or had to cut back to very small amounts, for days or weeks, until they reached land where water was available, or it rained hard enough to catch water.

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FOOD

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/meals-royal-navy-napoleonic-wars.html

Officers of the Royal Navy at the turn of the 19th century were expected to live charmed and genteel lives. This was reflected in almost all aspects of their life, from showing a stern and commanding face at all times when in battle, to eating better than the common sailor.

An example of how these men would have eaten can be seen on HMS Seahorse, a 38 Gun Frigate. Of her 270 men complement, there would have been about 18 Gentlemen, comprised of Commissioned Officers, Warrants, and Midshipmen. These were made up of 10 Midshipmen and Master’s Mates, 3 Lieutenants, 2 Officers of the Marines, 1 Surgeon, 1 Master, and 1 Captain.

According to the Admiralty, all meals were purely egalitarian, each man receiving the same ration. In practice, an officer’s dining habits were highly stratified based on rank, class, and wealth.

For an older Midshipman, around 18 years of age, and ready for promotion to Lieutenant, breakfast was often the same as the rest of the crew. However, his family may have sent him some dried fruits, or honey and fresh bread if he was lucky. His midday meal would often occur at least an hour after the men had theirs.

This served two purposes; it reinforced the separation between them, and it allowed him to provide the necessary functions on board while the men ate. The meal would, again, be similar to the enlisted crew, but supplemented with some luxuries according to his class and wealth.

Much the same as his midday meal, supper was supplemented rations. If he were lucky, the Captain would invite him to dine in his cabin. A Captain was expected to teach the young officer the ways of the genteel world, as a service to the boy’s parents. An older Midshipman, probably 16-18 years old. This young man was at the point of moving past economic reliance on his parents but probably could not afford to truly live in the high style expected of more senior officers.

These young men were sent to sea as young as 14 and spent the rest of their career there. The Captain often oversaw their finances, purchasing extra food for them when able, and writing to their fathers to ask for more funds if necessary.

Next, was a Lieutenant, who bought into the Officer’s Club. He paid around £60 a year, almost as much as he made, to the common mess funds. The gentlemen would select a caterer, tasked with purchasing food while in port. On a frigate such as Seahorse, they ate their meals in the gun room. On a larger ship, they might dine in an Officer’s Wardroom, with the Surgeon, other Lieutenants, Marine Officers, and some of the Warrant Officers.

A Christmas Pudding, or Plum Duff, was a staple of Royal Navy cooking for both enlisted men and officers. The main difference between the enlisted and commissioned versions would be the fruits and sweeteners added to the mix. Celcom – CC BY-SA 3.0

For breakfast, they could supplement their usual rations even more extravagantly, possibly adding meat to the meal. If their caterer was particularly skillful, they might have a steady supply of eggs, a lucky delicacy at sea.

For dinner, Lieutenants had access to the storerooms, which housed wine, fine tableware, and better food. This meant they could dine in the style befitting their rank, title, and class. They would usually eat at the same time as the Midshipmen, providing some supervision, and an example of behavior to follow. A Lieutenant in late 18th, early 19th, century Royal Navy uniform. A man could hold a Lieutenant’s commission for many years while waiting for the opportunity to become a Commander.

Lieutenants’ meals would consist of fresher meats, sometimes fish, and always wine, instead of rum or beer. Though, by some accounts, the wine purchased by caterers was of questionable quality at best.

Then for supper, the Lieutenant could be invited to dine with the Captain. This gave the Captain some company, in an otherwise solitary life, as well as solidifying the social ties between the upper echelons of the crew. If the Captain were particularly strapped for cash, he might only be able to invite the junior officers to join him for breakfast. Welsh Rabbit, also sometimes called Toasted Cheese, was a luxury only officers could afford. The finer bread, large amounts of cheese, and eggs were outside the affordable realm for enlisted sailors. Jiel Beaumadier – CC BY-SA 4.0.

Finally, a Captain faced heavy social pressure to provide himself with luxuries. He was allowed four servants per 100 men on board, so for the Seahorse the Captain might have eight men attending him. This meant he could bring a cook from home, affording him a much better existence than even the Wardroom Officers.

Depending on the wealth of the Captain, his meals could vary, from slightly more enticing than the crew’s to banquets with multiple courses.

An 18th Century cutlery set. An Officer’s mess would often pool their money to purchase food and luxury items such as this. Depending on the size of the ship, and therefore the mess, they might need a much larger set. Wolfgang Sauber – CC BY-SA 4.0

While the shipyard provided his cabin with a dining table and chairs, he had to supply his own silver and china, crystal glasses, decanters, wine selection, linens, and cutlery. Again this reinforced the divide between him and the men, who would eat from wooden or pewter dishes, with utensils to match.

It is hard to say what a Captain would have eaten on a daily basis, but it is certain it would far exceed what was consumed by anyone else on board.

Captain James Bowen (1751-1835). A Captain was expected to purchase all the trappings of high society, even when sailing halfway around the world.

He could send servants to purchase stores for him when in port. If he was entertaining dignitaries, or other Captains or senior officers, he was under heavy social pressure to purchase only the best available, from fine wine, to fresh meat.

Officers of the Royal Navy always ate better than the men, but only by spending money out of pocket. Midshipmen, relied on their parents and family for some level of class, whereas Lieutenants had to buy into a common mess fund for the Wardroom.

Finally, Captains were expected to present lavish meals, to impress guests and show their position at the top of a ship’s hierarchy.

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https://csphistorical.com/2016/01/24/salt-pork-ships-biscuit-and-burgoo-sea-provisions-for-common-sailors-and-pirates-part-1/

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Sea Provisions of the British Navy

Table 1 – British Navy Food Rations, 1677-1740s

Of all the accounts of sailors and provisions, those of the British Royal Navy are the most plentiful and provide a convenient starting point for examining the food mariners received while at sea. In 1677, Samuel Pepys, the Secretary to the Admiralty, copied into his Naval Precedents a contract he established with victuallers to the Navy. This document established predetermined rations for each sailor, which included one pound of biscuits and a gallon of beer each day and four pounds of beef, two pounds of salted pork, three eights of a twenty-four-inch cod, two pints of peas, six ounces of butter, and between eight and twelve ounces of cheese each week. When victuallers could not provide these specific foods, Pepys also established substitutes (see table 1 for a complete list of the Navy’s rations from 1677 to the 1740s).[3] The most significant alteration came in 1731, when the Navy published a reformed and better-written set of Regulations and Instructions, and replaced the fish ration with three pints of oatmeal a week.[4] These rations changed little in the one hundred and fifty years after Pepys established them in the late seventeenth century. [5]

Ship’s Biscuits made by Jeff Pavlik, as featured in John Pavlik, “‘Consisting Merely of Flour and Water’: Reproducing the Eighteenth-Century English Biscuit,” Journal of the Early Americans 1, no. 11 (April/May 2011), 7-11.

In the British maritime service, sailors’ bread came in the form of unleavened biscuits on most voyages. Most period accounts referred to this bread as a biscuit, or a, “bisket,” in period documents, and not as “hardtack,” a term invented in the nineteenth century.[6] To make these simple biscuits, bakers used cheaper and roughly ground wheat flour, lower in quality than flour used in common household breads.[7] The contractors for biscuits in London obtained most of their wheat from south and southeastern England.[8] One pound of biscuits consisted of three to five biscuits, which one period observer described as plate-sized.[9] Biscuits often came in bags, each containing a hundredweight, or a hundred Avoirdupois pounds (or modern U.S. pounds), of biscuits.[10] The ingredients for these biscuits included only flour and water. Bakers did not add any yeast or salt.[11] When corrupt victuallers attempted to cheat the Navy, they included flour made from horse beans, rye, barley, or peas since these ingredients cost less than the wheat flour. If the bakers used too much substituted materials in proportion to wheat flower, not enough gluten formed in the dough and resulted in biscuits that crumbled apart. One period report on the corrupt practices of some navy victuallers claimed biscuits with such substitute materials contributed to the large loss of life experienced in John Nevil’s 1697 expedition to the West Indies.[12] While stationed in a port with access to a baker, Navy sailors sometimes received fresh bread, with an allowance of one-half of a two-pound loaf per day.[13] While rarely mentioned, sailors might receive rusk bread instead of biscuits. Benjamin Franklin defined rusk bread in sea provisions as, “being made of good fermented bread, sliced and baked a second time.” He also claimed rusk was, “the true original biscuit, so prepared to keep for sea, biscuit in French signifying twice baked.”[14] While the word “biscuit” etymology does trace back to words meaning, “twice baked,” British bakers seldom baked their ship’s biscuits more than once during the Age of Sail.[15] Among all the provisions sailors ate at sea, they often relied on these simple and long-lasting ship’s biscuits of flour and water during their voyages.

In addition to biscuits, British mariners received notable amounts of meat, especially beef and pork. Period satirist Edward Ward recognized that sailors loved beef.[16] The Admiral in Nathaniel Boteler’s 1634 work, Six Dialogues, claimed mariners in the Navy, “are so besotted on their Beef and Pork, as they had rather adventure on all the Calentures, and Scarbots in the World, than to be weaned from their Customary Diet, or so much as to lose the least Bit of it; so that it may be doubted, that it would set them upon a loathing, and running away, as much as any other thing whatsoever.”[17] The late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries marked a period when the pig rose in popularity, including in England.[18] Pepys’s contracts for victualling the navy included salt pork or bacon in a sailor’s rations alongside beef, but issued only one two-pound piece of pork a week per sailor, compared to the four-pound pieces allowed for beef.[19] Corrupt victuallers might try to improve their profits and provide less wholesome meat to fulfill their contracts at less cost to themselves. Barrels of meat might include bones, shins, cheeks, hearts, and other similar pieces lacking good meat to make up the weight required for each barrel. This obliged the Navy to try to regulate the meat provided to include, “no unusual Pieces.”[20] When obtained in England, much of the beef for ship’s victuals came from North Wales, Lancashire, Somerset, and Glamorgan, where farmers probably raised English longhorns to supply this beef. When looking for cheaper sources of cattle, victuallers obtained Irish beef, where farmers raised particular types of Dunn and Polled cattle more fit for dairy production. While less expensive, this beef held a reputation for being lower in quality and thus robbed sailors of good meals, resulting in Navy officials opposing Irish beef for use in Navy rations.[21] Pork and bacon mostly came from Hampshire, the Midlands, and sometimes Herefordshire, which probably used the Hampshire pig that resembled British saddleback pigs and the Tamworth.[22]

Victuallers needing to supply enough meat to ships with large crews often had little choice but to obtain salted meat for crews because of period meat preservation processes made providing fresh meat to these large numbers of men over long periods of time difficult. Farmers who raised pigs and cows brought their livestock to market in the fall, which butchers killed and processed into the winter months. Since ships sailed around the world all year long, and the invention of refrigeration not yet in existence, meat to be preserved for many months until victuallers sold it to ships and sailors ate it for their dinners.[23] To preserve meat until consumption required salt and brine. The Navy victuallers’ process of salting and pickling meat involved several steps. First, they dry-rubbed the pork or beef with white salt. The meat then went into a brine to remove the blood for five days, since blood can cause meat to spoil while in storage. After removing it from the brine, the meat went into casks, with extra bay salt applied to each layer of meat placed into the cask. The final step of the process was pouring a fresh brine, the brine having enough dissolved salt in it to float an egg, into the full barrels. Each gallon of brine water used three and a half pounds of salt. To complete the salting process for one hundred pounds of meat, Navy victuallers used four and a half gallons of white salt and one and a quarter gallons of bay salt. Sometimes, barrels of meat did not receive enough brine and crews neglected to check barrels for leaks to make sure the meat needed more or new brine. Such incidents exposed the salted meat and increased the chances of the meat spoiling.[24] While British sailors might receive meat several times a week, they received it mostly in salted form since the slaughtering and the processing of meat occurred most often during the fall and early winter.

When mariners received pork for their dinner, it usually came with another common British maritime ration, peas. Usually spelt as “pease,” the common pairing of dried peas with pork stood as standard practice in the Navy, who issued peas on pork days each week. In England, many farmers grew peas throughout the country, especially in southeastern England, making them easy to supply. Other Baltic and northern countries grew peas that victuallers could import if local farmers could not supply their demands. Pease came in whole and split forms, with whole appearing to be the most common in both green and yellow colors. The green peas took longer to boil, while yellow peas cooked well when used for puddings.[25] While sailors did eat other vegetables, peas stood as the most common type in their diets when supplied from northern European countries.

While the Navy issued either pork or beef four days a week, until the 1730s, sailors might eat salted fish on the remaining three days of the week according to the Navy’s regulations. The lower class, including sailors in English ports and residents of London, regularly consumed fish and saw it as, “dearer than any other Belly-timber.”[26] While this may have contributed towards the Navy issuing salted fish to sailors, government officials probably considered English interests when making this choice. A large contract for fish from the Navy offered English fishermen another source of income while they competed with the French in the North Atlantic fish market.[27] The amount of salted fish issued depended on the type and size of fish. The contract established by Pepys in 1677 mentioned North Sea cod, haberdine (another large kind of cod), “Poor John” (a type of hake fish), and stockfish (another kind of cod).[28] If victuallers could not obtain fish, substitutes included oatmeal or rice.

Oatmeal, while somewhat disliked by mariners, presented a non-salted food for sailors. Mariners did not always like eating food with heavy salted content and appreciated receiving non-salted provisions whenever possible. Medical professionals such as William Cockburn recognized and encouraged oatmeal for improving the health of sailors since they believed salty sea diets contributed to developing scurvy.[29] Salted fish’s significant vulnerability to dampness and spoiling while in a ship’s hold further discouraged their inclusion in rations.[30] The Navy sometimes declined to issue salted fish and outright ceased issuing it after the 1720s, and instead preferred oatmeal, and official replaced fish with oatmeal in the 1731 Regulations and Instructions, because of the already salty diet sailors experienced and susceptibility to spoiling.

Beyond meat, biscuits, and peas, mariners in the Navy also received rations of dairy products, specifically cheese and butter. For the Navy, the primary providers of cheese came from Suffolk, Cheshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire.[31] Cheshire and Suffolk were the most common sources of cheese, to the point that the Navy named them within the regulations and provided specific ration amounts for both types. In the 1690s, Cheshire stood as the most common source of cheese, because sailors preferred this cheese made of full fat milk to the hard Suffolk cheese made from skimmed milk. Victuallers preferred Suffolk because of its longer shelf live and its use of skimmed milk decreased its cost.[32] The Navy obtained much of their butter from Suffolk and the eastern counties of England, though Ireland, and its propensity for raising dairy cows, also stood as a significant source for butter.[33] While cattle went to slaughter in the fall and winter, dairy cows produced most of their milk for producing butter and cheese in the spring and summer when they produced milk for their new calves.[34] While these dairy products stood as common staples to a mariner’s diet in the Navy, especially for non-meat days of the week, it too suffered from sitting for long periods, especially if ships received provisions outside of the regular production season for butter and cheese.

For British sailors in northern European waters, beer was the standard drink at sea. The regulations for rations allowed each sailor one gallon of beer per day. In twenty-first-century western society, consuming a gallon of beer may sound like a large amount of alcohol for a working person to consume every day. One consideration is that the beer issued at sea was a small beer of between one and three percent alcohol. Today, many of the mainstream American, British, and European drinks, including bitter beer, lagers, Heinekens, Budweiser, or Guinness, all have between two and three times the amount of alcohol in this maritime small beer.[35] Another consideration is if mariners drank all the beer issued to them. When César De Saussure, a foreign observer onboard a Navy ship in the 1720s, commented on navy rations, he stated that each sailors received, “as much [biscuits and beer] as, or more than, can be eaten or drunk in a day.”[36] This suggests that sailors may have not drank the whole gallon they received each day because they could not drink it all or wanted to avoid being drunk on duty.

Regardless of how much they drank, according to a writer who took on the pseudonym of a sea cook named Barnaby Slush, beer was, “the very Cement that keeps a Mariners Body and Soul together,” and that sailors set, “as high a Regard on a single Quart of Ship Beer, as his whole Days Allowance in Provisions.”[37] With beer holding such a high value in the daily life of the sailor, the Navy regulated the quality of their beer. After obtaining hops and malt, mostly from Kent and sometimes Hampshire, the Navy set the amount of hops and malt used based on the type of barrel or intended service. Ironbound barrels of beer meant for sea service specified twenty quarters of malt, eighteen quarters for wood-bound barrels, and beer issued to ships in harbor required enough malt and hops, “to be good, sound, wholesome, and of sufficient strength.”[38] When brewers of the beer did not use new casks, sold beer intended for the Navy to merchant vessels, or used ingredients unfit for the production of beer; the Navy investigated and prosecuted the brewers.[39] Since the Navy issued enough beer that some sailors might not be able to drink it all, and that they made many efforts to maintain the quality of their beer, Barnaby Slush’s claim that mariners saw beer as the most important part of their rations appears plausible.

Sailors did not always drink beer while at sea in northern European waters; they occasionally drank water. While sailing in northern seas somewhat near home, sailors consumed small amounts of water since the beer ration was already a gallon a day. The Navy required only four hogsheads of water per hundred men a month, or two and a half gallons per man per month. This changed when going on longer voyages. When a ship headed on a foreign voyage to the south of 39º north parallel, captains could, “be allowed such farther Quantity of Water Cask as the Ship can conveniently stow, or shall be thought necessary.”[40] For the amounts of water a ship might carry outside of northern seas, the Navy appeared to make one gallon of combined water and alcohol their goal. If a ship took on wine instead of beer, the Navy required mixing the two-pint ration of wine with six pints of water, which would, “preserve the Water from stinking.”[41] In ships heading well beyond the 39º north parallel to such places as the Caribbean or the East Indies, each hundred men received about forty hogsheads of water a month, or near a gallon of water a day per man. In the Caribbean, this measure balanced well with the half pint of brandy or rum they received for their daily alcohol ration.[42] While sailors did not only drink alcohol on a daily basis, they preferred not to drink only water. Barnaby Slush recommended, “the Ships Company shou’d never be reduced to Water-Drinking, so long as any other Liquor was to be had for Credit or Money.”[43] Be it beer or brandy with water, the sailor usually tried to drink at least a gallon of some kind of drink each day.

While many sailors ate and drank the above rations of ships biscuits, beef, pork, fish (or oatmeal), peas, butter, cheese, and beer when in waters near Great Britain, the Navy did allow substitutions. Two particular substitutions referenced several times in period sources include replacing fish with oatmeal and substituting meat with flour combined with either raisins, currants, or suet. As mentioned before, trading oatmeal for fish came from the issues of preserving salted fish and reducing the amount of salted foods in the diet of sailors. Health also played into the issuing of flour and other ingredients instead of meat. In 1731, the Navy’s Regulations and Instructions made an official policy of issuing canvas to produce pudding bags so cooks could boil puddings of flour and suet instead of issuing beef one day a week, noting such a ration change was, “for the better Preservation of the Health of the Seamen.”[44] Both William Cockburn in the 1690s and César De Saussure in the 1720s mention the issuing pudding while on Navy ships in northern waters.[45]

Many of the optional rations presented in the Navy’s period regulations allowed ships to obtain food that would be more available in different regions of the world than the Navy’s normal rations. When sailing in the Mediterranean or from a place that received food imports from South Carolina, ships might obtain rice instead of fish or oatmeal. For replacing rations of beef or pork, Navy pursers could purchase mutton or flour. When butter or cheese were not available, sailors might receive olive oil instead. Finally, when sailing in seas beyond those of northern Europe, the Navy issued what alcohol they could obtain since beer did not keep well in warmer climates. Two pints of wine, mixed with six pints of water, substituted for the beer ration, especially on Mediterranean voyages. The Mediterranean featured many suppliers of rougher red or white wines, including Spain, France, Portugal, Sicily, and Italy. Sailors might also drink Madeira wine in the Mediterranean or West Indies, Madeira being an inexpensive alcohol still consumed by the lower class. Madeira preserved better in hot weather better than any other wine available. It had a higher alcohol content than most other wines, featuring twenty-two percent alcohol compared to between thirteen to twenty percent seen in other wines.[46]

Mariners could expect to receive a half pint of brandy or rum a day when stationed in the West Indies or a half pint of arrack in the East Indies. The late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries saw the relationship between sailors and rum mature into the more familiar association seen in the later eighteenth century, though the dominance of rum at sea appeared to come during or after the 1730s based on the number of references to brandy compared to rum prior to the mid eighteenth century. Some administrators and doctors felt that rum and strong drink posed a health risk to sailors in warm climates. Government agents in Jamaica communicating with the Board of Trade begged the Navy’s pursers be, “restrained from supplying the seamen with rum and strong waters.”[47] This, along with the issue of Navy vessels receiving most of their provisions from supply ships sent from Britain, contributed to the delayed acceptance of rum by the Navy, though economic factors probably helped rum overcome brandy. The Caribbean and the North American colonies distilled rum in the hundreds of thousands of gallons annually by the last years of the seventeenth century. Barbados alone exported 600,000 gallons of rum a year by 1700. Rum preserved well in many different environments, which made it even more appealing to pursers looking to maintain their supply of alcohol as they travelled across various seas. While British sailors of this period frequently drank brandy, the wars between Britain, France, and Spain interrupted the supply of brandy to Britain and encouraged its substitution with rum, a product made in Britain’s own colonies.[48]

Determining the exact proof of period rum is difficult. Early distillers of rum in the Caribbean, particularly from Barbados, double distilled their rum. This rum did contain enough alcohol in it that it passed the fire test, which involved steeping gunpowder into rum and attempting to set the gunpowder on fire. Barbados law required their rum to pass this test starting in 1670. The fire and gunpowder test did not guarantee an exact or standardized measure of the alcohol content, but it did mean the rum contained at least 50% alcohol. Sometime in the 1740s, rum mixed with water obtained the name of grog from Admiral Edward Vernon when he was in the West Indies in 1740, who had the nickname “Old Grog” since he wore a grosgrain cloak. Documentation for the regular mixing of limes or lemons into rum and water mixtures at sea occurred after the early eighteenth century. While the change took place over a few decades, by the end of the early eighteenth century, rum surpassed brandy in use at sea.[49]

While not allotted a place in the official regulations, some captains and pursers in the Navy did make some efforts to provide vegetables to sailors beyond their rations of peas. Documentation for the distribution of such vegetables is difficult to find, but not impossible. One explanation for this dearth of information may be same the reason Carla Rahn Phillips found difficulties documenting vegetables for the Spanish sea service in the seventeenth century. She proposed that vegetables not being an official ration and their cost being small compared to official provisions contributed to their lack of period sources.[50] While British Navy victuallers did not receive official orders for them, some captains and pursers had concerns for the health and morale of their crews and tried to obtain vegetables for their sailors whenever possible. One of Samuel Pepys’s contemporaries, Captain John Narbrough, held a reputation for being scrupulous with his ship’s rations and suppling his men with cabbages, carrots, and turnips.[51] In the Navy’s regulations dating to 1757, one new regulation mentions the tradition of pursers providing vegetables to sailors. The passage says, “some of the eldest Pursers of the Royal Navy,” had, “their constant Practice, as often as their respective Ships were victualled with Fresh Meat, to boil such a Quantity of Greens and Roots with it, as to give sufficient Satisfaction to the Men ; and that, to give them no Room to murmur on Account of the Saving of Pease.”[52] The type of vegetables acquired for crews depended on the time of year and the place from which a ship obtained its victuals. Vegetables purchased in northern ports included cabbage, onions, turnips, and carrots. Potatoes rarely appeared in sea rations in northern waters during the eighteenth century since they sprouted in the warm ship’s hold, might turn green and poisonous if exposed to light, and were not widely accepted yet as an appropriate plant to eat, at least by the English. While many people held negative views of potatoes in England, some saw their potential since, “being now very plentiful and cheap, they may become good Food for the Poor People.”[53] While it is hard to document, it is possible to show that sailors in the Navy did occasionally receive cabbage, onions, and other legumes and vegetables in addition to his beef, ship’s biscuits, and peas.

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