Ships Routine Battle Stations Hammocks Drink Superstition Food Prize Money

SHIP'S ROUTINE

n Kydd’s time the ship’s day began at noon, when the ship’s position was fixed by a solar sighting. The day was divided into seven watches (one of the afternoon watches was divided into two in order for men to be able to be rotated in their duties).

Watches were measured by a four-hour sand glass kept at the door of the captain’s cabin, and then into “glasses”, measured by a half-hour sand glass. Each time it emptied the midshipman of the watch turned it and the sentry rang the bell, once for the first half hour, twice for the second and so on.

Between four bells and six bells in the morning watch (6am and 8am) the watch below were woken to wash and scrub the decks. At eight bells hands were piped to breakfast; most captains allowed one glass (half an hour) for breakfast. At noon the issue of grog was to the tune of “Nancy Dawson” on the fife and drum and the pipe of “up spirits” from the bosun's mate.

Ship routines followed both Navy tradition and the custom of the individual ships. Some had regular days for training men in seamanship or for washing and cleaning. Usually Thursday was “make and mend” in the afternoon the men were allowed to repair and adorn their clothes. Most seamen took great pride in their appearance.

The only official requirement was for church to be rigged on Sunday. After the captain's inspection, a church pennant was hoisted at the peak and the service conducted. Often the captain gave the men Sunday afternoon to themselves, “wind, weather and the malice of the enemy permitting.”

BATTLE STATIONS

he raison d’etre of the man-o’-war was to protect the Empire and British interests by engaging the enemy, either singly or in line of battle in Fleet action.

Various preparations were made an hour or so before battle - the galley fire was put out and if there was time the men would be served a meal; letters home were written and wills exchanged; clean clothes put on to try to avoid infected wounds.

When the Captain ordered “clear for action” everything bar the guns were cleared away from the gundecks. Above decks, boats, which could shower deadly wood splinters if hit were either secured or towed astern; officers' cabins were cleared and their belongings stowed in the hold. The rigging was secured, splinter nets were laid out. Decks were sanded and wetted. Scuttlebutts of water were placed at various points where the seamen could quench their thirst in battle and arms chests were deployed midships for easy access by boarders to their weapons.

Below, the surgeon and his mates prepared for their grisly tasks in the cockpit, the midshipmans berth. Instruments were sharpened, tubs placed nearby to collect the “wings ’n limbs” following amputations.

DRINK

ince the early days of sailing ships, the most readily available liquids to take on voyages were water and beer, both of which could only be stored for a short time before they became unpalatable. The beer issue was a gallon a day per man.

Vice Admiral William Penn’s fleet conquered Jamaica in 1655 and it was here that rum was first issued on board ships of the Royal Navy. The spirit was also known as ‘rumbustion’.

Rum has the advantage of keeping well, even improving with age. When abroad, captains of ships were allowed to replace beer with fortified wine, sometimes brandy, but neither was available in the West Indies. Rum, however, was, and became a popular alternative to beer for ships serving in this part of the world, even though the Victualling Board back in England had not officially sanctioned its use.

From 1655 until well into the eighteenth century, the issue of rum very much depended on individual captains. In 1731 it was officially decreed that if beer was not available then each man was entitled to a pint of wine or half a pint of rum or other spirits.

In 1740 Admiral Vernon (nicknamed ‘Old Grogham’ because of the boatcloak he wore made of that material), decreed that the rum issue would be diluted 1:4 and thereafter the drink was called grog. By 1793 the dilution was usually 1:3.

From Vernon’s time to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, two issues of grog per day remained the custom whenever beer was unavailable. But the use of rum gradually became more widespread as did the issuing ritual. In Kydd's day, the ship’s fiddler played ‘Nancy Dawson’, the signal for cooks of messes to repair to the rum tub to draw rations for their messmates. This was always done in the open air due to the combustible nature of rum!

Rum acquired the nickname ‘Nelson's Blood’ after 1805 when legend has it that Nelson's body was preserved in a keg of rum. Historians now think this highly unlikely, it was probably brandy.

The American Navy ended the rum ration on September 1, 1862 but the practice continued in the British Navy for over a century. On Friday July 31, 1970, rum was issued for the last time in the British Navy. The day was to become known as Black Tot Day.

FOOD PREPARATION

he galley provided hot food for the entire ship, up to 950 men and officers. Due to the risk of conflagration, however, the galley fire was put out in rough weather or during action. This meant it could be some time before another hot meal was available.

The galley was generally found near the foremast on the gun deck. It was a very small area, considering the number catered for.

The crew ate in groups of 8-12 called messes. Each man would take his turn as mess cook and collect the day's rations from the hold to prepare for cooking for the noon meal. The main diet of seamen was salted beef and pork, along with biscuit, peas, oatmeal, sugar, butter and cheese. For example, each man on Thursdays was entitled to a pound of bread, half a pound of dried peas, a gallon of beer (or substitute), and one pound of salt pork. The prepared food was taken to the galley to be cooked (each mess marked their food with a tag). The mess cook was also responsible for washing up the utensils and generally cleaning the eating area after the meal. He was entitled to an extra issue of rum for his trouble.

In the galley, the seamen's food would be boiled in two large kettles; there were facilities for roasting and other methods of preparation for the captain and officers.

The mess cook also carved and served the meal. To ensure fairness, one of the other men was blindfolded, a portion of the meat was carved, the blindfolded man called out a name and the portion went to that man and so on, until it was served. However this was not always followed, younger mess members were sometimes bullied and deprived of the best victuals by older men. (This method of sharing rations fairly is part of survival training to this day.)

On the days when raisins were issued along with flour and suet, the mess cook was ordered to whistle while he prepared the “duff” (steamed pudding) so that he couldn't sneak some raisins into his mouth!

The galley was cleaned by the cook’s mate, under the supervision of the cook. Sand was used to scour the vast kettles, which were inspected each morning for cleanliness.

SUPERSTITION AT SEA

t has been said that men who follow the sea are the most superstitious on earth. The eighteenth century sailor was no exception. He believed in mermaids and mermen, sea monsters and ghosts - and Fiddler's Green, an enchanted place that was the final resting place of sailors, where waited countless willing ladies, rum casks that never emptied and always a fair wind and flying fish weather. In apparent contradiction, it was also said that every keening seagull carried a sailor's soul, the screech of the bird was the mournful cry of the dead man.

The origin of these superstitious beliefs are lost in time but there are probably two broad causes - the tendency of man to look to the supernatural for causes of strange phenomenon - and the love of travellers to exaggerate mysterious occurrences.

Weather lore abounded at sea. Seamen were particularly anxious about squalls, for example. It would certainly bring bad luck not to follow the advice of the old ditty:

This has actually been proved to be based on sound meteorological principles. There were many other superstitions about weather. Whistling at sea was banned; it would tempt fate. This was especially to be avoided when the weather was threatening to get dirty.

Many superstitions from Kydd’s time remain to this day. The injunction never to sail on a Friday is known to sailors in today's fleet. Mysterious faults in the engine room have been known to develop and not be rectified until the next day...

HAMMOCKS

hen Columbus landed in the Bahamas in 1492 he found that the natives used nets of cotton stretched between two posts as beds. They called them “hamacs”. This was changed to “hamaca” by the Spanish. Hammocks in the British Navy stem from the age of Drake, when they were widely adopted. Hammocks were on issue in the service until quite recently, and Julian certainly spent much of his sea-time in a hammock. He says that a hammock stays still and the ship rolls around it!

Hammocks were slung fore and aft, with the Marines aft between the men and the officers and petty officers at the side. Each hammock was slung at a numbered peg so that the sleeper was always in the same place near his station in an emergency. The official allocation of hammock space was 14 inches per man or 28 inches per man for a petty officer but with the two-watch system half the crew was on deck at once so each man had twice that. It is worth noting that this is actually more room than in today's double bed!

By the time Kydd joined the Navy each man had two hammocks, one in use and one to be cleaned and drawn on Saturdays. They were made of canvas six feet by three feet and in each there was a mattress (made of flock or chopped-up rags), a blanket and a coverlet. Hammocks belonged to the Navy Board and the men either brought bedding with them or bought it from the purser.

Each morning hammocks were taken down and lashed with seven half hitches representing the seven seas. They were put in special netting at the side of the ship to act as protection from musket balls and splinters when under enemy fire. Hammocks could serve as life preservers; thrown to a man overboard they would keep him afloat for several hours. If a seaman died at sea he was sewn into his hammock with two roundshot at his feet - and the last stitch through his nose. (Officers slept in cots slung from the beams of their cabins.)

PRIZE MONEY

t was the grand Lottery of its time; and just as today, the odds of great wealth were very slim, but fortunes could be - and were - created on the strength of prize money.

The origins of prize money lay in the ‘Cruisers and Convoys’ Act of 1708 which gave practically all the money gained from the seizure of enemy vessels to the captors - “for the better and more effectual encouragement of the Sea Service”.

In some ways prize money was unfair - all ships within sight when the capture took place were entitled to equal shares. And the Admiral, under whose orders the ship sailed, was entitled to a share, even if he was nowhere in the vicinity.

In Kydd's day the share-out of the prize money was:
One eighth to each of these groups - Flag Officer; the Captains of Marines, Lieutenants, Masters, Surgeons; Lieutenants of Marines, Secretary to Flag Officer, Principal Warrant Officers, Chaplains; Midshipmen, Inferior Warrant Officers, Principal Warrant Officer's Mates, Marines Sergeants. Two eighths were shared to each of these groups - Captain/s; the rest. “The rest” included all the seamen on the fo'c'sle, many hundreds of men.

Prize money could be very lucrative. The record was the capture of the treasure-carrying Spanish frigate Hermione in 1762. When the pay of a seaman was less than a shilling a day, the prize money in this instance to each seaman of £485 (nearly 35 years' salary for a few hours work in the afternoon!) could set them up for life - if they didn't spend the proceeds on too many “roaratorious” times ashore. This pales into insignificance, however, at what the two captains were awarded - £65,000 each. And Sir Hyde Parker was reported to have realised £200,000 when he was in command in the West Indies.

It was usually only frigates that took prizes. Ships-of-the-line were too ponderous to be able to capture the smaller ships that carried treasure. However ‘gun money’ and ‘head money’ was paid on larger captures, which went some way to compensate.

Sadly, Nelson did not fare well with prize money. This was not so much bad luck with his Captains as the irony that, largely due to his genius, Britain achieved mastery of the sea - and few enemy ships dared to sail.

HARD TACK

he carbohydrate ration of the sailor’s diet largely took the form of hard tack (ship’s biscuit). Fresh bread was usually available close to shore; it was known as “soft tommy”. Hard tack was generally known as “bread” at sea.

In English ships, hard biscuit had been part of a sailor’s diet for several centuries prior to Kydd’s time. Large quantities were stored at Deptford as early as 1513. Ship’s biscuit (bis coctus = twice baked) actually dates back to the Greeks, and later the Romans. It has always been made the same way by baking the dough twice, or even three or four times for long voyages. Sometimes after the initial baking the biscuit was pounded up, re-mixed and re-shaped before being baked again.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century naval ships of the line stored the biscuit in special bread rooms, aft. The steward’s assistant’s duty was to collect the daily ration from there. Because of the flour dust he was called “Jack in the Dust” and to this day steward's assistants in the Royal Navy are often nicknamed “Jack Dusty”.

Admiral Muir suggested the polite way of dealing with the weevils often found in the the biscuits was to split the biscuits open with a stout knife and scrape the insects off the cut surfaces. The more usual way to deal with them was to briskly tap them on the table so that the insects came out of their own accord. Sailors soon learned the best way to crunch the biscuits was to break them open in the crook of your elbow. However if they were poorly baked the outside would crumble away but leave a hard, rigid centre. These were called “reef nuts” and did not go to waste. Hungry midshipmen collected them and nibbled on them during the day – hence their nickname of “reefer”.

The daily ration of “bread” per man at sea was one pound.