"THE BOSUN'S CHRONICLE" --- emailed to Shipmates around the world each month --- VOL. 3, ISSUE 3 , March 2003 Avast there - and welcome aboard from the Bosun of the Thomas Kydd Shipmates' Network! 1) NEWS AND VIEWS 2) ASK JULIAN 3) RECOMMENDED READING 4) SALTY SAYINGS 5) WHOS WHO 6) FEATURE 7) CONTESTS ===================== 1) NEWS AND VIEWS --- Publishing happenings, Shipmates Ahoy + PUBLISHING HAPPENINGS Publication dates SEAFLOWER is published in hardcover in the UK on April 28. ISBN: 0 340 79477 1. An abridged audiobook will also be available, ISBN: 1 840 32421 X UK author appearances Julian has been invited to talk at the Essex Book Festival on March 25. Hes also giving a Reading/Book Signing at Waterstones in Plymouth April 29. Full details of all events are posted on the website. + SHIPMATES AHOY! Adventures at sea are definitely not the sole preserve of male Shipmates. Stephanie Dobbin of Queensland, Australia, has had a fascinating life in the fishing industry. At age 18 she began crewing in a trawler out of Townsville, working the Gulf of Carpentaria area for mackerel, barramundi and prawns. We all shared a goal and that was to make money. Life was to work hard, party hard and to enjoy the romance of our lives. Her first boat was the Gold Sovereign, in which she sailed for three years. During her years at sea Stephanie experienced many violent tropical storms. Once, she fell off the stern during her watch. For some reason, however, she knew she wasnt going to die but she also realised it would be at least two hours before she would be missed. She could see the boat lights ahead, but was helpless to do anything but trust in her mates. Eventually, she was rescued after being in the water for eight hours, and with hypothermia setting in badly. Another time, whilst travelling up river to escape a storm, the boat was snagged by a World War II bomber. Stephanie has experienced skippers shooting at each other, large tiger sharks ramming the boat, sea snakes attacking crew sorting the catch and, tragically, people drowning. But despite all this, for Stephanie the ocean is romance; it can take you anywhere in the world, she says. She still has a strong sense of wanting just one more trip. Now involved in conservation issues, Stephanie recalls with some embarrassment that the crews used to take coconut trees with them on long trips and plant them when they stopped over on islands in case they were ever shipwrecked However she now has learned that they were feral plants and could have upset the native ecology. With KYDD, Stephanie says she loved the book so much because she became Tom Kydd. She could smell, feel and remember similar fears and experiences and was so absorbed in the story that she did not want to return to reality. Wed love to hear other Shipmates tales. ==================== 2) ASK JULIAN --- A Forum for Shipmates questions Les Mader writes: I am fairly clear about the rank structure of the officers in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars period. But what about the actual ranks and duties of the warrant officers and petty officers? Julian replies: A seamans rating was awarded by the captain of the ship as a local title; they could be rated up or disrated by that captain. In terms of structure of the lower deck, the landmen were at the very bottom of the rung, basically unskilled labour. Some of them did go on to become real sailors, but the majority stayed where they were. Ships boys, who joined at around age 10, were powder monkeys mainly. Often they grew into skilled seamen and stayed at sea all their life. Ordinary seamen had elementary sea skills but always worked under supervision. Able seamen were fully skilled sailors they had all the core skills, including the ability to hand, reef and steer. The central heart of the Navy, able seamen could be assigned tasks, and then just got on with it. From the able seamen, those particularly competent were rated to petty officer, and positions of authority, such as captains of the tops, in charge of men in the rigging; and quartermasters mate, understudy to the seaman in charge of the helm. The next category up on the lower deck was warrant officer, really the professional heads of department such as master, boatswain and gunner. This was usually the highest a foremast hand could aspire to. A petty officer, or a midshipman, could be promoted to masters mate, with such duties as assisting the master in navigation or leading a landing party. The idlers were the technical rates, so called because they did not have to stand watch and could sleep in! These were the carpenters mates, surgeons mate and others. Finally, the cook. He held a warrant like a warrant officer but was always a seaman who had been crippled in action. His culinary skills were not necessary carefully examined! Theres a signed set of the Kydd series postcards KYDD, ARTEMIS and SEAFLOWER for every published question. Email your questions to . Please write ASK JULIAN in the subject line. ==================== 3) RECOMMENDED READING Books, magazines and journals of the sea Nelsons Ships Written by Peter Goodwin, Keeper and Curator of HMS Victory, this is a superb history of all the vessels in which Nelson served from 1771 to 1805, including Agamemnon, Vanguard, Elephant and Victory. Referring to the actual ships logs, Goodwin also gives a fascinating insight into the reality of life at sea in the Georgian navy. The book includes artwork by Geoff Hunt RSMA and Derek Gardner RSMA and plans and draughts specially drawn by the author. Published by Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0 85177 742 2 ==================== 4) SALTY SAYINGS --- What todays English owes to Jack Tar Loose cannon Today, if someone is described as a loose cannon, he is unpredictable, and likely to cause trouble or embarrassment. The origins of this phrase are definitely salty. Cannon were secured with breaching, some of the strongest ropes found in a ship. They were mounted on wheels so that they could be quickly moved in and out of gunports but this meant that if they got loose they could career all over the decks, doing great damage to the ship and injuring men. In fact, in a rolling sea, a cannon (which weighed up to 3 tons) could get up enough momentum to even smash through the side of the ship. ==================== 5) WHOS WHO --- Bio details of the characters in the series Kydds mother Fanny Kydd, as the daughter of a Guildford miller, did well to marry Walter Kydd, the eldest son of the owner of a small wigmaking shop, which they duly inherited. Kydds mother is diminutive, but sharptongued, and being an ardent admirer of Wesley, she often felt called upon to reprove her strongwilled son Thomas. He and Cecilia, however, owe their spirited dispositions to her own innate sense of fun. Since moving from the tiny shop in High Street to the Kydd school, with its more spacious house, she gets much satisfaction from her herb garden. And now more socially acceptable, Fanny sadly bores her new friends with eccentric accounts of her sons exciting adventures on the rolling deep. ==================== 6) FEATURE The Stockwins Caribbean odyssey Part One On a cold, grey January morning in 2001 Julian and Kathy set off from London for the much warmer climes of the Caribbean on location research for SEAFLOWER. The Bosun asked Julian about the trip. +Bosun. Why was it important for you to visit the Caribbean before writing SEAFLOWER? +Julian. I can only speak for myself as a writer, but I feel it is necessary to visit the places I write about, and although I have seen many places around the world, Id never been to the Caribbean. I need to really get a visceral feel of a place and how it would have looked two hundred years ago. There are also the small things the colours, smells, sounds which you just cant get from travel books. +Bosun. How much of the plot had you planned before your trip? +Julian. I have the plots of all the books in the series thought through in a broad sense. As part of the pretrip planning, we finetune the plot to an outline of several pages. Often, however, as a result of seeing or discovering something on the trip, changes are made to the plot. +Bosun. Which countries did you visit there? +Julian. We visited four countries Jamaica, Antigua, Guadeloupe and Barbados to get a good feel of the diverse lands and cultures of the West Indies. In Kydds time, the British Navys presence was broadly divided into the Leeward Squadron (whose main role was protecting the sugar islands against the French) and the Jamaica Squadron (who concentrated on antipiracy and countering the Spanish). The Leeward Island Squadron used the dockyard facilities at Antigua and St. Johns, to the north of the island, as an administrative base. Watering was mainly done in Barbados. We landed in Jamaica and based ourselves at Strawberry Hill in the Blue Mountains, making the 15mile trip down to various research facilities in Kingston each day (on a very precipitous, narrow road). Henry Morgans Port Royal (reputedly once the wickedest city on earth) slid into the sea a century before Kydd arrived, but the bones of the dockyard still exist near Kingston. One of the interesting sidetrips I did was to the mountain hideaway of Ian Fleming, where he wrote Dr. No. +Bosun. How did you actually set about your research? +Julian. Many months before we leave on these trips Kathy and I work out, in a general sense, what material we need, what things we need to see, who we need to contact. Then she sets about lining up appointments, checking museum opening times, hiring translators if necessary. Once we arrive in a location, the first stop is always the museums and libraries, plus historical studies departments of the university, and any other local experts we have identified. We also spend some time getting a good feel of the place, especially in terms of local food, customs etc. Quite often, one research lead will point us in the direction of another. As well as being planned, you have to be quite flexible. We tracked down one eminent academic in the middle of an eighteenth century archaeology dig! It is from people such as these that you get the real insights and local colour that you just cant get any other way. Next month: Part Two of the Stockwins Caribbean Odyssey. Plus Kathy talks about some of the Caribbean food (with perhaps a recipe or two) that will feature in SEAFLOWER. ==================== 7) CONTESTS Congratulations to David Beech of Powys in Wales, who was the first correct answer out of the hat and winner of the limited edition print Coming Aboard HMS Duke William. The answer to the contest question, which asked for the location of the frigate Artemis in the second print in the series was the Great Southern Ocean. In view of the tremendous response to the SEAFLOWER postcard offer Julian has kindly agreed to extend this theres a signed postcard to a further 10 Shipmates who are the first to email the Bosun this month. Please put POSTCARD in the subject line and include your full postal address. Dont forget: theres a prize draw on the website. Six lucky winners will each receive a signed copy of the First Edition of SEAFLOWER when it is published next month. Dont forget to put PRIZE DRAW in the subject line. ================== ** The 2003 Square Sailing Programme is now available. Voyages on squarerigged sailing ships, mainly around the Cornish Coasts and to some UK ports, are May through September. A superb opportunity to climb the mast, swab the decks and get a feel for life under sail! Julian and Kathy enjoyed a trip crossing the Irish Sea in one of their vessels, The Earl of Pembroke. (See the September 2001 issue of this newsletter.) Details or look at the website . Yours aye, THE BOSUN ++ Back issues of the newsletter are downloadable from the website++