History: The Home Remedy

While sawing off bones and applying blisters may have been more dramatic, the surgeon at sea was usually more occupied with the dispensing of pills and syrups to keep his mates going. Often, perhaps more often than we might suppose, these little remedies came from home rather than the wards of a training hospital. The truth is, most naval surgeons had no formal training and most pirate surgeons were simply kidnapped away from various navies.

The cures were generally for such recognizable maladies as colds, sore throats, indigestion, nausea and "the itch" (more on that in a minute.) Some of these are documented, to one degree or another, in the large seafaring memoirs of doctors like Alexander Exquemelin but most are more readily found in writings more close to shore. Mrs. Child in her The Family Nurse of 1837, for instance, gives us some insight into the time-tested cures that were certainly in use for centuries when she wrote them down.

Just as a few examples, colds could be treated by soaking the feet in warm water, binding them up with a warm onion each and then putting the patient to bed with a half pint of strong penny royal or calamint tea. Mrs. Child assures the reader that this is "almost sure to cure a cold."

Likewise, a small lump of saltpeter held in the mouth until it dissolves will help alleviate a sore throat. Wrapping the neck in warm flannels will hurry the process along. Given that saltpeter can be poisonous, one imagines that dosing would need to be carefully monitored.

A tablespoonful of "the brine in which rennet is preserved is extremely salutary in cases of indigestion and an acid stomach." This ancestor of Alka-Seltzer, Mrs. Child says, "is less disagreeable" if taken with a little water, "but it is better to take it clear."

"Common ashes," as from a fire, stirred into twice as much boiling water is given a teaspoon at a time "at intervals" to help control nausea and vomiting. Mrs. Child notes that "some prefer to stir it in cider" and given that cider was most often an alcoholic beverage at the time the results must have varied to say the least.

"The odor of burning feathers, horn or leather, is good for hysteric fainting fits," and "O'Meara, surgeon to Napoleon, declares that a teaspoon of salt, moistened and put upon the tongue of a patient during an epileptic fit, affords immediate relief."

Finally, both Mrs. Child and Exquemelin, in his The Buccaneers of America, agree on the cure for what they refer to as "the itch." This, of course, would have been the infestation of various crawling, biting parasites that have the habit of crawling around on the human body. Particularly in warmer climates the problem could become incapacitating fairly quickly. The recommended remedy is as follows:

... to stand half an hour, or more, in a tight barrel, cover to the throat with old blankets or carpets; two or three lighted brimstone matches should be placed inside the barrel, by means of a small hole near the bottom, and every crevice stopped, that no smoke may escape. It is well to take moderate doses of sulphur, night and morning, for some days after.

Exquemelin notes that this cure was risky at best at sea and generally reserved for times ashore, such as when careening or plundering.

Header: The Astrolabe and Zelee Aground in the Torres Strait by Louis le Breton c 1810s via Wikimedia

Tools of the Trade: Navigation Essentials

If there is doubt as to advisability of including some item of equipment, the safer decision is to include it. It is better to have unused equipment than to risk danger of becoming lost because of lack of needed equipment. ~ from the American Practical Navigator by Nathaniel Bowditch

What to bring, then? A ship can be a small thing with little room for human bodies much less spare equipment. Of course, as the advice above notes, it is better to have a thing sitting around than to not have that same thing when your life depends on it. According to Peter H. Spectre, Bowditch recommended this bare minimum in the early 19th century:

A watch with a second hand for timing courses
Gimbaled lamp to light your charts
Barometer for forecasting weather
Parallel rulers for making courses
Dividers for stepping off distances
Pencils, paper, etc.

All of these things would most often have been found at the so called "navigation station" aboard ship. Generally, but not always, this would have been located in the captain's cabin. Today, much of the busy work has been eliminated by GPS and computers. All the same, better have the above just in case. Technology is a wonderful thing... until it ceases to function, that is.

Header: View of Ships Near Venice by Oliver D. Grover via American Gallery

Tools of the Trade: Stanger's Fever

In a rush this morning (not a Benjamin Rush, thankfully...) so here's one from the archives circa August 2011:

The yellow jack was indeed a killer: it was difficult to fix upon any satisfactory figure, though he had heard well-authenticated accounts of a mortality amounting to eighty in a hundred. ~ from The Commodore by Patrick O'Brian.

This is just a bit of the musings that go through Doctor Stephen Maturin's mind upon realizing that he has contracted yellow fever off the coast of West Africa. The disease, which we now know is transmitted like malaria by mosquitoes, was the scourge of tropical areas all over the world. To this day there are pockets of swampy land that still harbor the deadly aedes mosquito and travelers to certain parts of the globe are advised to get vaccinated before leaving home.

In the Great Age of Sail, it was people from out of town, so to say, that tended to contract yellow fever. Locals often suffered a milder form of the disease, which did not reach the so called "toxic state" in childhood, thus building up a relative immunity. This meant that sailors from Northern shores would find themselves sick after spending time in places like the Gulf of Mexico, the West Indies, the Indian Ocean or, as O'Brian notes, the African Coast. Maturin's figures are generally accurate; mortality among sufferers was about 80% over all.

Symptoms follow a fairly recognizable path, with the patient experiencing a fever as high as 103 degrees and all the accompanying miseries: head and body aches, chills and loss of appetite. The toxic phase was experienced when internal organs began to shut down. Stomach bleeding let to the tell-tale "black vomit" along with bleeding from the nose, mouth and sometimes even the eyes. The skin and eyes took on a yellow hue as the liver and kidneys ceased to function. General lividity of the skin ensued and the patient suffered temperatures as high as 106. In these cases, death was a virtual certainty.

In the 17th and most of the 18th century the disease was treated like any other fever. A sufferer was put to bed, or in the case of a sick berth aboard ship strapped into a hammock, and given clean bedclothes whenever possible. Bathing with a cloth dipped in cool water and vinegar was often recommended with the head and hair being included in the process. Sometimes the patient was wrapped in woolen blankets and put near a fire to help "sweat out" the fever. Quiet and calm around the sick person was always thought best. Unfortunately, so was bleeding.

In the late 18th century, the rise of the medical profession pushed aside the homey, comforting remedies of mothers and wives and began aggressive treatment for yellow fever. One of the most famous proponents of hitting the fever hard was Dr. Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence. Rush was a physician in Philadelphia when the famous epidemic of the summer and fall of 1793 hit the city. While other doctors were prescribing barley water and Peruvian bark (quinine), along with the cooling baths mentioned above, Rush was vigorously removing liters of blood. He also prescribed purges to induce vomiting and diarrhea as soon as the fever came on.

Though Rush's proactive treatment may have appealed to the idea of "doing something" that the sick and their loved ones frequently harbor, it was in fact something akin to a death sentence to his patients. The aggressive bleeding combined with regular purging took out the much needed fluids that would have helped the patient battle the disease. While Rush blamed any patient's death on his not being called soon enough, other physicians in Philadelphia grumbled that Rush was as fatal as the disease.

Well into the 19th century, people from cooler climates blamed yellow fever on the hot, humid "miasmas" common to more southern latitudes. The yellow jack, as it was frequently called in the American South and the Caribbean, became known as the Stranger's Fever in Britain and the northern U.S. While the British never seem to have developed a specific prejudice in this regard, people in the United States definitely did. By the 1820s the Stranger's Fever was considered to be just another example of how filthy and backward the South really was. Forgetting the horrors suffered in Philadelphia, the northern states imagined themselves capable of keeping their cities clean and avoiding pestilential disease.

Meanwhile, men at sea continued to experience yellow fever into the 20th century. Even after the discovery and partial eradication of the aedes mosquito which occurred in large part thanks to efforts begun during the building of the Panama Canal, some areas of the world continue to experience infection. Modern scientists worry about two possible scenarios that could bring the killer back with a vengeance: global warming and biological warfare. Perhaps it's best that none of us forget about warm bedding and barley waters quite yet. Better still: get vaccinated.

Header: Nuns nursing yellow fever patients in Philadelphia, 1793 via Dipity's timeline of the epidemic

Tools of the Trade: The Art of Swimming

We've spoken before about our sailing ancestor's love/hate relationship with swimming. Many who ventured out to sea, particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries, believed that it was simply better to drown quickly in the event of an unthinkable foundering or shipwreck. Knowing how to swim, the logic went, would only prolong the agony in the event that one's ship went down in the blue ocean, with no land in sight.

As their contact with Africa and the Americas increased, Europeans began to witness populations along these shores and particularly in the West Indies that all knew how to swim. Not knowing how to get around in the water was considered shameful among the locals and laughable in the case of the invaders. A new mindset was born and, though many career sailors, particularly in the Royal Navy, clung to the idea of avoiding the skill, knowing how to swim became somewhat of a rage.

Mechisedec Thevenot's L'Art de Nager, an illustrated book published in 1696, was on the cutting edge of this new wave. The book's entire title reads:

The Art of Swimming. Illustrated by proper figures. With advice for bathing. By Monsieur Thevenot. Done out of French. To which is prefixed a prefatory discourse concerning artificial swimming, or keeping oneself above water by several portable engines, in case of danger.

Quite the mouthful there. At any rate, as this wonderful post over at BibliOdyssey makes clear, the illustrations may be the best part of the book. But there is a good deal in the text that lends itself as well:

To mention some few advantages of Swimming. In case of Shipwreck, if one is not very far from Shore, the Art of Swimming may set one safe there, and to save from being drowned. In case of being pursu'd by an Enemy, and meeting a River in ones way, you have the advantage of escaping two sorts of Death, by gaining the Shore on the other side, and so escaping from your Enemy, and from being drowned in the attempt of doing it.

This quote, from the introduction, speaks specifically to the era in which Monsieur Thevenot wrote. So, too, does the caption from the illustration above entitled "To Tread Water":

By this way you remain upright in the water without making any motion with the hands, only you move the water round with your Legs from you, the Soals of your Feet being perpendicular to the bottom; you may make use of this if you are cast into the water bound hand and foot.

Considering that tossing captives, bound hand and foot, into the sea was a favorite piratical torture, this kind of advice could potentially be invaluable.

Click over to BibliOdyssey, which is a wonderful spot on the web for those of us obsessed with both books and history by the way, and see more of Monsieur T's fabulous tome. You won't regret it.

Header: To Tread Water from L'Art de Nager via BibliOdyssey

Tools of the Trade: The Cut of Her Jib

JIB: A large triangular sail, set on a stay, forward. I extends from the outer end of the jib-boom towards the fore topmast head; in cutters and sloops it is on the bowsprit, and extends towards the lower mast-head. The jib is a sail of great command with any side wind, in turning her head to leeward. There are other jibs, as inner jib, standing jib, flying jib, spindle jib, jib of jibs, jib-topsail &c. Jib is also used for the expression of the face, as the cut of his jib. Also, the arm of a crane. To jib, is when, before the wind, the sail takes over to the opposite quarter; dangerous in strong breezes [and known a jibbing or gybing]. Clear away the jib! The order to loose it, preparatory to its being set. Flying jib; a sail set upon the flying jib-boom. Middle or inner jib; a sail sometimes set on a stay secured to the middle of the jib-boom.

~ from The Sailor's Word Book by Admiral W.H. Smyth

Header: the modern barque Alexander von Humbolt out of Bremen with four jibs set and a fifth furled on the bowsprit; photo c 2003 via Wikipedia

Tools of the Trade: A Morning Egg

Preserving food for long sea voyages has been a conundrum for man every since we first started making, well, long sea voyages. One of the most brilliantly simple ways to preserve a very nutritious form of food was invented - or discovered, if you prefer - by French scientist Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur in the 18th century. Cleverly, Reaumur coated eggs with simple varnish and found that they were good for up to two years.

Admiral Smyth discusses the process in The Sailor's Word Book, and it would be folly for me to try to paraphrase:

Reaumur varnished them all over, and thus preserved eggs fresh for two years; then carefully removing the varnish, he found that such eggs were still capable of producing chickens. Some employ, with the same intention, lard or other fatty substances for closing the pores [on the shell], and others simply immerse the egg for an instant in boiling water, by which its albumen is in part coagulated, and the power of exhalation thereby checked. Eggs packed in lime-water suffered to drain, have after three years' absence in the West Indies been found good; this does not destroy vitality.

An egg "found good" after sitting around in the heat and humidity of the Caribbean islands is almost a magical thing. It is interesting to note that Reaumur was born in the thriving port town of La Rochelle on the Bay of Biscay. One wonders if his experiments with the preservation of eggs did not stem, at least in part, from concerns or requests by seafaring relatives. Whatever the case, sailors made Reaumur's methods their own and, particularly on smaller vessels that could not accommodate live animals, that meant a morning egg at least now and again.

Header: Egg by Edward B. Lintott via Old Paint

Tools of the Trade: Making Sails

The sailmaker's art has always been just that: an art. Passengers aboard ships in the Great Age of Sail commented again and again on the precision of sailors making sails. This all important craft required an equally precise set of tools. Generally speaking, these were:

The sailmaker's bench
A bench hook to hold the sailcloth taut while sewing seams
Needles of different sizes, and a small case - usually of leather or cloth - to hold them
Stabbers and spikes used to make holes in the canvas for fitting eyelets, cringles and so on
Knives, scissors and sharpening stones for both
A seam rubber for smoothing seams, working the rope into the surface of the sail to reduce chafing when the sail was being hoisted up or taken in
Seam gauges and a tape measure
At least two sailmaker's palms; one for seaming and the other for roping. The former being more delicate and the latter having at least two layers of leather at the thumb to guard against the sailmaker being cut by the heavy rope or twine.
Wax for lubricating the ropes. This had the added benefit of waterproofing the rope or twine as well.

Here is an early 19th century recipe for sailmaker's wax from Peter H. Spectre's A Mariner's Miscellany:

4 pounds of beeswax
5 pounds "slush" or tallow from the galley
1 pound turpentine

All these ingredients should be melted together in a double boiler, and then turned out after the congealed for use in the form of small cubes or chunks.

As Robert Whyte wrote after his experiences at sea in the mid-19th century:

I was surprised at the expedition and neatness with which [the sailors] sewed with their coarse needles and long thread.

The art is still alive and well today and will hopefully be passed on to the next generation, and the next, and the next.

Header: Toy Ships by John Thomas Peele via American Gallery

Tools of the Trade: Tips from the Galley

While a ship's galley in this day and age will have all the modern conveniences, even if they are a bit smaller than the average person is used to, challenges still arise for the cook at sea. Imagine, then, just how taxing trying to wrangle up large meals for hundreds of men in sailing ships must have been at one time. Staying organized and keeping clean were absolute priorities for Slushy in the Great Age of Sail. Knowing a few tricks of the trade couldn't hurt at all. Here are just a few of those little tricks, none of which have lost their effectiveness with time.

When boiling water, always cover the pot to avoid spillage. Ideally, a large tea kettle was used.

Keeping foods like yeast and salt dry was always a challenge in the damp of a wooden ship. Many cooks doubled up glass jars to accomplish this. The food stuff was placed in a smallish jar with a locking lid which was then placed in a larger jar or crock with a secure lid. The creep of moisture was still inevitable, but not quite as immediate.

Vermin were a constant issue aboard ship. Even the most spick and span vessel would have a certain level of infestation. Most bulk items like rice, flour and sugar were stored in barrels but old Slushy had a time tested method for keeping them relatively weevil and cockroach free: add bay leaves. The bugs don't like the odor, evidently, and the leaves won't harm the edibility of the foods even if they do make them taste slightly like pasta sauce.

Speaking of spick and span, more than one navy commander has been known to judge the orderliness of his ship's galley by the shine of her copper pots and pans. These were polished to a blinding sheen with either lemon juice or, more often on long voyages, vinegar. Those shiny pans were degreased with the help of another common item: coffee grounds.

Slushy made sure to tar or otherwise waterproof his apron to avoid being burned by sloshes and spills. Burns were unavoidable in the galley, however, and more than one sailor in the 18th and 19th centuries noted their scars as the sign of a good cook.

With space at a premium, storing large items could be tricky. Some were gotten out of the way by wrapping them in old cloth and suspending them from the bulkheads. This was particularly handy with large cuts of cured meat such as ham or bacon.

To keep pots and pans from slipping about on whatever surface might suffice as a counter, wet cloths were set down first. Most modern galleys are equipped with non-skid mats for this purpose.

And what about any glass jars and crockery that had to be packed cheek-by-jowl in available cupboard space? Wasn't breakage a constant concern? Not for the clever cook. Simply wrapping the jars in paper or, even more efficiently, slipping them into old socks or mittens before storing them actually did the trick pretty well. One has to imagine the ship's cook as a great collector of cast-off stockings - or a pilferer of those not quite ready to be given up. What a remarkable, and amusing, sub-plot that would make in a story of nautical bent...

Header: Saturday Night at Sea by George Cruikshank c 1840 via Wikimedia

Tools of the Trade: Staysails

While reading A Short History of the Sailing Ship by Romola and R.C. Anderson last night, I came across a curious few paragraphs that brought into focus something I had never thought much about before. From the book:

... we begin to find 'staysails,' which were triangular sails of much the same shape as the lateen mizzen, set on the stays of the masts and topmasts. These begin to appear in pictures after 1658, though they can be found in lists of stores a few years sooner.

Stays, of course, are the large ropes that are attached high on masts and run down to the deck. These ropes keep apposing tension on the masts so that the don't simply crack and fall over under the strain of the sails. On large ships, stays may be attached at various points and even to other masts creating the web of rigging familiar to anyone with an eye for tall ships. The engraving above, of the Sovereign of the Seas commissioned in England in 1637, shows the intricate network of stays - both fore and back - that would be common in any large ship. Note, however, that despite her near full sail posture, there is not a staysail to be seen.

The Andersons go on to speculate that the use of the staysail aboard European vessels came not only from observation of lateen sailing ships in the Mediterranean, but also from the need to place a sail where ever one could when a ship was in distress:

Probably [the practice of setting staysails] began as a 'jury rig' - that is to say, an emergency rig after damage by weather or battle. A letter of 1639 speaks of setting a mizzen on the mainstay for this purpose...

Just as any port in a storm, so any sail in a pinch. We must assume, therefor, that once sailors saw the advantage of staysails not only in speed but in maneuvering, the thing stuck. A quick perusal of these paintings by master marine artist Geoff Hunt will show that the use of staysails - particularly on jib and bowsprit - became old hat by the 18th century.

Another simple but fascinating piece of the evolution of the sailing ship.

Header: Sovereign of the Seas engraving c 1637 via Wikipedia

Tools of the Trade: Relaxing at Sea

Aside from alcohol, the habit of choice among seaman during the Great Age of Sail was tobacco. Time off, what there was of it, at sea often meant enjoying a pipe or a cigar. One can find examples of this habit all over the written record - Dampier, Exquemelin and others mention pipe smoking among the buccaneers, for instance. It also shows up in nautical fiction; both Hornblower and Aubrey were known to enjoy a cigar now and then.

According to Peter H. Spectre in his A Mariner's Miscellany the habit had an edge of the caste system to it. Simple seamen were more likely to indulge in pipe smoking - when they were allowed to smoke - while officers preferred more expensive cigars. Seamen generally mixed their own pipe tobacco, and Spectre generously offers a recipe for same:

Mix 72% Burley tobacco with 25% Virginia and 3% Latakia. He also advises:

To prevent the tobacco from burning rapidly in windy conditions at sea, the cut should be coarse - cube, or moderately thick flake.

This was a critical issue not only from the standpoint of waste but also for fear of fire. Sparks on a wooden ship covered with tar and carrying black powder were a fearsome threat. Losing one's wooden island in the middle of blue water was unthinkable, so certain areas - the galley in particular, where fire was a necessary evil - were designated for smoking.

When the sea and/or wind made smoking impossible or unusually dangerous, tobacco was often chewed. So called "plug" tobacco was mixed by the user, formed into a cake and wrapped in canvas. The user would then cut or tear a piece off for chewing. Once again, Spectre offers a recipe which actually does not sound as unappealing as one might imagine:

Tobacco leaves were soaked in honey, molasses, or other flavored syrup. A hole as drilled into a baulk of wood - hickory was preferred, but other species served in a pinch - and the sodden tobacco was forced into it (hence the word "plug"). Once the tobacco had cured, the plug was pulled from the hole and wrapped in canvas, ready for use.

Though the smoking of pipes on a fine day would have been possible while applying one's self to work like mending sails or making rope, chewing would have been more convenient. Either way it was a habit that seamen fell into easily. And one that was probably hard not to pursue by land as well.

Header: The Smoker by Adriaen van Ostade c 1640 via Wikipedia

Tools of the Trade: The Weather Gauge

The idea of today's tool will be very familiar not only to the Brethren but to readers of nautical fiction. Having the weather gauge seems an all important point in winning a sea battle. Explaining why this might be is, to my mind, more difficult than achieving it. Readers of O'Brian will recall Dr. Maturin puzzling over the finer points of this strategic maneuver on more than on occasion. The question even came up in the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and found poor Killick insisting that Jack draw his examples for the weather gauge "not on the cloth."

In plain terms, having the weather gauge simply means that a ship is to windward of her opponent.

Is the weather gauge really an advantage? According to Falconer's New Universal Dictionary of the Marine, originally published in 1815, the answer is no. The caveat being that most sailors would tell you emphatically yes. Rather than try to paraphrase the master, here are William Burney Falconer's comments on the advantages of weather gauge:


1. The weather-gage is the sooner clear of smoke; and of course that line can better observe the signals which are spread, than the ships to leeward can, which must have the continuance of both its own and of the enemy longer.
2.  If the weather-ships are more in number than the enemy's they can detach some from their squadron; which, bearing down upon the rear of the enemy, must infallibly throw them into disorder.
3. The fire-ships of the weather-line can, when they are ordered, more easily bear down upon the enemy than those of the lee can ply to windward, which can never be done against a line in action; but the weather fire-ships can bear down against all the resistance that can be made by the enemy.

Falconer tells us that the disadvantage for the weather ships is in, for all intents and purposes, running away. As he so delicately puts it, "the weather-line cannot decline the action, without the dangerous expedient of forcing through the enemy's line."

There are advantages to the lee gauge, however, as Falconer notes:

1. If one, two or more of the ships to windward should be disabled, they must inevitable drive to leeward, and become a prey to the enemy.
2. The ships of the lee-line can more readily bear away before the wind, and have their places supplied by ships from the corps-de-reserve, in case of being disabled or meeting with any disaster.
3. The line to leeward can keep their ports longer open in a strong wind with a high sea, when those to windward in all probability may be obliged to shut the ports of their lower tier of guns, to prevent the water from rushing in between decks, which may be attended with the most fatal consequences.
4. The lee-line can more easily observe the men on the decks of the ships to windward, as they heel, and when the smoke does not interrupt their sight; at which time the marines and topmen may easily take aim at and destroy them with muskets and carbins.

Of course, the lee gauge has its own disadvantages including a lack of control over the timing of the battle and the ever present danger of an enemy ship breaking away from her line and coming up on the lee gauge ship or ships from behind.

The weather gauge has gone by the board now that ships of battle are outfitted with motors instead of sails. But you'll never convince an old salt - or an old soul - that the weather gauge isn't of great advantage in battle regardless of situation.

Header: USS Essex vs. HMS Alert August 13, 1812, painting by John B. Dindale

Tools of the Trade: Preparing for Battle

...Should time allow, preparation of a ship for action should follow the usual recommendations. Send topgallant masts and yards on deck, as well as all running rigging that can be spared, studding sail booms, topgallant rigging, wet the sails, get down fore and mizzen topsail yards, house the topmasts, lash them to the lower masts. Pass a hawser round outside the rigging ready for frapping in a wreck, grapnels on each quarter to prevent any gear fouling the stern, snake the stays and backstays, toggle the braces, yards braced sharp up, anchors lashed, boom boats ready for hoisting out, bowsprit and jibboom run in, spare wheel ropes rove, relieving tackles on, preventer stays on the masts, etc.

~ from A Midshipman's Manual c 1811, author unknown

Header: Pirates Watching a Ship Burn by Norman Mills Price via American Gallery

Tools of the Trade: In A Fog

Fog can be one of the most deadly atmospheric developments that a ship can meet. This is particularly true along coastlines, which - it should come as no surprise - is where the condition tends to be found. Felix Riesenberg's late 19th century advise that speed in fog should be moderate still applies today. Even with GPS and other high-tech navigational tools, there is always the potential for things to go horribly wrong.

That is no doubt why our seafaring ancestors had fairly stringent rules for how to navigate in fog. As Peter H. Spectre notes in his A Mariner's Miscellany, one should always remember four simple things when caught in a fog on the water: keep your eyes open, keep your ears open, keep your dead-reckoning plot and keep your head.

The conditions that lead to fog are almost standard. Regardless of where one is on the globe, these weather signs will apply. The largest issue is the contact of warm with cold. Warm air flowing over a cold surface, such as water or land, will cause fog. This is particularly true if humidity is high. Likewise, cold air coming into contact with warm land or warm rain will usually lead to fog. How dense the fog is depends on the temperature differential for the most part and to some degree a lack of wind as well.

Sailors identified certain particularly difficult fog conditions by name. The condition known as foggy breath arises when one can see their breath in warm weather, as if the air were in fact cold. Seamen agree that when this situation, which is usually a result of high humidity, occurs, fog will accumulate soon.

Advection fog is the thick, pea-soup fog commonly found off shore. This is caused by warm, humid air blowing over cold water. Radiation fog, on the other hand, is the type that clings to the ground or the water. Familiar to anyone who has spent time in bogs, bayous or swamps, this fog is caused by land that has been warmed during the day cooling down and cooling the air just above it as well. The air farther up remains warm, causing the type of fog which has been both the friend and foe of inland smugglers but is not as troublesome for the seagoing freebooter.

Knowing the conditions that can cause fog, feeling them in the air before the actual situations arises, can go a long way to keeping a ship safe at sea. Even in the thickest of fogs. Fore warned, as they say, if fore armed.

Header: Homeward Bound After the Storm by Monica Vanzant. This lovely piece is available for purchase at Fine Art America

Tools of the Trade: "That Disgust of Existence"

We’ve discussed seasickness, and its causes and cures, before here at Triple P.  As it turns out, almost all animals can succumb to seasickness and humans are not often spared.  That includes, it seems, literary lions from days gone by.  Here is a little insight into the miseries suffered by none other than Harriet Beecher Stowe of Uncle Tom’s Cabin fame:

That disgust of existence, which, in half an hour of sailing, begins to come upon you; that strange, mysterious ineffable sensation which steals slowly and inexplicably upon you; which makes every heaving billow, every white-capped wave, the ship, the people, the sight, taste, sound and smell of everything a matter of inexpressible loathing! 

An excellent summation, no doubt.  The great Charles Dickens, however, chose to see the bright side, if you will:

I lay there, all the day long, quite coolly and contentedly; with no sense of weariness, with no desire to get up, or to get better, or take the air; with no curiosity, or care, or regret of any sort or degree, saving that I think I can remember, in the universal indifference, having a kind of lazy joy – of fiendish delight, if anything so lethargic can be dignified with the title – in the fact of my wife being too ill to talk to me. 

That’s one way to get the old ball and chain to shut up, no matter how extreme.  Ernest Shackleton wrote of some of his comrades in Antarctic exploration being “appallingly seasick.”  In particular, the ponies he had brought along on the expedition suffered interminably in high seas.  Creatures of the equine persuasion cannot vomit, so their misery was doubled by a constant nausea that had no release.

Perhaps Hippocrates put it most succinctly when he quipped “Sailing on the sea proves that motion disturbs the body.”  One wonders if it got his wife to clam up for a while as well.

Header: Sunrise on the Bay of Fundi by William Bradford

Tools of the Trade: All in the Color

Sailors are generally ship-proud.  Like housewives of old whose identity infused itself into their clean, tidy and good looking home, sailors want their ship to be the prettiest on the water.  One of the things that goes into sailing the best looking ship is the trim of her paint.  How well the paint is kept up, and what colors are chosen, has a lot to do with the personality of the ship and the pride of the sailor.

In the Great Age of Sail, certain colors were virtually synonymous with certain ships.  Nelson was famous for the black and white checkers he favored around the gun ports of his vessels.  This pattern, though tricky and time consuming to execute, caught on in the Royal Navy - particularly after Nelson's death but ultimate triumph at Trafalgar.  Ships that sported this design were generally painted black or a very dark blue to allow the checkered design to stand out.  From there, favorite combinations included everything from Nelson's black and white to such surprising combinations as scarlet and lilac, crimson and gold or salmon pink and brown. 

Across the Atlantic, the U.S. Navy tended to a more neutral pallet.  Black with cream was a very common combination but some of the larger frigates took on more distinctive colors.  USS Constitution, for instance, was famously recognizable for her contrasting black and white - no checkers, thank you.  As the picture above, from the ship's official website, shows, she carries those colors to this day.

A few other things, particularly those that might trick the eye as to a ship's flaws or help the crew in their day to day doings, were also taken into consideration.  For instance, decks were almost universally painted a light color such as white or cream.  This allowed the crew to see better at night.  Darker colors were favored for the hulls of larger ships while lighter colors - particularly white - were the choice for smaller ships.  This gave the larger ship a more lovely line, and the smaller ship the look of a larger one.  High gloss, in the form of lacquer, was usually avoided as it was thought to accentuate unmentionables such as a wide bow or a heavy bottom.

One rarely finds anything more beautiful on this planet than a well maintained ship.  If you haven't yet, now is a good time to think about a new coat of paint for your vessel, Brethren.  Maybe some purple and scarlet checkers, just for a change?

Header: USS Constitution in her glory, as noted above from her official website

Tools of the Trade: Rope and Cable

The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor by Darcy Lever is along the same lines as The Seaman's Friend by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.  Published in 1819, Lever's seminal work on the running of a ship may have influenced Dana's book, which came out in 1879.

In Sheet Anchor, Lever tells us how to lay down rope and cable the old fashioned way.  This is his description of how ship's rope was made from time in memorial: by hand and with a lot of human effort:

Ropes are a combination of several Threads of Hemp, twisted together by means of a Wheel in the Rope-Walk.  These Threads are called Rope-Yarns and the Size of the Rope in Diameter, will be according to the Number of Yarns contained in it.

A Proportion of Yarns (covered with Tar) are first twisted together.  This is called a Strand: three, or more of which being twisted together, form the Rope; and according to the number of these Strands, it is said to be either Hawser-laid, Shroud-laid, or Cable-laid.

A Hawser-laid rope is composed of three single Strands, each containing an equal quantity of Yarns, and is laid right-handed, or was is termed with the Sun.

A Shroud-laid rope consists of four Strands of an equal Number of Yarns, and is also laid with the Sun.

A Cable-laid rope is divided into nine Strands of an equal Number of Yarns; these nine Strands being again laid into three, by twisting three of the small Stands into one.  I is laid left-handed or against the sun.

Header: Venetian Sailboats by Carl Schmidt via American Gallery

Tools of the Trade: Land Ho!

One of the most heart warming and at the same time spine tingling sights a true sailor can spy in his glass in land. While there is not more dangerous place for a ship to be – statistics show that over seventy-five percent of shipwrecks have occurred within sight of land – there is also no more welcoming situation than a snug harbor. But how did sailors of old know, granted with varying amounts of certainty, that they were nearing the respite of land? Here are a few prominent examples from the Great Age of Sail.

The first thing to look at is the color of the water. Even in large lakes, the water appears quite dark in color far from land. Depending on your eye it may appear gray or green or a very dark blue but it is only close to land that the water begins to lighten to that sky blue color painters love to chose – albeit erroneously – for the vast ocean.

Second on the list of prominent signs is a noticeable increase in the number of birds seen in the air. Though some birds will fly far out to sea, particularly during their migratory periods, most common seabirds tend to stick close to land. Gulls and pelicans, as well as others, follow a pattern of moving out to sea in the morning and back in to land at night. This can also be helpful when trying to determine the direction of land.

A trickier test for the closeness of land is the color, shape and movement of clouds. In tropical climes, lush lagoons surrounded by land verdant with plants can sometimes cause a green reflection on the undersides of cloud banks. In more northerly and southerly latitudes, ice near shore can cause these same types of cloud formations to look very white. A cloud that seems to remain immobile, while others move around it, may be a sign of a mountainous or hilly formation on an island or the mainland.

The sound of surf was a much longed for delight for many explorers. If the situation of the land is correct, particularly if high cliffs rise up from the ocean as at Basse-Terre or Gibraltar, the crashing of waves can be heard long before land is seen.

Fair winds and following seas, Brethren, and may all you love be waiting for you ashore. Some changes to come here at Triple P so I hope that you all will excuse me for the occasional absences ahead. I am excited about what is in store and I hope that all of you will ship out with me on this new adventure. More updates soon!

Header: Coastal Landscape by Glen Ranney via American Gallery

Tools of the Trade: Preserving Our Mess

Before canning and refrigeration became the norm, preserving food and beverages for long sea voyages was one of the top priorities when heading out, particularly for merchants, whalers and blue water navies. Speaking figuratively of pirates as scurvy dogs is general just that: figurative. Pirates and privateers tended to keep their sailing to short jaunts that allowed ample time on land for the eating of fruits and vegetables. When your ship was headed out from New England to the Great South Sea, or Britain to India, you needed to think long and hard about what to stow for vitals.


A good example of this kind of conundrum being attacked by human ingenuity is the beer known as India Pale Ale. Beer and ale were a favorite of seamen, who considered them both a luxury and a right. The problem was that beer did not keep well in barrels particularly in warmer climates, making it necessary to drink it up directly out of port before it went off. IPA solved this problem, to some degree, with the addition of a noticeably large amount of hops. The ale was designed specifically for East India merchants travelling back and forth from Britain to India but it caught on quickly with the Royal Navy and eventually the U.S. Navy as well. Although some modern historians of beer dispute this IPA origin story, our seafaring ancestors certainly believed it and were drinking a form of the more bitter, robust IPA happily by the latter half of the 18th century.

In the galley, meanwhile, generally perishable things like butter and meat needed to last as long as possible. It was one thing to eat a moldy potato but rancid meat could, under the right circumstances, literally kill a man. As the Brethren are probably well aware, the answer was salt. Here are a couple of examples; one for preserving bacon and the other, butter:

For bacon, a layer of very dry salt would line the bottom of a container. A single layer of bacon strips would be packed closely on that, followed by another layer of salt, then bacon and so on, alternating until the container was full. This would then be covered as tightly as possible and stowed for future use. The salt was wiped away and, if it was available, fresh water might be used to rinse the strips of any remaining salt before cooking.

A similar method would be used for butter. The churned butter would actually be mixed with salt (the origin of our modern “salted” butter). This would then be pressed down into jars and a layer of dry salt would be spread over the top. The jars would be sealed tightly and stored some place cool. Use required a bit of fresh water to wash out the top layer of salt. If necessary, depending on the size of the jar, fresh dry salt could be packed on top of the butter again until future use.

Fish and meat were of course preserved similarly. What always strikes me is the amount of salt our seafaring ancestors must have taken in over the course of a lifetime. If most our physicians today found us eating like that they would probably suffer some form of paroxysm. And yet a fair number of these men and women lived to a rather advanced age. Maybe it was something in the IPA…

Header: Mess on the deck of the ironclad USS Monitor during the American Civil War via The Pirate’s Lair (more great pictures of vintage shipboard messes here)

Tools of the Trade: Keeping Clean

In this modern age of fiberglass, garden hoses and soogee, it is sometimes hard for today’s sailor to imagine just how much work keeping a wooden ship, well, ship-shape really was. The daily, backbreaking process of scrubbing the decks, gunnels and brass have been nicely – if only briefly – illustrated in movies like Mutiny on the Bounty and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. But what were those guys actually doing on their hands and knees, and what were they doing it with? Glad you asked.


The cleaning of ships has had its own language since before the 1700s. Bibles, prayer books, holy stones, all of these things were better known aboard ship for the religious practice of cleaning than as a source of spiritual guidance. The need for such attention is made abundantly clear in this quote from Captain George Anson aboard HMS Centurion off the coast of Africa in 1732:

We scraped our decks and gave our ship a thorough cleaning; then smoked it between decks, and after all washed every part well with vinegar. These operations were extremely necessary for correcting the noisesome stench on board, destroying the vermin; for from the number of our men, and the heat of the climate, both these nuisances had increased upon us to a very loathsome degree.

One can almost smell the humid, congested reek of Captain Anson’s man-of-war.

By the time the right honorable captain was writing about cleaning his ship, it was beginning to dawn on people that keeping clean, both in body and environment, would prevent disease. Since nothing is more troubling when one has a limited workforce as having able bodies made unable to contribute by illness, the sailors’ mania for cleanliness makes perfect sense. By the turn of the 19th century it was also a matter of pure pride to present a smooth, clean deck, gleaming brass and white sails even to the humblest of visitors.

Captain Anson’s men would have scraped Centurion’s decks with sand brought onto the ship in barrels and replenished in port or, in smaller coastal vessels, literally brought up from the ocean floor. The sand was watered to create a loose mud and then scrubbed over the deck with stones. The stones were of varying sizes; bibles were the largest, about the size of a fireplace brick, and were used for the open spaces away from masts, fittings and rails. Next in size were prayer books, which fit comfortably in one hand and were approximately the size of a modern kitchen sponge. These were used closer to the fittings mentioned. Finally, the holy stones were the size of river rocks and functioned for detail work usually done on Friday or Saturday aboard Royal Navy and U.S. Navy ships. Why the stones’ names referenced religion is still something of a mystery, although folklore has it that they were originally taken from old headstones in English churchyards.

At the end of the process, the deck was rinsed and then swabbed with rope-yarn mops that were initially hand held but eventually had poles attached for convenience. The entire process was to be completed before the ship’s day started when noon was called from the quarterdeck, so an early start in the morning watch around four or five AM was not unusual.

Needless to say, all this scrubbing was hard on both ship and men. Though the process made the deck white as clouds, it also degraded the wood to a point of structural failure. Replacement of decks was an ongoing task when at home. Men gained bone spurs and arthritis for their trouble, particularly in their knees. Reference to the pain of “praying” aka scrubbing the deck was a common gripe. The seaman and writer Felix Riesenberg, who served aboard U.S. ships in the late 19th century, mentioned a clever solution for this problem used aboard the A.J. Fuller:

To overcome the hardness of the deck, we rigged up pieces of board to which three cleats were nailed and a strip of old canvas stretched over them.

These clever contraptions, which were something like little hammocks for a sailor’s knees, could easily be moved along as the men went from bow to stern each morning. Hands and arms were also left raw and chapped by the process; most men begged a bit of slush – cooking grease – from the cook to ease this problem.

So take note, modern sailor; there’s always hard work aboard us but our ancestors – as is so often the case – had a far more difficult time of cleaning their wooden worlds.

Also, just in case you were wondering what soogee is, here is Peter H. Spectre’s easy to make and easy to apply recipe with instructions:

Add a cup of detergent and a cup of bleach to a pail of fresh, hot water. Dip a stiff brush in the soogee and wash down. Clean up with a cotton mop, then flush with cold water.

And when you’re done, Brethren, have a piece of fruit or perhaps a mug o’ grog; it is Scurvy Awareness Day after all…

Header: Admiral Farragut on board USS Hartford via Navy History (impressive decks fit for America’s first Admiral)

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Body Parts

Today Triple P’s most enduring subject, SMS, is going in a little different direction just to mix things up. Instead of focusing on one word, I offer words that on land would refer to parts of the human body. This confusion between sailor and lubber speak is not unusual, but it can be especially amusing when it hits so close to home. To make things functional, if not much easier, I’ll start at the head and end at the foot.


In the area of what would normally constitute a man’s head, there is first the brow, another word for gangplank. An eye is a loop at the end of a rope; a ship’s nose is her stem just under the bowsprit, the lower portion of which is called her chin. A cheek is one of the side pieces of a block. Lips are slightly raised portions around hatches and gratings which keep water from running off the main deck onto the decks below. Any river, harbor, bay et cetera will have what sailors refer to as a mouth where it opens up to the sea. Sails may have heads, as might masts and various other tools aboard us. The head proper, of course, is the fore part of a ship where for most of man’s history the crew’s privy was situated. Head continues to be the word for toilet aboard ship, though in most cases it has been moved to a different location.

Moving to the upper body we encounter the neck, which is the portion of an oar where the pole attaches to the blade. Throat, on the other hand, refers to the inner end of a gaff sail between the head and the luff of the sail. A chest or sea chest may also be called a locker; a metal or wooden box where men stow their gear. The portion of a sail that takes on the most wind and bulges forth as it does is known as its belly. The types of anchors that appear most familiar have two arms while an elbow is a bend or crescent in a river. A knuckle is a sharp angle in a ship’s hull. We all know a hand is one of the crew and a rib is used to frame a ship. A palm is a glove-like tool that allows a sailmaker to push a large needle through several layers of canvas.

Further down the body the waist is, of course, the central portion of any vessel. Bottom refers to the portion of a ship’s hull that sits below the waterline; one might hear seamen speak of a vessel’s “foul bottom”, in which case she is not in top sailing form and in need of careening. Butt or butt-ending is a form of planking. Knee refers to timber or iron that is bent to fit into a space and secure items together, similar to a wedge. The bottom of a mast is sometimes referred to as its heel, but this can also be called a foot which word can in turn be used when speaking of the lower part of a sail.

There are more words that correspond to body parts, and in many cases more ways to use the words we’ve just looked at, but that seems like enough for now. Fair winds and following seas, Brethren; keep your foot well heeled and an eye to her nose until next our wakes might cross.

Header: Summertime by Winslow Homer via Old Paint