SPACE AGE MARINER SHIPS ON DESTINY MANUAL

Typically, wages were higher in the merchant marine than in the navy, especially during wartime periods of greater risk. (An able-bodied seaman past his prime was often called an old salt.) A sliding pay scale afforded able-bodied seamen the best wages. There were three types of sailors: workers with no prior maritime experience, known as landsmen, landlubbers, green hands, and waisters regular or common seamen, who had some experience or who were previously employed with another merchant and the able-bodied seamen, veterans with deep working knowledge of nautical matters. Whereas the navy ranked its seamen, sailors in the merchant marine rated, or classified, themselves.

SPACE AGE MARINER SHIPS ON DESTINY MANUAL

Regular rations of rum were given to naval seamen to help boost morale and dull the pains associated with hard manual labor.Ī maritime laborer at the turn of the nineteenth century would have encountered a different life in the American merchant marine. Moreover, naval vessels were generally better provisioned with food and drink than trade ships. Yet, for the patriot, naval service brought honor and glory. As a result, families were separated and naval seamen were forced to endure greater isolation than most merchant mariners. Naval service also took individuals to sea for longer periods than did the merchant marine. By contrast, meritocracy remained the sole province of the merchant marine up to the American Civil War. As had been the custom in the British Navy, commissioned officers were almost exclusively politically connected, educated, and propertied. Upward mobility, not uncommon in the merchant marine, was rare in the navy. Owing to their propensity to mutiny or desert, these coerced laborers were confined to quarters below deck when not at work their movements on board were closely monitored, and they were typically denied shore leave or liberty. Impressed men, those who served involuntarily, frequently equated naval service with slavery. Punishments for poor work performance in the naval service ranged from isolation in iron chains to flogging with the cat-o'-nine-tails (a whip of nine knotted lines that left scars resembling cat scratches) and, in extreme cases, hanging. To ensure discipline, the captain had the authority to inflict corporal punishments on the crew.

Regular military training, including gunnery exercises, and constant order were required. In addition to the manual labors associated with the day-to-day art of harnessing trade winds and ocean currents, naval seamen conscientiously prepared to engage in battle at sea. Work on an American warship was typically more demanding than work on a merchant marine vessel. Through the first half of the nineteenth century, different wooden worlds awaited an American Navy seaman or a sailor in the merchant marine. In certain circumstances, women even became pirates. Wives followed husbands in their berths and performed a variety of functions, from carrying water to gun crews in battle to washing clothes and preparing medicinal cures for the many diseases that afflicted seamen. Women sometimes masqueraded as males at sea, working in the merchant marine and in the navy. Although the term 'mariner' applied to anyone at sea, it could specifically designate a ship's captain. This phrase was also used to describe the people on board merchant vessels, generally those common seamen who lived in a ship's forecastle.

On a warship the quarterdeck was the space reserved for the captain and the officers those not permitted to walk along the quarterdeck were sometimes called fore-the-mast men. Any sailor could be given the moniker Jack Tar, taken from the maritime weatherproofing agent that frequently covered worker's clothing. The motley workers of 'the wooden world' made key contributions to the commercial and industrial expansion that took place in America up to and beyond the Civil War.įor the most part, the terms 'sailor' and 'seaman' were used interchangeably throughout the Age of Sail, or roughly from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. In addition, African Americans also carried cargo across the oceans and fought to keep shipping lanes open to American commerce. In the two major branches of maritime employment, the American merchant marine (commercial shipping) and the navy, crews regularly comprised men from various nations around the globe. There were also variations in race and ethnicity. The third son of a well-to-do farmer, lacking the prospect of a lucrative inheritance in the future, was just as likely to go to sea as the firstborn son of a destitute urban mechanic. However, there were variations in the socioeconomic backgrounds of sailors. Maritime work and labor in America from the 1750s to the 1850s was predominantly a world of men from poor working families.

Space age mariner ships on destiny