Ship Technicalities

Names of existing ships, where you can get ideas and then find out they're already taken :-[ are here. The rest of the site isn't very good though.

For last names, look here. it doesn't go back to the Napoleonic era but it'll give you ideas anyway.

Here is a manual giving basic instructions on how to fire the cannons as a training exercise. It doesn't go into great detail--PM me if you have questions on that.

Falconer's New Universal Dictionary of the Marine is the granddaddy of all dictionaries of nautical terms and a lot more, including navigation, astronomy, and mathematics. More of an encyclopedia really.

This dictionary is a little easier to use but incomplete.

And you'll need those dictionaries to understand the Questions for Young Officers and General Principles of Working a Ship from The New Practical Navigator, 1814. Trust me.

How did they advance in rank? I'm assuming your time-hopping character will wind up on the lower deck, in which case I don't know. I recommend reading "Kydd," "Artemis," "Seaflower," and "Mutiny," all by Julian Stockwin. But if he's an officer it's a whole different story. As far as how they talked, you'll also just have to read some novels. The above would be the fastest and are best for lower-deck dialogue.

Have a look at the official website of HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship in Trafalgar:

http://www.hms-victory.com/

Loads of questions can be answered there. :)

Here's a list of ships in use in Nelson's Navy, including a short history of each, rating, etc. I'm sure you'll find a name for your ship there. :)

http://www.ageofnelson.org/MichaelPhillips/index.html

Thank you both for your replies. I have found a lot of information through those sites you provided.

More questions: I have chosen to make the ship a 74 gun ship of the line (the Sunrise, if anyone was wondering what I decided to call her) and now I am trying to put together the crew. How many lieutenants, midshipmen, etc would be on a ship this size? Also, where could I find a complete list of warrant officers?

Another thing (which is related to my earlier question about ranking), in the list I have seen of the warrant officers, the midshipmen is shown of the bottom of the list. I have always thought that midshipmen were right below the lieutenants, that lieutenant was the next rank up, or was that only if you were commissioned? If you weren't commissioned could you still advance through the ranks of the different warrant officers, or were you stuck at midshipmen?

According to NAM Rodger's "Wooden World" - excellent book, btw - a 74-gun ship of the line had 600 to 700 men on board. This included marines and landmen, too. There'd be 4 lieutenants and 16 midshipmen. I can PM you the complete list of officers and men if you want. :)

Midshipmen were trainee officers, so to speak. By the time you had served a certain time as a midshipman, you could take an exam and, if you passed it, be promoted to lieutenant.

Patrick O'Brian is probably the most clued-up writer on nautical matters during the Napoleonic Wars. Any one of his books will probably leave you able to build a ship of the line, let alone write about one.

Yes, ladysusan, I would definitely like the complete list of officers and men. In fact, I think I would be forever in your debt for providing me with that list, my ability to research this topic has been very limited...

I would read the Patrick O'Brian books, but my dad has steered me away from them on account on unneeded immorality. Also, my library is pitifully small and only has one or two of his books

I tried to PM you, but it didn't work - I was told you don't accept private messages. Can you change that, so I can send you the info?

All fixed!

What about the book A sea of words : a lexicon and companion for Patrick O'Brian's seafaring tales, by Dean King? It's available in my county library system, so it might be in yours, too. Lots of details about ships, life on ships, etc., as I recall (been a few years).

I'll see if my library has that. Thanks!

There's also a book by Brian Lavery, but I don't remember what it's called. "Life in Nelson's Navy" by Dudley Pope is good too--his fiction, not so much. They're kind of hard to find though--I don't think my public library (in a city of over 1 million) has them, although the uni library does.

Are C. S. Forester's Hornblower novels well researched? I don't know. I thoroughly enjoyed reading them, anyway.

I don't know if the Hornblowers are well researched (as you can see from the posts above, I am not much of an expert :) but I enjoyed the first seven books (chronological order). Those are actually one of my favorite series, up until Flying Colours, at which point I get too disgusted with Hornblower's love life and infidality and can't read any more. I acually haven't read any of the last three, on recommendation of my dad.

Ok new question(s).

How would you react if you woke up and found yourself on board a ship of the line in1803? What would you say when you were told that you were stuck there indefinatly? What would you (as a midshipman) need to learn first? What would it feel like being seasick (never actually been on the ocean, so I don't know... The closest I've been is carsick and from what I have read that a whole lot different.)? How would you know when the watch ended?

RE the first question - I'd probably have a hard time believing my own eyes. So I think for a while complete and utter disbelief would be the main feeling. I'd probably think I was dreaming, even if someone told me I was stuck there indefinitely I'd probably think I was going to wake up any moment. It would probably need more than just ppl telling me to come to terms with what has happened.

I think you'd need to learn first where my place was, what kind of work I was supposed to do at what time of day, where not to go as to stay out of people's way - I can think of plenty of things. I'd surely have a hard time learning all that.

As for seasickness, here's a good site: http://www.seasickness.org/sea-sickness-treatment.html
They describe the symptoms of sea-sickness, and you can have your pick among them. BTW, ginger is said to be a good remedy.

The end of your watch would be announced by the ship's bell.

By the by, have you watched any of the Hornblower movies?

Yes! I have watched all of them except for the last two and I loved all of them.

Yeah, the first six are great! The last two, not so much.

That is what a lot of people have said. Which ones were your favorite? I love all of them equally except The Duchess and the Devil, which was slightly lower. The actor for Hornblower did an absolutely wonderful job.

Mutiny and Retribution--can't have one without the other.
I confess--the theme music is my ringtone. There's one that will never be confused with someone else's.

That is so awesome! I wonder if I could find that...
Mutiny and Retribution were really good. I always feel bad for poor Wellard and for Archie.
The Hornblower movies are actually what inspired my new "obsession" for ships and for my new story.

You probably won't find it--I made it myself, transcribing it by ear into my computer and saving it as a MIDI file. One of the better ones I've done, I must say.
Just had a thought--has your time-hopping character read any of the Hornblower books or similar?

I don't know and I really don't think so. I made him an rich kid who is EXTREMELY spoiled and gets away with not doing his school work. And if he doesn't have much of an interest in school he probably doesn't have any interest in reading. Alhough I'm the same way about school (except I do try) but I love reading.
That would make it interesting though... And it would give him a basic knowledge of things. Of course, I am planning on having some comical scenes bcause he doesn't realize where he needs to be on the respect level (the kid's a real snot, and would probably act the same anyway, but it seems like more fun to make him completely oblivious).
I had planned on his visiting alot of marintine musuems some time before he ends up in 1803, so that he had some knowledge in the area, even though he was paying hardly any attention at the time.

New Question!

How do you tell the captain's, lieutenant's, and midshipmen's uniforms apart?

For that, check out "The World of Jack Aubrey" by David Miller. It has a whole chapter on uniforms, with pictures. Lots of other good stuff in there, too. Unfortunately Google Books doesn't let you see any of said pictures, and the text didn't scan well either.

I was in my local library today looking for something else and saw on the shelf a book in the Heart of Oak Sea Classics series. It claims to be a series of non-fiction books about aspects of the British Navy--not day-to-day stuff, but discussions of battles, etc. I don't know if it's in your line or not, but thought I'd pass on the name so you can check it out.

"Nelson's Navy" by Brian Lavery has complete lists too, which are quite different (generally higher numbers) and dated 1807. There it says that a 74 would have 5 lieutenants and 20 mids. **headdesk** One thing is that Rodger is mostly writing about an earlier period, but he doesn't give a date for his list. I'm confused here too--I don't know if you were around in October/November but my HMS Peregrine is a fourth-rate (56). I guessed based on other fiction I'd read that she would have five lieutenants, wrote a ton, got quite attached to my characters, then discovered that there would actually only be four. (Lavery concurs.) But Rodger says three! I don't want to write another one out as if he never existed! **headdesk again** 'Cause that's mean. **headdesk HARD** If I'd thought of it sooner, I could have gone to the library at the naval museum (hundreds of miles from the ocean and we have the biggest one in Canada?!?) but now they're moving to a bigger building and are closed /until this fall./

I emailed a professor at my university about this over a week ago and still haven't got a reply. I'll find out when his office hours are and ask him in person as soon as I can. Until then, I think we're...um...in the same boat.

"There it says that a 74 would have 5 lieutenants and 20 mids"
ARGH!!!!! 20 midshipmen!?! I already had 11 more to name! Good grief! At least I haven't really got into the ship part of the story and can fix it. "I don't want to write another one out as if he never existed!" then don't! Demote him to midshipmen or something.

I wish I had a naval museum I could go to, as well a decent library! I live in the middle of a desert, so my library doesn't have ANY on naval history. I've looked for every single one of these book reccommended and haven't found any of them! Grr... Commodore, you're lucky that you have the resources for research .

I just clicked on the cheat-sheet for formatting below and lost an entire post...I thought it would open in a new tab...anyway, sorry for the rant... I was out very late every night over the weekend...I have to name 11 more midshipmen too!...no, public libraries tend to have small budgets and go by demand, hence the disappearing Patrick O'Brian books (hence there goes $200 from my income-tax refund buying them so I don't have to worry about the library getting rid of them!), the scarcity of Alexander Kent, and of course nothing on Caribbean history here.

At least you're doing your research beforehand instead of realizing mistakes 70-100 pages in. I wrote about 30 pages of my novel while camping in BC last summer, so no library or internet or anything. Knowing that was going to happen, I brought a couple of books for reference, but they didn't have anything on the things I had to look up so I winged it and had a lot to fix when i got home.

Okay, now to the main body of the stuff I lost.

I'm going to refer you back to the Hornblower movies for uniforms. Major changes were decreed in 1795 but seem to have taken a while to take hold, which is why the uniforms look different early on...although during this period uniforms were never really "uniform" to begin with. In Mutiny and Retribution, Wellard and the lieutenants are wearing pretty much what they should be wearing (well, undress uniforms as would have been worn at sea, as opposed to full dress.) Captain Sawyer isn't much help, though, if you know what I mean!

Maritime Art Greenwich, part of the National Maritime Museum website, has quite a few portraits, which I thought would be a good guide but are really just more confusing. Anyway, captains' uniforms would have had at least some gold lace/braid (a few of the portraits don't, but every description I can remember reading says something about that) and by this time their coats do not have white facings. The captain of a 74 would have been a post-captain with more than 3 years' seniority and would have had fringed gold epaulets on both shoulders (less than 3 years' seniority, one epaulet on the right shoulder; Commander, the next rank down, wore one on the left. This changes again in 1812.)

I have to go to karate now, but ask and I will look up. After all, as long as I'm doing this, I'm not doing homework! :D