Sailors, Whalers, Fantastic Sea Voyages: An Activity Guide to North American Sailing Life
224
Sailors, Whalers, Fantastic Sea Voyages: An Activity Guide to North American Sailing Life
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781613742730 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Chicago Review Press, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 06/01/2003 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
| Age Range: | 9 - 12 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Sailors, Whalers, Fantastic Sea Voyages
An Activity Guide to North American Sailing Life
By Valerie Petrillo
Chicago Review Press Incorporated
Copyright © 2003 Valerie PetrilloAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61374-273-0
CHAPTER 1
A Sailor's Life for Me!
What was it like to be a sailor? This chapter will give you a chance to climb onboard a sailing ship and experience life through the eyes of a greenhand. The daily life of a deepwater sailor was passed down from generations of men who made their living from the sea. Join us on our voyage as we learn to talk like sailors, eat sailor's grub, sing sea chanteys, and dance the sailor's hornpipe. We'll hear the story of a mutiny, make a ship's anchor, and take a turn as a lookout. When we cross the equator, King Neptune will visit us. Then we can relax in our bunks, maybe get a sailor's tattoo or make a squeezebox to play.
Who were the sailors? The majority were young. Some shipped out in their teens, but most were in their early twenties when they headed out to sea. Shipping accounts reveal that half of most crews were first-time sailors as opposed to the old salts we often think of from folklore. For many of these men, shipping out to sea was the first time they had been away from home. They struggled with terrible homesickness as they dealt with the tremendous physical and emotional demands of becoming a sailor.
The young seamen were seeking adventure and employment, and trying to prove themselves as men. As for the old salts, they simply saw no other way to make a living, so as soon as one voyage ended they shipped out on another. These men's wives lived as widows and their children grew up without fathers. There were so many female-run businesses in the seaport of Nantucket, Massachusetts, that one street was nicknamed Petticoat Row. And when the children of these old salts followed their fathers to the call of the sea, it was their mothers and grandmothers they pined for.
Build a Shadow Box Ship
The ship was the sailor's entire world for months and years at a time. It was his home, his transportation, his shelter from the mighty ocean, his workplace, and his place to socialize. Of all sailors' hobbies, the building of model ships was the most popular. They carved model ships out of wood, whalebone, or ivory, and sewed the sails with scraps of canvas tied with rope and string. The sailor used whatever materials were available to him.
The shadow box was a popular 19th-century art form, and ship models were often displayed this way. Make a model of the ship known as a bark. This type of ship was commonly used for whaling.
What You Need
A grown-up to assist
Blue construction paper
Scissors
Sturdy shallow box, 13 inches (33.02 centimeters) high by 15 inches (38.1 centimeters) wide or larger
Glue stick
Pencil
1 white 12-inch (30.48 centimeters) by 18-inch (45.72 centimeters) by 2-millimeters-thick craft foam sheet (available in craft stores)
Hole punch
4 wooden dowels, ¼ inch (6.35 millimeters) thick by 12 inches (30.48 centimeters) long (available in craft stores)
Knife (for adult use)
Sturdy string (such as kite string)
Glue
1 black 12-inch (30.48 centimeters) by 18-inch (45.72 centimeters) by 2-millimeters-thick craft foam sheet
Pen
2 brass fasteners
What You Do
1. Cut the construction paper to fit the inside bottom of the box.
2. Glue the paper down with the glue stick.
3. Pencil the shapes from the templates below onto the white foam and cut out. You will need two each of the square sails in the first column, one each of the sails in the middle column, and five of the long triangular sails in the last column.
4. Punch holes where shown.
5. Weave the dowels through the top and bottom of each sail to match the picture.
6. Ask an adult to cut the fourth dowel in half. Use one of the pieces as a bowsprit (the sideways spar).
7. Tie the triangular sails to the dowels with the string.
8. Glue the dowels to the construction paper. Do not glue down the sails or string.
9. Pinch the top and bottom of the sails together so that they billow out away from the box. Let dry.
10. Cut a 15-inch (38.1-centimeter) by 2½-inch (6.35-centimeter) piece of black foam for the bottom of the ship. Lay the foam across the bottom of the box and push each side in about 1 inch (2.54 centimeters) so that it pops out.
11. With the point of a pen, push a hole through the top inside left corner of the foam and the box underneath. Do the same to the other side.
12. Attach to the box with the fasteners. Display upright.
Salty Language
Imagine how a greenhand felt when the first mate pointed to a skyful of sails and rigging and issued this command: "Boy, git aout on th' jib-boom an' take th'gaskets off'n th'jib an' jib-tops'l!" Would you know what to do? What the mate said was, "Boy, get out on that jib-boom (a long pole that extends under a sail) and take the gaskets (cords) off the jib (the foremost sail of the ship) and jib topsail (a sail higher up on the stay (rope)."
Learning the specialized lingo of a sailing ship was almost like learning a foreign language. Every chore, rope, mast, and sail had its own particular name. Not understanding this language could have dire — even life-threatening — consequences.
Today nautical speech has so permeated American culture that it has become a common part of our language. The seafaring roots of expressions such as "hit the deck," "don't rock the boat," "stay on an even keel," "any port in a storm," "not on my watch," and "taking the wind out of one's sails" are easy to see. Here are some other salty sayings that you can practice on your own or share with your friends.
Nautical Terms
Anchor cable A heavy rope or chain used to raise or lower the anchor
Bow The front of the ship
Cask Barrel for holding liquids
Downwind With the wind
Flog To whip
Hawsehole An opening in the bow of the ship through which the anchor cable passes
Keel The backbone of the ship, the timber the ship is built upon
Mast A long pole or spar that rises vertically from the deck and carries sails, yards, and rigging
Mess A group of men who eat or lodge together
Nautical Related to the sea
Pitch The alternate dipping of the bow and stern, the movement of the ship
Port A harbor; also, the left side of the ship as you face forward
Rig To fit or equip. Also the arrangement of masts, sails, and rigging that determine the vessel type.
Rigging All the lines, chains, and tackle above deck that are used to control the sails
Starboard The right side of a ship as you face forward
Stern The rear of the ship
Watch A part of the crew that shares duties together. It also means the four-hour block of time in which part of the crew is working and the rest of the crew is off.
Yard A long spar or pole tied to a mast, which supports the spread of a sail
Sailor Suits: What the Seamen Wore
Merchant seamen did not have uniforms, but their clothing was similar to navy garb. Pants were bell-bottomed, a style that was particularly well suited to seafaring life because they could be rolled up easily when the deck was wet. Shirts were either blousy red- or blue-checked tunics or tight-fitting wool shirts called guernseys. For tarring the rigging and other messy jobs, they wore duck shirts made of old canvas sail. Sailors and their clothes were so often covered with tar that they referred to each other as Jack Tar.
Whalers wore about anything they could find. Their clothes were soon beaten and weathered by months of saltwater and whale oil. Holes were mended and patched and mended again. By the voyage's end everything was in tatters and usually had to be thrown away. In cold weather sailors wore red flannel underwear. Waterproof oilskin suits and hats protected them on deck during storms. The sailors made these suits themselves out of canvas that had been soaked in oil or tar. If they were lucky they had leather sea boots that they slathered with grease and tar to protect them from the saltwater.
The most popular sailor's hat was the black tarred tarpaulin hat, cocked to the back and trailing a foot or two of black ribbon. It was waterproof and tough enough to stand up to the wind and salt, and it didn't show the dirt. In warmer climates sailors wore the straw-braided sennit hat. They wore stocking caps in the winter. During the later days of sailing, caps with visors came into fashion. Most seamen wore square-knotted black kerchiefs around their neck as well.
On land sailors wore their best clothes: baggy white trousers, cotton broad-collared shirts, and navy jackets or pea coats. This name derives from the short double-breasted coat called the pijjekker, which was worn by Dutch sailors. On land sailors wore shoes! Most sailors worked barefoot when they were on the ship because shoes got too wet and slippery.
Sailor's Grub
"Rancid meat, putrid water, and wormy bread." That's what a menu on a sailing ship would read if it was accurate. For hardworking men so far from home, shipboard meals offered little comfort. Salted beef, pork, and fish; beans; rice; potatoes; and hardtack made up the seaboard staples. Hardtack, or sea biscuit, is very dry and hard, but it lasts for months, even years, without spoiling. The meat was tough and so salty that when it was put in a cask of seawater to soften it actually became less salty!
At the outset of the voyage there was plenty of clean water, livestock for fresh meat, and vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, and cabbage. But as the journey wore on, the water began to stink and became foul tasting, the livestock were consumed, and the vegetable supply dwindled or ran out completely. The food that remained became infested with weevils and cockroaches. Once in a while food from the sea was harvested, such as flying fish, porpoise, and sea turtle, but it often went only to the officers' table. The best relief from the shipboard diet was a trip into a port, such as a Pacific island where luscious fruits and vegetables grew in abundance.
The captain, his family, and the ship's officers in the cabin (their living quarters) ate quite differently from the poor sailors. They sat at a table and ate their meals with silverware and china. Cabin food was of a better quality and quantity. It consisted of more fresh meats, fruits, and vegetables. It also included little luxuries such as cheese, butter, soft bread, pickles, sugar, and desserts. This difference in the dining experience often led to hard feelings between the crew and the officers. Many a mutiny at sea began with a bad meal.
Sailors gave their own names to the food that they ate: salt beef was called salt horse and salt pork was salt junk. Molasses was called long-tailed sugar because it was used as a cheap substitute for sugar and when it was cold, it turned into a thick black paste. The biscuits were called hardtack, soft bread was soft tack, and all food was grub.
The sailor's favorite foods were lobscouse, a stew of pounded hardtack, meat, and potatoes; sea pie, a flour dumpling with meat and ground porpoise bones; and duff or plum duff, a dessert served once or twice a week. Duff was a flour pudding made with raisins or sea-dried apples, boiled in a cloth bag, and served with molasses sauce. Once in a while, if the cook allowed them into the galley, sailors made a special treat called dandyfunk, made of pounded hardtack and molasses.
At mealtime usually the youngest sailor was sent to the galley to bring the food back to the fo'c'sle (forecastle, pronounced "fokesull"). This was the common sailors' living quarters, located beneath deck in the front of the ship.
The food was served in a big wooden tub with iron hoops, called a kid (maybe named for the young person who carried it). The kid was placed on the floor and the men gathered around, digging into it with pocketknives and spoons to fill their tin plates.
Mutiny out of New Bedford
On July 21, 1857, a ship known as the Junior sailed out of New Bedford bound for the bowhead whaling grounds of the Sea of Okhotsk, near Japan. The voyage began badly because of the horrible food the sailors were served. There were three casks of moldy bread and a large amount of rotting meat filled with maggots left over from a previous voyage. Finally, when it became so bad that the men fell ill, 24-year-old Cyrus Plummer and the other men of his watch went straight to Captain Archibald Mellen to complain.
Plummer was a boatsteerer and harpooner, who harpooned the whale, then sat in the back of the whaleboat and steered. He was not afraid of whale or man. The mistake he made was to go over the head of his superior officer, Chief Mate William Nelson, which angered Nelson.
The chief mate got an opportunity to retaliate one day when Plummer was standing watch at the wheel. Plummer had become fascinated watching the flight of an albatross, an enormous seabird. His reverie caused him to sail slightly off course, and Nelson was there to witness it. The mate approached and smashed Plummer in the jaw. Not one to back down from a fight, Plummer retaliated and they fought on deck. When Plummer fell and hit his head, Nelson took advantage of the situation and kicked him mercilessly. Finally the captain broke it up.
Plummer was punished for the crime of insubordination, speaking back to or striking an officer. He was hung by his thumbs in the rigging and given 20 lashes with a cat-o'-nine-tails by Chief Mate Nelson.
Plummer recovered, but he became obsessed with taking over the ship. He conspired with a group of sailors and they came up with a plan. On Christmas night, 1857, Plummer and nine of his crew members declared mutiny. They killed all the officers aboard except the first mate. They allowed the first mate to navigate the ship to Australia. The mutineers left in two whaleboats loaded with supplies. After they reached the coast, they bickered and split up. Six were captured within days, but Plummer and the three others in his group managed to make it to Sydney. After a night of drunken escapades, Plummer's fellow mutineers were arrested in a tavern and eventually sentenced to six years in prison in the United States. Plummer escaped through an open window, but was arrested a few days later for stealing gold with a new gang he had fallen in with. While in jail he heard that two of the mutineers had been hanged at Port Albert, Australia.
Cyrus Plummer was brought back to the United States and sentenced to hang on June 24, 1859. Just hours before he was to be executed, the lucky mutineer's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by President James Buchanan. Fifteen years later, an aged and ailing Plummer was granted a pardon by President Ulysses S. Grant. On July 24, 1874, he walked out of prison to freedom.
Make Dandyfunk
Having a snack when he wanted to was a comfort denied to the common sailor. Meals were served at precise times and carefully rationed. One of the few foods that was off ration (they could have as much as they wanted) was hardtack, the dry sea biscuit. If a sailor saved a spoon or two of his molasses from dinner and bargained with the cook for some slush (leftover drippings from cooked meat), he could mix it with the hardtack to make a sweet treat for himself.
What You Need
Paper towel
Approximately 1 tablespoon (15 millileters) shortening, such as Crisco or butter
Small baking dish
1 cup (56 grams) of crushed crackers, such as saltines
What You Do
1-gallon (3.78-liter) reseal able plastic bag
Drinking glass
1/8 cup (60 milliliters) light molasses
2 tablespoons (30 grams) butter
Fork
What You Do
1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. (176.67ºC).
2. Dip the paper towel into the shortening can and scoop out a tablespoon-size amount. Use this to grease the baking dish.
3. Place the crackers in the bag, seal it, and roll over it with the glass until the crackers are coarsely crushed.
4. Pour the crackers into the baking dish and mix in the molasses and butter with a fork.
5. Bake for 15 minutes.
Yield: 4 servings
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Sailors, Whalers, Fantastic Sea Voyages by Valerie Petrillo. Copyright © 2003 Valerie Petrillo. Excerpted by permission of Chicago Review Press Incorporated.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments,Time Line,
Introduction,
1 A Sailor's Life for Me!,
2 There She Blows! The Whalers,
3 The Sea Traders,
4 Land Ho! Foreign Ports,
5 Homeward Bound: American Seaport Towns,
Resources,
Index,