h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My information regarding the floor was from a former Curator of HMS Victory, so it is a fairly reliable tale although if used must only be cited as an apocryphal story.


I know I mentioned this before however the format used to display the entry make the crew list unwieldy and awkward to follow (especially on an i-phone or small screen device). The format below is essentially your list compacted with one change Manx is what the islanders call themselves, and is slightly easier to read. It is just my opinion and not a vital change.

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While at sea, merchant ships of any nation could be stopped and inspected for British deserters among their crew. If the inspecting officer suspected a man might be a deserter, he was taken by force and entered into the ship's books as a crew member. No proof was required. Another interesting fact is that while on foreign service local citizens were often enlisted into the crew. The crew of Victory included men from many nations.

Crew Nationalities
British (English) 514, Scottish 66, Welsh 30, Irish 89, Manx (Isle of Man) 1 and British of unrecorded origin 1.

Canadian 2, American 22 and Brazilian 1.

Jamaican 1, Indian 2, African 1 and West Indian 4.

Danish 2, Dutch 7, French 4, Maltese 6, German 2, Italian 9, Norwegian 2, Portuguese 1, Swedish 4 and Swiss 2.

Men of unknown country of origin 48.



Stations of the Crew

Every person in the ship had to be assigned a place to stow his belongings, sleep, eat and work. Each manoeuvre, such as raising the anchor, setting sail, changing course had their own requirements. Putting the ship into action was the most complex of all.

Many believe that most of the crew were employed on the masts and yards to handle the sails. This is not true, only a small part of the crew, called top-men, worked aloft. Most of the crew worked on deck divided into sections, such as the forecastle and after-guard to handle the several dozen lines that controlled the sails.

That is about all, excellent work

Hi Bob, I have reworked the crew nationalities section into more of what I originally wanted, I agree that long tables should be avoided in entries

I am not totally sure about your comments on the floor covering, it seems to me to be more of an effort to make the room more like a room of a manor house ashore than for some nefarious purpose. In any event I don't see any place for it in this entry.


Dmitri

>I don't know about the Masonic business, but Masons being pretty compulsive characters - have you seen the Philadelphia Temple? - I wouldn't put it past them to have a Masonic floor covering, just for the fun of it.

I have seen far less of the city of Philadelphia than I would like, although my brother spent several years there going to college. I have only made the run between the airport and the Walt Whitman Bridge, and a couple hour stay at the airport bar making small talk with a man who did not speak a word of English, but that is a long story.



FS

That sounds like a fun story. I'm sorry you've never seen that Temple. It is way worth a visit if you're into weird interior design.

But not relevant to sailing ships, so I'll shut up.

Well done I like the additions and layout

Page Turner:

Entry: The Crew of the HMS Victory at Trafalgar - A87778264
Author: Florida Sailor - U235886
Assisted by: bobstafford - U3151547

<BB<

Late to the party me, and would stay quiet but for
a need to question this phrase from the third para
of the 'Enlistment' section:

"Those with those who had communicable diseases..."

Excellent entry!
But I was confused and distracted by the final and closing
paragraph with its obscure reference to the 1968 land based
barracks named HMS Victory. All factually correct of course
but sorta irrelevant except perhaps to underline the effort
that went into the research or just to demonstrate the
dumbness of disambiguated of search engines.


~jwf~

Not often do I subscribe to the idea of implementing
an edit function in these Postings - believing in the
main that we all must live with what we say or simply
take more care in Preview.

I would if I could delete everything I said after
'Excellent Entry' above. I even thought I had. It
is a classic case of my thinking-out-loud while
my finger-bones go on a-typing.



~jwf~

Thanks jfw;

>"Those with those who had communicable diseases..."

on my browser the line break came between "with" and the second "those"

Fixed

>I would if I could delete everything I said after
'Excellent Entry' above. I even thought I had.

Thank you for making me take a second look at that section. I had far too many "interesting"s in there to be interesting

My main reason for the 1968 mention was only that it might be an explanation for the conflict in the two list, there are always a few gaps in 200+ year old research.

FS

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

Excellent well done FS

Thank you for all your help and suggestions

FS

Good work, by both FS and Bob