(no subject)

[truepenny]

For The Project vol. 2, I need to know more about sailing ships than one can glean from merely reading Hornblower. I didn't notice this the first time through the story because sometimes? I'm just dumb. So, anyway, research.

Behold the power of Google. In the course of my wanderings, I've come across this, and I feel that it needs to recognized, shared, and marveled at.

Two poles circumnavigation in sailing ships. They're starting on July 1st. Mark your calendars.

Comments

[pdcawley.livejournal.com]

Boudriout's Seventy four gun ship: Manning, Shiphandling (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/2903178178) is apparently the definitive book on how square rigged warships were sailed. It's one of four volumes (other volumes cover building the hull, fitting out, and sails and rigging) and it may well be out of print. I believe my dad still lusts after a copy of all four volumes.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Totally mad. Is it classic boats you need to know about, or modern ones?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Classic. Although, pipes up my inner pack-rat, all knowledge is good knowledge ...

What I need more than anything, I think, is a sense of scale. Despite the fact that I do know better, my brain seems to admit of no sea-going vessels between something the size of a yacht and something the size of the Queen Mary. And it insists, DESPITE years of reading Forester and Sabatini and despite the fact that I truly, honestly do know better, that all sailing ships have roughly the same interior space as Swallow. This is causing me more than a little trouble in the visualization department.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Well, the interior volume increases remarkably with even the increase of a foot or so of length. Would this help, btw - its the vital stats of HMS Victory? http://www.hms-victory.com/home.htm

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yes. That helps quite a lot, actually. Not that the ships I need to imagine are warships, but the crew details and all the measurements at least give me something to brace my imagination against. Thank you!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I could give you my military advisor's email, if you want. He's great on boat stuff, and capable of telling a good website from a bad. And if you're ever in Mystic, Conneticut, or indeed anywhere near there, it's on the train from NYC to Boston, there's a museum there with a lot of useful stuff and people making replicas with authentic tools, from Viking ships to the replica of Cabot's Matthew to slave ships and China clippers.

Incidentally, Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander et seq as well as sailing ships, contains a no-nonsense English captain and his best friend, an Irish/Catalan Catholic doctor, who calls him "my dear". The prose is delightful, I'd recommend picking up a volume and reading a paragraph at random and, if you like it, reading the whole series in order. They are not the kind of thing I read at all, but I adore them.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I could give you my military advisor's email, if you want.

Thank you. The trouble is that I don't even really know what I need to ASK. I don't know enough. Abyssal ignorance is the hardest thing in the world to remedy.

I've been to Mystic, although I was a teenager and not paying proper attention. And I can add you to the list of people who recommend Patrick O'Brian.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Ah. If you don't know what to ask, I'd recommend hanging out on some sailing newsgroups and lurking, there's nothing better for getting the feel of things than overhearing people who know talking about them. I got a brilliant thing from a nautical newsgroup when I was writing my Pan novel, about fixing a penny to the mast.

I'm trying to think of ships I have been on and scale, but they're all in Europe -- you didn't go on any boats in Greece, any MV or smaller?

And if you're even in Portsmouth, Hampshire, the Victory herself is there, and you can walk around her. We've done this. I'd say she's about the size of a small elementary school, but with less headroom. But that emotional size.