Sea-voyage stories set in the Age of Exploration are steeped in romance. Sailors were confronted with tantalizing possibilities. Some went in search of treasure, others had more planetary ambitions like establishing new trade routes or finding yet uncharted continents.
On the limitless waters were played out all the emotions: endless courage and endless honour and endless treason and endless cowardice.
European sailors of the XV-XVIII centuries rushed in all directions, and for most of them, a harsh test had to be endured. Real life on small vessels that sailed for weeks at a time was a far cry from the culturally ingrained image.
Listen to the heavens, There was little space for romance but a lot of danger and hardship. Let’s at least partially attempt to recreate the atmosphere that existed on an everyday sailing ship which slowly drifted on top of the waves toward the unknown.
A long journey without GPS
In 1492, after 36 days at sea, Christopher Columbus spotted land. This covered over 6,000 kilometers’ end, though the best shock was however to return.
The great navigator knew for sure that he had arrived in India, but in fact the Bahamas had spread out in front of him. In fact, this is the origin of the common name of all Native Americans and of the islanders as well. By the mistake of geography, they became Indians.
But Columbus was exceptionally lucky: he accidentally stumbled upon the New World, with no world map or GPS navigator.
Most navigators never returned, disappearing without a trace in the world’s oceans. Some of them might have made a great discovery, reaching the shores of South America, Australia or Antarctica before anyone else. Except that no one knew about it, so it was not worth going back.
The sailor’s plague
One must eat fruits and vegetables, however occasionally. This is not a problem in normal life, but the isolation with a small ship turns this into a luxury.
You need to carry fresh water, cannons and other weapons (maybe some gifts, probably some slaves), there is never enough room in the hold. Eateries only what can be preserved long, that is salted meat and flour.
Scurvy killed many people because medicine was still in its early days. Vasco da Gama, for instance, lost over 100 out of 160 of his expedition members en route to India.
Between 1600 and 1800 at least one million sailors died of scurvy on ships on long voyages, according to researchers. In first time British Navy introduced to compulsory fruit supply. Sailors were given lime, a rich source of vitamin C.
The main threat is the weather
Seasickness in itself is not a joyful thing, but try doing a heavy physical work when you feel ill. No days off or holidays. That is not the main issue, however. Sailing ships were horribly defenseless in the face of violent storms or debilitating doldrums.
Weather conditions often determined the success of an expedition. You cannot maintain warmth on a ship and you cannot shield from the scorching sun. A freak storm might send the ship veering off course or crashing into the reefs.
It is still a ship graveyard in the Caribbean waters. Thousands, if not tens of thousands, of ships sit on the bottom off the coast of Cuba and Haiti, in the Gulf of Mexico and off Florida.
Such a wreck nearly always spelled the crew’s death and loss of all cargo. This route carried ships full of gold from the New World to Spain. But we’re talking about many tonnes of jewels still at the bottom of the deep.
Coexisting with Rats
Eventually, every ship has to reach a port. There, the provisions are restocked, or the plunder is unloaded. They have also taken over the ship, becoming a major issue that can sabotage the crew and collapse an expedition alongside the food. They breed quickly in the hold, begin searching for food and can chew through the food supply. Real starvation will ensue on the ship. Likely, if there’s a port within range you’ll be lucky — but what if it a couple of weeks out?
Rats also spread numerous diseases, such as bubonic plague, typhus and spotted fever. The sailors lived in tight quarters, so there was no way to avoid contact with the rats; this meant that epidemics and localized apocalypses would happen on a single ship or expedition.
So people turned to an ancient and tried-and-true way of getting rid of rodents: Cats would be brought aboard, and they would have to be fed even if no rats were seen, but that was a minor expense for relative peace of mind.
Severe Punishments
Life in dank and cramped quarters, long hours of arduous toil, and scant rations was tempered by harsh punishments for infractions or disobedience. Iron discipline is required on a sailing ship that must sail for many days. It is the lifesaving essence of the crew’s success to survive.
It is the only one that must use inhumane methods. Merchant ships faced the heaviest penalties. The most prevalent was the “kissing the gunner’s daughter. A man was bound to a cannon that had been heated by the sun and flogged with a whip. Then they could deny him the hot sun. The outcomes of the miserable man’s life was fully at the mercy of the captain, whether this captain would show mercy and tell the sailor to be untied, or that the captain would “educate” the other sailors a bit, teach them the lesson of intimidation.
Those convicted of conspiring to plan and execute a mutiny were hanged from the masts. Execution by dragging under the keel is also sometimes employed. The condemned was dropped headfirst into the water and towed with ropes to the other side of the vessel.
Typically, that would kill them, although there was a chance they’d survive. But even if a sailor was not drowned, he was cut by shells, growing on the bottom, and could die from loss of blood.
Unwilling travelers
You can now piece together an average of life on a sailing ship and what life would have been like for the unwilling slaves who were laid in the ships holds. They were worth less already, in disproportionate terms to the worst sailor they were worth less than the worst sailor, because they were already commodities (even though their lives had their value, it was a value where it was determined they were not worth it as a product).
The voyage from the Slave Coast in Africa to North America took approximately two months. The enslaved men were chained during that period of time, never coming up from the holds to the top.
No captain meant for his “cargo” to starve, but neither was he going to throw in any more than strictly necessary. Little food, no water, oppressive heat, and relentless cramping quickly left the unwilling travelers completely fatigued.
Not everyone made it to a new shore; their corpses were often unceremoniously discarded into the sea as bad merchandise. Between the 16th and 17th centuries alone, 11 million Africans were enslaved. It was largely by the hand of these men that European colonies took root in North America.
