Kenchington

If this was only something O'Brien put in one of his books, I wouldn't give it ten seconds' consideration. As an artist weaving words, he did a great job of inserting technicalities to provide background colour ... except that he was so loose with the details that his works swiftly degenerate into being unreadable. However, the thread started with a quotation from the journal of Midshipman James Pity -- an eye witness who can be expected to have known what a "top" was. (I don't know whether he was quoted correctly but I assume so.) And I'd not suggest that anyone fitted hammock stanchions and nettings in a top. Those would be semi-permanent fixtures and, as such, would appear somewhere in contemporary models, artworks or the documentary record. My interpretation of the Midshipman's words (without seeing more of their context) is that this was an expedient used when clearing for action. Thus, the rolled, lashed hammocks would have been laid like sandbags around a foxhole (ashore, and a century or more later), though the men who fired from that cover would perhaps have called the arrangement a "barricado".

Coming late to this discussion, I'll offer a few generalities. First, what was done when preparing a ship for action and what artists showed (or even textbooks described) could be very different things. Faced with the reality of combat, men did (and do) what they must to achieve their ends. Second, attitudes change through time. The concept that causes lead to effects, which underlies so much of the thought of our own era, was not exactly a product of the Enlightenment but was much enhanced through that transformation. The consequences of that shift in thinking can be seen well enough in warship design: The elegant, sweeping rails and carved hances of 17th Century ships were replaced, circa 1800, by blocky, built-up bulwarks that effectively protected the gun crews on quarterdeck and fo'c'sle. Soon after, lovely but fragile sterns were replaced by Seppings' far more robust (but ugly) round sterns. In short: By the 1790s, men were thinking of what we would now regard as practicalities -- like providing protection for sharpshooters stationed in the tops. Then there was technological change: A battalion of Foot, armed with muskets, could do much harm to a line of enemy by volley firing (if they did not miss entirely, which too many did). But one musketeer firing at a single individual was almost certain to miss, unless at the closest range. By the 1790s, however, slower-firing but far more accurate rifles were available and it was possible to pick off individuals at a distance. (Think Nelson at Trafalgar.) That gave value to stationing sharpshooters in the tops but also made them vulnerable to counter-fire. Whether a rifleman or the gunnery officer of a Dreadnought, nothing disturbs a man's careful aim so much as being on the receiving end of someone else's projectiles, so there was good reason to provide protection for your own sharpshooters, sufficient that they could remain calm and confident. USN officers would have been well aware of that: Who, in their time, could forget Bunker Hill, where the doomed Redcoats had advanced over their own dead but been repeatedly beaten back by a bunch of civilian marksmen, firing from cover? Put all that together and, if a Midshipman who was there reported that hammocks were sent aloft to the tops, I would take him at his word. I see no reason to doubt that that was done, at least at that one time and on that one ship. Trevor

Sadly, no. My years down-under were half a lifetime ago. Now, I'm half a world away.

Ah! The d'Entrecastaux Channel ... Beat up the length of that in "Eye of the Wind", nearly 40 years ago now, and learnt that short-tacking a square rigger (even a very small square rigger) is hard work for a fo'c's'le hand! Happy memories of Adventure Bay, on the outer side of Bruny Island too. A couple of times, we lay in the lee of King Island, waiting for a break in the weather, then down the west coast of Tasmania (fishing for data) and nipped around South East Cape just ahead of the next storm. Around the Cape and into Adventure Bay, where Cook had lain two centuries before, seeking the same shelter we did. But he had come across the Indian Ocean in a sailing vessel. We had only rounded Tasmania in a big steel research trawler, with its diesel thundering under our feet! Trevor

Thanks for the invitation! I had heard of the Guild and maybe I'll stop by for one of your meetings, though I avoid the city as much as I can. Trevor

Thank you, gentlemen, for your welcomes! It's really great to find such a supportive community.

I signed up for MSW a few years ago, hoping to look and learn, but other commitments got in the way. Truth to tell, I don't think I have had the patience for ship modelling through the last half-century, but age has its effects and I'm slowing down now. I've also had more success than I expected with woodwork projects during a refit of my small (but full-scale) boat. So I've decided to embark on the Model Shipways trio: dory, pram and sloop. I'll see how far I get. By way of introduction: I'm a marine biologist by education, a fisheries scientist by occupation and a sailor by inclination. However, I have published a few research papers in nautical archaeology and maritime history. (I see that one of my earlier contributions was chewed over some years back, here on MSW.) My interest is in ships (and smaller water craft), with models being one way to approach their prototypes, rather than an end in themselves. Looking forward to leaning from everyone on MSW, as my attempt at a miniature dory proceeds ... Trevor