Hammock Storage

[The Bitter End]

Hello to everyone interested in a most obscure of nautical questions.

 

I am busy building the USS constitution, and this has lead me into some fairly interesting reading and discussions(particularly with @Marcus.K. who suggested I ask for input from the forum)In this process I found an extract from the diary of Midshipman James Pity where he makes the following statement:

 

31 Aug 1798 - "Beat to Quarters and Stow'd our hammocks in the Nettings and in the Tops and fill'd our Lockers with Shot..."

 

Is this gentleman telling us that they stowed hammocks in the fighting tops? I don't think it's the most outrageous Idea, hauling things into the tops would have been pretty standard behaviour and there is the advantage of potentially providing cover for the marines stationed in these tops, but I cannot find any other references to this being done or any evidence for stowing locations. Does anyone here have and info on this or evidence to support the idea. Alternatively, is there another explanation for what our friend here meant by "tops"?

 

Thanks!

 

Haiko

Edited Saturday at 10:09 AM by The Bitter End

[Thukydides]

I have never heard of this before though as you say it does sound plausible. I have recently been on a kick looking through contemporary marine paintings and I have vague memories of one painting I looked at having something odd about the fighting tops that stood out to me. I will try to go back through and see if I can find it again.

 

Not really a help with this per say, but if you search 'bray album' at the RMG collections website there are a number of drawings of sailors carrying/stowing their hammocks which might be of some help is making them for your model.

Edited Saturday at 12:56 PM by Thukydides

[The Bitter End]

Hi there

 

Thank you for your response. This is a great suggestion and I think I may have found something which looks like it could potentially be what I was looking for.

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Thomas_Whitcombe_-_HMS_Crescent%2C_under_the_command_of_Captain_James_Saumarez%2C_capturing_the_French_frigate_Réunion_off_Cherbourg%2C_20_October_1793_CSK_2017.jpg

 

Please let me know if you find anything else which might contribute.

 

TBE

[Marcus.K.]

Ah - you mean those things?

These are just rails for the fighting top - here "closed" with canvas.

 

Although possible I do not think that those show evidence for having hammocks up there..

This one is done by @dafi - without the netting or canvas - but clearly a simple rail.

The rails usualy war just simple rails - no hammock stachions.

 

Or does anyone see any other evidence for hammocks in fighting tops? Or ... any other explanation for the word "tops" combined with storing hammocks in Old Ironsides?

[The Bitter End]

36 minutes ago, Marcus.K. said:

These are just rails for the fighting top - here "closed" with canvas.

 

Although possible I do not think that those show evidence for having hammocks up there..

This one is done by @dafi - without the netting or canvas - but clearly a simple rail.

Hi Marcus

 

I guess you are right on this. I am familiar with the rails, I had just not seen them covered with canvas before and I assumed that was just the same kind of canvas we would have seen in a deck level hammock crane. I guess I need to do some more digging.

 

Cheers

 

Haiko

[Thukydides]

33 minutes ago, The Bitter End said:

I assumed that was just the same kind of canvas we would have seen in a deck level hammock crane. I guess I need to do some more digging.

I am pretty sure I many cases it was canvas or potentially filled in with wood. There are lots of examples where they are painted red. So likely not hammocks. The example I saw which made me think had things attached around the other sides, not just the one you usually see the railing on.

[Gaffrig]

Could tops just mean topsides? Meaning the rails? 
Just a thought.

 

Gaffrig.

[Jim Lad]

Haiko, not my area of expertise, but if a professional seaman who was an eyewitness makes a statement about an action on the ship, then it deserves serious consideration. A little more digging might be required here.

 

John

[The Bitter End]

2 hours ago, Gaffrig said:

Could tops just mean topsides? Meaning the rails? 
Just a thought.

 

Gaffrig.

Hi Gaffrig

 

I thought this might be the case too so I looked at a nautical glossary from the period and I could find no other definition besides the standard fighting tops. I also think it would be an unusual turn of phrase because he says in the netting and the tops. I think the netting would be a reference to the netting on the rails? This is all speculation and you might be right that it was infact a reference to the tops of the stern bulwarks and the netting was a reference to the netting in the waist?

 

A mystery indeed!

 

Haiko

[The Bitter End]

 

3 hours ago, Thukydides said:

I am pretty sure I many cases it was canvas or potentially filled in with wood. There are lots of examples where they are painted red. So likely not hammocks. The example I saw which made me think had things attached around the other sides, not just the one you usually see the railing on.

I noticed the same red structures in many of the paintings I looked at. That in itself is a little unusual, and I would love to know the origin of that colour choice. I really hope you find the painting you were looking for. It also occurs to me that these artists would very rarely, if ever, see ships in actual battle. These paintings would have been based on what would have been seen when the ships were in port or at anchor. That may explain the absence of a feature which is only mentioned in the context of beating to quarters.

 

Haiko

[BANYAN]

Hi all, I have heard of this practice before, but I am unable to recall where I have read it.  It may have been in in a fictional novel, but I think that it was in a text/manual, so will take a look when next I get an opportunity.

 

From what I recall, this was to provide a modicum of protection to the marksmen in the tops.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[The Bitter End]

4 hours ago, BANYAN said:

Hi all, I have heard of this practice before, but I am unable to recall where I have read it.  It may have been in in a fictional novel, but I think that it was in a text/manual, so will take a look when next I get an opportunity.

 

From what I recall, this was to provide a modicum of protection to the marksmen in the tops.

 

cheers

 

Pat

I really hope you can recall the source. To me it really made a decent amount of sense. If I had the option available I would certainly want to make use of it. If it's good enough for the boys on decks it would be good enough for me. 

 

Haiko 

[dafi]

Hy all,

 

I am quite sure that in the picture shown above those were simple cloth - or hammocks - but no hammock stanchions or solid builds for many reasons.

 

First the picture from my Constitution fighting top in #4 is taken out of context, as this was a mere test shot for the proportions of the small howitzers placed up there during engagements. There is still missing the usually placed netting on the wooden rail, that served for safety reasons.

 

The cloth on the rails are seen often and served for several reasons:

Originally I know them as fighting cloth already from the times of the galleons and they served as view protecion for the crew while engagements on decks and atop. Often seen on Van der Velde. Those develloped very fast to be a colorful assets and in the 17 hundrets it was a most colorful decorative element to make ship look great as seen on many paintings. Also the same colored cloth was used for the handrails and bulkwards along the ship´s sides and in the tops. Sadely those elements were often taken out from historical models during restauration and I know of three that suffered that fate.

 

Later appearing were those simple white cloth - sail cloth or hammocks - in case of engagement as view protection to hide the situation onboard or atop and the whereabouts of the fighting measures. Also on Trafalgar it was mentioned that wet white cloth was used covering the hammocks on Victory.

 

I doubt that it was a permanent fixture especially in the tops as this would add unwanted surface for wind pressure and quite sure no fixed bulkwark for the same reasons plus the extra weight. The same goes for the hammock cranes.

 

For the quote in #1 with the hammocks in the tops I give you another guess:

In many pictures of engagements I saw the deadeyes and lanyards wrapped in cloth to protect them. So my guess is that the hammocks could have been used for that reason in the tops. 🙂

 

XXXDAn

 

PS: Some fast found samples 🙂

 

 

Edited 17 hours ago by dafi

[BANYAN]

21 hours ago, The Bitter End said:

I really hope you can recall the source. To me it really made a decent amount of sense.

Hi again Haiko, I don't think the following is where I read this, so will keep looking on an opportunity basis.

 

Falconer page 136 under his long description about 'Engagement" (in the New Universal Dictionary of the Marine - 1856 Edition) offers the following at the order "Up all hammocks" - this is a short excerpt only - As each side of the quarter-deck and poop is furnished, generally, with a double net-work, supported by iron cranes fixed immediately above the gunwale, or top of the ship's side, the hammocks, thus corded, are firmly stowed by the quarter-masters between the two parts of the netting, so as to form an excellent barrier.  The tops, waist and the forecastle are then fenced in the same manner."

 

Unfortunately, I think the use of 'tops' in this instance may refer to the 'part of ship' but I am not fully convinced of this.  In my Navy days, we stilled called the central part of the ship the 'tops'.  It may be that the reference you found could be referring to the same thing?  However, most literature and texts that I have read refer to the central part of the ship as the 'waist'. We may need further input on this.

 

As I said, this is probably not the article I had read previously.  My recall was that the hammocks were deliberately placed in the 'fighting tops' to protect the marksmen.  As most of the marksmen were probably drawn from the Marines, it is possible that it was their hammocks that were used?

 

I'll keep looking.

 

cheers

 

Pat

Edited 11 hours ago by BANYAN