A Sailor's Life Is The Life For Me

Do you have a specific era that you're hoping to "emulate"? I'm working on a privateer novel, so I've done my research on ships and piracy in the late 1600s - early 1700s, (replacing cannons with large ballista, so lots of ship boardings and such ala "The Black Swan" and "Captain Blood").

I found books like "Under a Black Flag" and "The Pirates Own Book: Authentic Narratives Of The Most Celebrated Sea Robbers" to be very useful to get a feel for life at sea. Also "The Taste of Conquest: The Rise and Fall of the Three Great Cities of Spice" and "The Scents of Eden: A Narrative of the Spice Trade" as well as "Salt" to be useful books discussing trade and commerce in the age of sail.

There are other books I could recommend if you could tell me what technology level and approximate culture you were setting your world in. Galleys? Junks? Outriggers? Longships?

We're beginning sailors, and my hubby's subscribed to half a dozen mags on the subject--it's a huge body of knowledge.

But for fiction, googling is your friend. I just looked up "sailing basics" and got

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~elfox/index.html

then looked up "fishing in the tropics history" (had to try a dozen different search-word combinations to hit on that one and did google advanced search to eliminate 'charter' and 'vacation') and got this:

http://tinyurl.com/lus9qw (a timeline with lots of articles)

and

This set of pictures that are quite helpful, if you're looking for descriptions of the boats and how people sit in and maneuver them:

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/vietnam-water/524

It takes a little work, but you can get most any info you need off the interwebs. And it's fun and interesting!

cat

Oh, and this place is better, imho:

http://www.ird.fr/peches-et-pecheurs-du-sud/index.php?langue=an&page=P2C4R10

Here ya go, 100's of articles on all sorts of aspects:

http://www.sailnet.com/forums/learning-sail-articles/


Google search is your friend, learn it, love it (even if google ads are the latest plague on mankind).

I'm wrapping up the second draft of a nautical fantasy of sorts. No pirates are involved. Two books I have found very helpful are "Ship" by Brian Lavery, I think, published by DK/Smithsonian. It's a massive pictorial history of boats all over the world. It's filled with goodness. Here in the states Borders Books is always selling it on deep clearance. And then "The Peking Battles Cape Horn", about life on board a tall ship (really big sailboat).

Wikipedia is also a great source for nautical info. Bookmark a good glossary of nautical terms that you can refer back to, otherwise it's nigh on impossible to understand WTF these books and articles are talking about.

Also, can you go to this place: http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/maritime/ ? It's a big maritime museum in Perth. It helps LOADS if you can see real ships and real artifacts and stuff. Also, the bookstore in the museum will be filled with books that you will have a hard time finding anywhere else. I visited the San Diego Maritime Museum this year, and it helped me a lot. I took detailed photos to help inspire me. (My Star of India pics here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2190667&id=218368&l=a403567140 and my HMS Surprise pics here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2190768&id=218368&l=c89937ca42 )

In order to read and fully appreciate Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, I picked up A Sea of Words. It's got just about everything you want to know about how sailing works and what everything aboard ship is called. It is likely FAR more detail than you're interested though. For my part, I got tired of hearing that the wind was 'abaft the beam, making for an easy journey' and having no idea what that meant or why the wind in such a state would make for an easy journey.

The best way I know of to sound like you know what you're talking about is to look at the appropriate era of your sailing technology and learn what types of ships were employed at that time. Galleons in the Age of Exploration, Frigates/Indiamen in the Age of Sail, etc... Then pick out a couple of appropriate ship types and use those.

In general, 'big ship' for the open oceans works fine. As does 'little ship/boat' for smaller vessels that work inshore or are not capable of sailing out of sight of land.

You also might want to look at the mechanics of sailing, with particular emphasis on points of sail. However, this can start to get reasonably technical. If the actual sailing isn't important then I would keep it simple: You can't sail straight into the wind, and, (for a tranditional square-rigged boat) you sail fastest when the wind is to your rear on your port or starboard quarter aka 'abaft the beam' (so that most of the sails on all three masts can be employed).

Kitty Pryde said:

(My Star of India pics here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2190667&id=218368&l=a403567140 and my HMS Surprise pics here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2190768&id=218368&l=c89937ca42 )

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Sooo pretty! I do love me some Age of Sail.

Two novels that I found very informative were "Sacred Hunger" by Barry Unsworth and (gulp) "Moby Dick" by Herman Melville. The first one is extremely interesting. So is the second (providing you can wade through it.)

The best sailed ship that was ever used was the "clipper" ship. Though it didn't come into play until I believe the late 1700s early 1800s... I'd have to google that for myself.. might have been mid 1800s..

Great speed, great utility.... IMHO highly recommended ship type if your looking for a specific ship type to write with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper

The last China clippers were acknowledged as the fastest sail vessels. When fully rigged and riding a tradewind, they had peak average speeds over 16 knots (30 km/h). The Great Tea Race of 1866 showcased their speed. China clippers are also the fastest commercial sailing vessels ever made. Their speeds have been exceeded many times by modern yachts, but never by a commercial sail vessel.

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