The captain's duties on a ship

I'm not sure if this can work. It is the Captain's job to give orders and it's his responsibility to make sure they are being carried out. If he realizes the crew doesn't like him, he either doesn't care, replaces them, disciplines them, or maybe even kills them. The last thing he wants is a mutiny. He can deal with not being liked, but without respect he doesn't have command of the ship. He will expect order, and if it doesn't get it he will crack some heads and make examples of a few men to get it. Weak Captains don't last, and it doesn't sound like he's a weak Captain. I hope that helps some.

Checking through the cargo manifests and the logs of previous voyages as if he suspects theft.

Queen of Swords said:

Hi everyone, another maritime question from me.

This is back in the Age of Sail. A cargo ship gets a new captain who doesn't have a good reputation - he's sort of a cross between Queeg and Jonah. None of the crew likes him, and he doesn't make any significant attempts to gain their trust either.

The rest of the crew has been together a long time so they work well together, and the ship itself does predictable runs (if there's a better word for this, please let me know) where they carry cargo on short voyages and stay close to the coast. So it's not exactly a challenge for anyone.

My question is... assuming the captain starts withdrawing from duties that keep him on the deck, like adjusting their course, what significant work could he do in his cabin? I want him to feel like an outcast among the crew, not really needed for their daily work, but at the same time I don't want him to be twiddling his thumbs. If this is at all possible - maybe I'm asking for contradictory things here. Could anyone let me know?

Thanks!

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If the captain has good officers, he doesn't really need to be doing much of anything. The sailing master can prick the chart and sail the ship; the officers and the boatswain etc can bark the orders.

I like Waylander's suggestion of going through the paperwork. Pursers and shipyards have always had a reputation for trickiness - there has always been a bit of money to be made cutting corners and pocketing the difference.

In a ship, the captain doesn't have to do anything at sea, because the first mate will know what to do at all times. The captain does have plenty of duties, it's just that none of them are such that the ship will be unable to operate without him. However, because the captain would normally spend plenty of time on deck and probably keeps a watch himself, his absence would add to the burden on the mate and any other watch-keeping officers, depending on the size of the vessel.

In his cabin, the captain can handle paperwork, but at sea there wouldn't be much of this, with more to do around ports, so really he would not be doing much of anything useful in there most of the time, and his absence would be obvious to everyone on board.

Since the captain probably isn't the owner, when they return to their home port he might get in trouble unless he is loved by the crew.

Telergic said:

In a ship, the captain doesn't have to do anything at sea, because the first mate will know what to do at all times. The captain does have plenty of duties, it's just that none of them are such that the ship will be unable to operate without him. However, because the captain would normally spend plenty of time on deck and probably keeps a watch himself, his absence would add to the burden on the mate and any other watch-keeping officers, depending on the size of the vessel.

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I beg to differ. Since you're talking Age of Sail, the only person onboard who can navigate the ship (i.e. do star sightings and the math needed to solve for position) are the captain and the navigator (who may be the sailing master). He is needed -- the ship won't operate without him.

There is a reason why Mr. Christian was recruited by the mutineers, aside from Captain Queeg he was the only person who could navigate.

Likewise, the captain does not stand a watch -- since he's on call 24/7 for navigation and emergencies.

Queen of Swords said:

Adds to the burden and isn't good for morale, I assume.

Bolding mine... that's the intention.

Thanks!



Great details. I like the part about checking the books and the paperwork, because while I don't want the captain to be involved in the day-to-day activities, he's not a total incompetent. Nor is he completely uncaring about what happens to the ship, so this is a good way of showing his ability while still keeping him away from the crew for the time being.

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If this is a merchant ship, then the captain may be acting as his own purser, in which case he's doing accounting work besides the navigation and keeping the ship's log and other official papers up-to-date.

Duncan J Macdonald said:

I beg to differ. Since you're talking Age of Sail, the only person onboard who can navigate the ship (i.e. do star sightings and the math needed to solve for position) are the captain and the navigator (who may be the sailing master). He is needed -- the ship won't operate without him.

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The captain ought to know where he is - you're not supposed to be able to pass for an officer without knowing how to navigate - but then if he has a sailing master and other officers, I don't think it's essential that he helps out. I bet we could find tales of captains dead drunk (or indeed just dead) for whole voyages...

Other posters mentioned going over the ship's logs and cargo manifests, and you could certainly add going over maps/navigation. IIRC, he'd have the maps in his cabin, and I'm sure he could spend time going over the route.

In real life, he probably wouldn't need to spend too much time studying the route, especially if it's a regular route that he's sailed before. (It would be more of an issue if he was going on a totally new/unexplored route.) BUT there's no reason he couldn't spend hours obsessing over the route. Money is a big motivator, as other posters have mentioned - perhaps he's constantly trying to find a way to make the route faster. Or perhaps he's looking at another map, looking at a route he wishes he could sail but hasn't been able to sail yet.

Duncan J Macdonald said:

I beg to differ....

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I disagree. In addition to the master, any officer should be able to navigate or they wouldn't be an officer. Of course in a small vessel there might not be a master, the first mate could conceivably be a dunce, and there might not be anyone else on board who can even read, but that's not a ship at all then. In an actual blue-water merchant ship, I think there would be a number of men aboard perfectly capable of navigating, and not by dead reckoning either.

The captain is capable of keeping the log in his cabin. That probably should have been mentioned as the one duty he really would be able to manage in isolation, but on the average day that's just a minute to note down position and so on. I think purser-type bookkeeping wouldn't arise much in the course of the voyage, mainly around the ports -- at sea it would just be a matter of keeping track of consumables, which should only take a few minutes a day. So for the most part I think the captain has almost nothing to do if he doesn't go on deck and keep a watch or at least stand there looking important.

There are a few possibilities. Some captains would stand a watch by the wheel, while a steersman did the actual turning. And any orders would be relayed through the officers. On a ship with a large crew the crew would never hear anything directly from the captain, and they would only rarely hear directly from the first mate. The second officer, master, and boatswain(s) would direct the seamen, but it would depend greatly on the size of the crew. a 100 ton bark could be sailed with a crew of five, so the captain would be involved. China Clippers required a much larger crews.

The suspended belief I have to have on this scenario involves your ship's purpose. The captain would not go on a long voyage on PRIVATE VESSEL unless he had a crew he trusted. That goes two ways when trust exists. For relatively short haul jumps in small ship cargo trade there wouldn't be a lot of time to alienate the crew. His cadre of trusted officers (probably a man or two and the first mate) would keep things under control during those short trips. The sailors would put up with him until they got to port even if they didn't like him, then jump ship. There were no democracies onboard, very little politics.

PorterStarrByrd said:

The suspended belief I have to have on this scenario involves your ship's purpose. The captain would not go on a long voyage on PRIVATE VESSEL unless he had a crew he trusted. That goes two ways when trust exists. For relatively short haul jumps in small ship cargo trade there wouldn't be a lot of time to alienate the crew. His cadre of trusted officers (probably a man or two and the first mate) would keep things under control during those short trips. The sailors would put up with him until they got to port even if they didn't like him, then jump ship. There were no democracies onboard, very little politics.

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Yeah, my knowledge of the Age of Sail comes mainly from Patrick O'Brian stories, but it seems like a Navy vessel could have an unpopular captain/officers foisted on them much more easily than a private vessel could. You have to persuade sailors to sign on with you in the latter case.

If the captain is really considered a jonah, ie a cursed figure who will lead the ship to doom, he's a dead man unless he has the officers on his side. It will turn out he took poorly and his body was consigned to the deep. Very tragic indeed. Not necessarily so bad for him if he's just morbidly depressed or paranoid and the crew is looking forward to being paid off at their final destination.

Number of officers is directly related to the size of the ship. Go to Mutiny on the Bounty and down to section 4.2 for the crew list for HMS Bounty, 90 tons.

I believe Bligh, Fryer, and Christian could all navigate. The midshipmen were in the process of learning to navigate. Fryer, Christian, and Elphinstone were the officers for each of the three watches. People with specialization were not on the regular watch list. Petty officers and warrant officers would work with the crew, but had some level of command authority.

The HMS Bounty was a military ship, and was heavily crewed compared to a merchantman of the same size.

Crew's discontent with a captain arose from two separate causes, although a captain might do both. The first is making sailors work outside of the normal conditions for sailors and the second was excessive punishments. Punishments would normally be handed out by watch officers trying to make the captain happy. Work conditions could be something like a captain making the crew tar the lines on the Sabbath. (The Sabbath was normally considered a light duty day, if possible.)

Captain's reputation isn't too important compared to what he actually does. And if the captain is staying in his cabin, I'm not sure how much the crew is going to care.

So let's set up a circumstance where the captain would be thoroughly loathed by the crew and officers.

Normally, a ship has three watches, with a sailor being assigned to one of the watches, and an officer responsible for the watch. The watches are normally middle watch (midnight to 4 AM), morning watch (4 AM to 8 AM), forenoon watch (8 AM to noon), afternoon watch (noon to 4 PM or 16:00), dog watch (may be split) (4 PM or 16:00 to 8 PM or 20:00), first watch (8 PM 16:00 to midnight or 24:00).

Most senior watch officer (first mate) will have the forenoon watch and dog watch. Second most senior watch officer (second mate) will have the forenoon watch and first watch. And last and least popular, the third mate will have the middle watch and afternoon watch. Basically, people worked 4 on and 8 off.

Way to make yourself very unpopular as a captain is to have the crew and officers working watch and watch or 4 on and 4 off. It's a brutal schedule.

Captains would frequently have some sort of incentive to sail, either getting a bonus or owning part of the cargo. If the ship sails lean on crew, the captain makes more money, with the crew not getting more money. Captain signs up the crew with a legally binding agreement. Jumping ship after you sign is a major crime. Captain decides to sail short-crewed and let everybody work harder while he stays in his cabin. Seriously disgruntled crew.

Captains spend a lot of time in their cabin. Captains need to be there for going in and out of port, setting overall course (taking advantage of wind and currents), authorizing sail changes, and checking the condition of the ship. If you want to as captain, you can do a lot of this from your cabin and delegate it to the watch officers. If your captain is on his last voyage, he could be checking the cargo and acting as purser and developing the plans for selling the cargo and reinvesting the profits for the return trip.

Working close to shore tends to increase the captain's responsibilities on deck. Captain is always going to feel an outcast from the crew. He's not involved that heavily in the day-to-day life of the crew, and has no social interaction with the crew and officers. He eats alone, he lives alone, he is alone. Only one on the ship who does this.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Someone remind me why shortest watch is called the dog-watch?

Best one I've heard for dog watch is that the star Sirius (the dog star) is the first star seen at night. Another is because it can be split is you only got a "dog's" sleep on it. A third is because dogs go to sleep about that time.

None of the tasks of the captain are things the crew is going to get stuck with. At most, it's going to hit one or two of the senior officers. And the crew don't give squat about an officer getting extra work. I mean, all officers are loafers as far as the crew is concerned.

The reason I suggested the watch and watch scheme is because it's not really malicious, just greedy.

If you've seen the CAINE MUTINY, then you know how little Queeg was on the bridge. With a small crew, a captain will probably be a watch officer (remember if you add another watch officer on a merchant ship, you're reducing your profit). But on a merchant ship, a captain doesn't have a whole lot to do. Unless the shit is hitting the fan, there isn't much ship handling he does. There can be a bunch of paperwork, but reality is most of that can be ignored. Many captains are great readers, going through a bunch of novels each voyage.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

jclarkdawe said:

Best one I've heard for dog watch is that the star Sirius (the dog star) is the first star seen at night. Another is because it can be split is you only got a "dog's" sleep on it. A third is because dogs go to sleep about that time.

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I'm afraid not. It is because it is cur-tailed. [(C) Stephen Maturin]