Manning The Mast

[Deadstick]

Doubt they would get away with this these days, unbelievable.

 

[JGalt]

They made the female DEI hire the top mast man.

 

[1srelluc]

Ah yes, the age of wooden ships and iron men.

Odd factoid:

Despite spending most of their life on the high seas, only a few sailors from this age (of sail) could swim. Few captains cared to teach swimming to their men, and the vast majority of sailors expected a quick death if falling into the sea, swimming would only serve to draw out their inevitable death if no help was forthcoming, as it often wasn't.

The chronicles of 16th century sea-life describe swimming and free-diving as valued skills because they were so rare — something true even in the heyday of the early nineteenth century.

The state of swimming skills remained woeful at least partly because it was believed that teaching one's (largely press-ganged or shanghaied, and much-brutalized) ratings to swim would only encourage them to literally jump ship and desert when close to shore.

 

[Deadstick]

They made the female DEI hire the top mast man.

They are called Button boys, that young lady was the first female she had guts.

 

[JGalt]

They are called Button boys, that young lady was the first female she had guts.

Any male could have scrambled up that like a monkey. They made her the top mast-monkey to prove she could do the job.

 

[whitehall]

British navy tradition. So what.

 

[whitehall]

Wasn't Daedalus the name of the Clint Eastwood "Space cowboys" mission? Count on the Brits to have strange names for ships. The one that stands out in my mind is the HMS Indefatigable. What the hell kind of name was that? Anyway it was sunk by Germans during WW1

 

[Deadstick]

Wasn't Daedalus the name of the Clint Eastwood "Space cowboys" mission? Count on the Brits to have strange names for ships. The one that stands out in my mind is the HMS Indefatigable. What the hell kind of name was that? Anyway it was sunk by Germans during WW1

It is what we call a Naval shore base but named after a old ship, in WW2 it was a fleet air arm establishment, we have several shore bases, when i was a Schoolboy i was in the Sea Cadet force for four years and we could go to these shore bases a sort of summer camp for two weeks, i visited three in my time with the Sea Cadets HMS excellent Portsmouth, HMS Raleigh Plymouth, but i visited that one in Winter, and HMS Ganges in Suffolk, many of these names go back a long way.