Books on European ocean sailing 1450 to 1700

September 5, 2021 5:59 PM

I'd like to find reading material about the nuts and bolts of the daily operation of ocean-going European sailing ships from roughly 1450 to 1700. Books on this topic would be very welcome. What were the different jobs on board, what did an average sailor do all day, what provisions were stocked, what things most often went wrong?

I am specifically interested in the ships that travelled long distances across oceans rather than those that traveled shorter distances closer to shorelines. I know it's probably difficult to generalize throughout that whole geographic and temporal range, but I'm fine with either a broad-strokes overview or a deeper look at a specific type of ship from a certain place and time.

Emphasis on daily shipboard operations would be ideal.

posted by cubeb to Society & Culture (13 answers total)

Dutch East India Ships
posted by Oyéah at 7:03 PM on September 5, 2021

Captain James Cook Biography
posted by Oyéah at 7:06 PM on September 5, 2021

The best firsthand account I could find was this book: A Cruising Voyage Round the World

Captain Joseph Clapp of Nantucket wrote: Ocean life in the old sailing ship days, from forecastle to quarter-deck

Sailing Alone Around the World may also have more of what you are looking for.

Also: A narrative of four voyages to the South Sea, north and south Pacific Ocean, Chinese sea, Ethiopic and southern Atlantic Ocean, Indian and Antarctic Ocean : from the year 1822 to 1831 : comprising critical surveys of coasts and islands, with sailing directions : and an account of some new and valuable discoveries, including the Massacre Islands, where thirteen of the author's crew were massacred and eaten by cannibals : to which is prefixed a brief sketch of the author's early life
posted by metatuesday at 7:10 PM on September 5, 2021

I quite enjoyed Sailing School: Navigating Skill and Science by Margaret Schotte published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Not just about the science of navigation, but also how mostly European mariners figured out how to teach it rapidly and effectively to hundreds or thousands of sailors in just a few short decades, and how those instruction models and curriculums have effected almost every branch of applied sciences since then.
posted by seasparrow at 7:30 PM on September 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

If you want a deep-dive (sorry for the pun) archaeological perspective, then the two-volume Before the Mast: Life and Death Aboard the Mary Rose will suit, which you can pair with the one-volume but really big Your Noblest Shippe: Anatomy of a Tudor Warship about the ship itself.

I would be remiss not to reccomend a poke around the Vasa Museum website, but I don't have any particular book recs.
posted by Vortisaur at 11:47 PM on September 5, 2021

Mariner's Mirror, the journal of the Society of Nautical Research has 100 years of sea-borne material. They have podcasts now, including a 3-parter on a sea-battle in 1512. That's a bit tangential to your interests but MM may be a source to fish in.
I haven't read Mark Kulansky's Cod but I'm really enjoying his Salmon.
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:57 PM on September 5, 2021

I don't have reading material to suggest, but I wanted to add that there are a number of replicas of vessels from that period which have been built and sailed on ocean voyages, and thus quite a few people around who would have some insight from that experience.

I know someone who crossed the Atlantic on a caravel, and whilst they had modern equipment and provisions, he could tell you a lot about the day-to-day work of managing the sails and rigging.

I have a fair bit of experience on square riggers myself, but modern ships are rigged quite differently in many ways.
posted by automatronic at 2:33 AM on September 6, 2021

The Lloyds foundation is starting to digitize their archives. You can't get more nuts and bolts than that. The emphasis is where you'd expect to be, ship inspections, equipment, voyages, etc. The sort of stuff you'd expect an insurance syndicate to be interested in.
posted by rdr at 2:47 AM on September 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

There is info about navigation with an astrolabe on the internet including Wikipedia which should gave links to sources.

The Log of Christopher Columbus is interesting in it's own right and presents a voyage from the commander's point of view.

Sailing Ships by Colin Mudie describes issues confronted in designing and sailing replica ships.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:09 AM on September 6, 2021

To see sailing footage of a 18th century ship, go here. You may be able to find written accounts of the Mayflower II voyage. The ship just had a major refit, and news about that dominates the Google returns. The captain for the 1957 voyage was Alan Villiers who wrote a book called "The Way Of A Ship". It's the most detailed description of operating a square rigger that you are likely to find in public library, but it's focused on late 19th century vessels.

Sailors on both the Mayflower II and the Matthew replica (in the Colin Mudie book mentioned above) reporting finding utility in features of the rig that had seemed odd to them before the voyage.
posted by SemiSalt at 6:31 AM on September 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

Because of your interest in "the ships that travelled long distances across oceans rather than those that traveled shorter distances closer to shorelines" I would recommend Longitude by Dava Sobel. It explains what could go wrong on those voyages precisely because it was not possible to accurately determine a ship's longitude, and how dramatically ocean sailing changed once it became possible to do so. Goes into detail on the job of navigation before the 1700s.
posted by evilmomlady at 5:04 PM on September 6, 2021

I remember some very quotidian bits from proofreading Hakluyt’s Voyages for Project Gutenberg. Contemporaneous accounts, too, very valuable.
posted by clew at 6:24 PM on September 6, 2021

There is s video about dutch ships here. Some sources are mentioned.
posted by SemiSalt at 3:45 PM on September 8, 2021