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Life at Sea:
Food, Leisure, and Communication at Sea |
Food
Food aboard sailing ships was not like ours today. There was no refrigeration, so meat was preserved by salting or canning. Bread was often a very hard cracker called hard tack. On American ships in the late nineteenth century, the government required that all seamen receive minimum daily provisions, including one pound of bread, one and a half pounds of beef or one and a quarter pounds of pork, an additional half pound of flour three times a week or a third of a pint of peas three times a week, one third of an ounce of tea, a half ounce of coffee, two ounces of sugar, and three quarts of water. Water was a concern; it could become rancid after sitting in casks for months. Provisions on American ships were much better than on British vessels.
A good cook could make palatable meals from this food, but there wasn’t a lot of variation over a long voyage. Seamen could tell the day of the week by the dinner. Fresh vegetables and fruits purchased at the beginning of the voyage had to be used in the first couple of weeks. Some ships carried chickens for eggs and an occasional fresh poultry dinner for the captain’s table. A pig might be killed for fresh pork, and some ships had a goat aboard to provide milk. On Sundays and perhaps one other day during the week the cook made special sweets, such as plum or dried apple duff. Much of the time, though, the crew’s food was limited to salt beef or pork, hard tack, dried peas, and bread made from sometimes weevily flour.
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The captain’s table, which included the captain, his wife and family, the mates, and any passengers, typically received more and better quality food than did the crew, although it was often the same basic menu.
To make hardtack:
Combine 3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a bowl. Add cold water a spoonful at a time. When it sticks together, knead into a ball of dough. Let set for about 30 minutes. Roll out 3/4 inches thick. Place on baking sheet and score in wedges. Bake at 420 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool and allow to harden.
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Leisure Time
Seamen commonly had some leisure time during the dogwatch and on Sundays. They could wash their clothes and themselves, repair clothing, write in their journals, read, smoke, play an instrument, sing, do some wood carving or fancy rope work, or tell stories. The [American Seamen’s Friend Society] loaned boxes of books to ships.
The seamen’s leisure time songs were known as forecastle songs or forebitters. Instead of shanties, they were popular ballads of the sea or shore. A seaman might pull out an accordion or fiddle to accompany the songs. The captain of a good ship might stock musical instruments in the ship’s store, called the slop chest, so the crew could purchase and use them aboard ship.
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Communication at Sea
Before the days of radio, captains used code flags to send messages from one ship to another. After 1857, the Commercial Flag Code (later to become the International Flag Code) standardized signal flag communication. Governments began issuing official numbers along with flag codes for each ship, with the US starting in 1868.
Sometimes two ships from Penobscot Bay would recognize each other, come closer, and communicate, first with flags, then with a speaking tube. If the weather was fair, the ships might have a gam, an opportunity for the captains—and perhaps their wives—to meet and exchange mail or food.
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