Aaron Sanderson wrote:

> >I suppose you might also have to consider the time of hiring and possibly
> >training a crew....
> >
> >Gary
> >
> Besides the officers and a couple of others the rest of the crew could
> just be raw recruits. You don't have to know much to work on a boat as
> long as there are people who do have the knowledge. Once you learn a
> couple of terms and how to tie 5 or 6 knots you could serve on a ship of
> that time. Up to the mid-ninteenth century most sailors probibly didn't
> know much at all when they were first 'hired'.
> AmS.

This is very true, though I think we both know why you put "hired" in quotes
there, huh? Naval "recruitment" policies have historically been rather...
well, let's just say "demanding" shall we? :-)

Assuming that this is not the case in a fantasy setting for nations of good
alignment, it might be a tad more difficult to convince potential sailors to
hire on than filling them full of rum, sapping them over the head and piling
them onto the ship shortly before setting sail.... It could take a while to
actually get people to volunteer for this kind of duty, if one cannot use more
persuasive methods.

As for training, your absolutely right. The only really well trained people on
a ship were probably the officers and the training that they got I would
imagine was mostly of the "hands-on" type. That is, they learned most of their
skills on the job, so they probably wouldn't require much training time as part
of the process of putting a crew together. Certainly notable exceptions in
history exist, but nations that had extensive nautical traditions would
probably better be translated into BR terms as having some sort of naval
college, which would not really effect the "mustering" process of buying a
ship.

The elementary training that sailors had to have might take a couple weeks to
accomplish if they were shanghaied. Knots and vocabulary are pretty simple
(though I don't think I ever managed to earn that knot tying merit badge
myself) but it could take a few weeks before raw recruits could operate well
enough as a team for a crew to actually function on a level that most people
would consider acceptable for a fighting ship.

Gary