Sailors were on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Several levels of officer oversaw the functions on board. Among the more specialized members of the crew were the gunners, who managed the cannons, grenades, and other projectiles on board. More educated sailors learned to use charts and attended schools in which they could learn to be ship’s pilots. Upon completion of their apprenticeship, at about twenty years of age, they were awarded documents of certification as sailors.Īmong the sailor’s tasks included handling the helm, handling the sounding line, which determined water’s depth and thereby the safety of the ship, and handling the rigging of the ship. Apprentices were to be trained to become sailors on board their ships, but often were treated as scapegoats by the sailors and officers on board. The majority of pages, however, were at the beck and call of any and all of the ship’s crew, and were responsible for the most menial of tasks. Such pages could be groomed for apprenticeships as they worked for their masters. Some pages served only one master on board, who was generally a person who had a relationship with the page’s family or guardians. They could remain in these positions throughout their adolescence. Pages were young children, assigned to the work at eight to ten years of age.
Many illnesses were the results of overuse of alcohol products or were the effects of wounds from battles at sea.Īmong the rank and file of the ships were three levels of personnel, including pages, apprentices and sailors. Diets consisting of broths, chicken and white biscuits were provided to assist in the recovery of health, and frequently were more therapeutic than was the work of the barber/physician. Barbers often were used as lay doctors, and some were trained to bleed the sick crew members, which was associated with many deaths. When sailors fell ill, there were no physicians on board any but the ships of the commanders of the fleet. Officers, of course, were provided a more interesting and varied diet.Ĭlothing of the rank and file sailors was quite limited, and often included only two shirts and two pairs of trousers, a long and a short jacket, one pair of shoes, and a sea cape (Perez-Mallaina, p. Violence between personnel could occur regarding the provisions available. Sailors also harvested fish from the ocean for their meals. Sailors were provided three meals per day, apportioned from these provisions, and meals were often more available to the sailors on board ships than they had been when the men lived on dry land (Perez-Mallaina, p. “On the armada of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in 1568”, the menu included the following for each of the rank and file sailors: One and one half pounds of biscuit, one liter of wine, one liter of water, horse beans, chick peas, rice, oil, salt meat or pork and/or cheese. One-third of the crew was on watch throughout the night, which did allow some increase in the space available, but the sleeping crew could easily be forced to move when sails were rearranged or for other adjustments on board. Sleeping was most often accomplished on mats provided by the sailors themselves on any available space on the top deck that they could find. Sailors lived in close quarters and found that areas below decks were inappropriate for most human habitation.
Galleons were used for exploration as well as for commerce and warfare. Galleons were the longest and most streamlined of the ships, and typically carried a decorated balcony, and larger amounts of sail than the earlier ships. Caravels, on the other hand, were lighter ships with shallower draughts, and were considered the fastest of the large sailing vessels of the era. Naos had great capacity for storing cargo, and were used both as flagships and storage ships. LIFE ON BOARD A SIXTEENTH CENTURY SPANISH SHIPĪmong the ships used by the Spanish explorers in the 16th Century were the Carracks, known in Spain as “naos”, the Caravels, and the Galleons, which were off-springs of the earlier naos and caravels.
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