NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Master & Commander
From: Trevor Kenchington
Date: 2003 Dec 10, 13:49 +0000
From: Trevor Kenchington
Date: 2003 Dec 10, 13:49 +0000
Fred wrote: > I believe > the Surprise, being an older ship, lacked flintlocks. Getting rather too far from navigation: The age of the ship and the age of her guns were not closely linked. When a ship was paid off and placed in Ordinary (i.e. as a hulk held in reserve), her guns would be sent ashore. When she fitted out again, the Ordnance Board would supply the required number of guns of appropriate sizes but only by chance would they be the same individual guns as those previously removed. Gun carriages were sometimes more specific to individual ships, in as much as their height had to match the height of the sills of the gunports, which were not as standard from ship to ship as they might have been. Trevor Kenchington -- Trevor J. Kenchington PhD Gadus@iStar.ca Gadus Associates, Office(902) 889-9250 R.R.#1, Musquodoboit Harbour, Fax (902) 889-9251 Nova Scotia B0J 2L0, CANADA Home (902) 889-3555 Science Serving the Fisheries http://home.istar.ca/~gadus