A few weeks ago, Mark and I went off to Boston for a fun vacation. We found cheap airline tickets, got a great hotel in the Theater District for cheap, and off we went.
On our first day there (October 21), we walked over the bridge into Charlestown to see the U.S.S. Constitution - the oldest undefeated commissioned warship afloat. We, by complete accident, visited her on her 212th Birthday. See, we'd missed the morning activities of them towing her out into the Harbor for a seventeen gun salute. Heck, we were so clueless that we didn't realize we were there on the day of her birthday (rather than just near it) until near the end of the tour.
She's not only the oldest warship in the United States Navy, but she's also the first. President George Washington commissioned her shortly after we declared independence from England. See, we'd been protected by the British Navy while we were one of their colonies, but once we declared independence, we no longer had naval protection. So, we set out to build a powerful navy.
You might also know her by her nickname - Old Ironsides. Although she is made of American Oak, the oak is so strong (and three layers thick) that it bounced most of the cannon balls off of it during her first battle with the British navy. During the battle, one of the British seamen exclaimed, "Huzah! Her sides are made of iron!" Hence, the nickname. Old Ironsides, and the crew, returned to Boston heros. And, thirty-two battles later, she's still undefeated. And afloat.
And, she may be old, but she's a beauty. Check her out -
Yessir, that there's a mighty purty frigate. Mighty purty.
Half of her masts and all of her rigging are down as they're rebuilding her deck. Again. The new deck they put on ten years ago is flat and holds the snow on in the Winter, causing damage. So, they're putting a curved one on.
Here's the ongoing construction on the deck and a lady that was on our tour. Hello lady:
Turning 180 degrees...
She has three decks. The second deck is where the guns and kitchen are located. They also located the daily rum and water rations on this deck. This deck is shorter, but still tall enough that the average sailor (average sailor height back then was 5'6") could stand up. I, however, had to stand in between the rafters.
This shows just some of her 44 guns. Each gun took approximately nine sailors to operate. Which means that the U.S.S. Constitution sailed with nearly 500 sailors aboard.
See the thick white rafters that go up the sides of the hull in between the guns and end about ten feet into the deck above? Both below decks have those. They're part of the support system that allows the frigate to be both be balanced and to hold these super heavy guns while not buckling the decks.
Turning around...
Our tour guide (the guy in all white with the blue scarf) is talking about the water and rum rations. The daily doses came from wooden containers like the one in front of him. Note his clothing. The pants were made of left over canvas from the sails. They usually used sails that were no longer usable as sails. The pants have a lot of pleating in the back, as the sailors had to bend over the rigging and needed gimme room so their pants wouldn't rip. The shirts were usually made of cotton or canvas. The scarf was actually not for show, but rather to protect their backs when they were up in the rigging. The scarves would block tar and grease from getting onto their clothing and was much easier to wash than their regular clothing. His uniform is what sailors would have worn when they were doing ceremonies or coming into their home port for a celebration. During normal operations, they would wear whatever clothes they brought on board with them. And, they'd have two hours one day a week to do the washing - meaning washing their clothes, themselves, and anything else they had that they wanted washed. They also had to use part of their water rations to do the washing.
Another important point is that our tour guides (we had one at each station) were not just tour guides. They're active duty service men and women that are stationed there. Remember, the U.S.S. Constitution is still a commissioned warship.
And lastly, we visited the third deck - the berthing deck. This deck was too short for even most of the sailors of the time. However, since it was a deck for sleeping, it didn't matter as much. The regular sailors slept in hammocks strung throughout the deck. They had three inches of "space" left in between the hammocks when they were all strung. Sailors would sleep in shifts, so there would usually be 250 sailors sleeping at one time. Can you imagine the smell?
As you can see, the same supports (in white) are down here as well. When sailors had done something exceptionally good, the captain would reward them by letting them move their hammocks to where they were in between the supports. In that location, they had an extra two inches of space in between the hammocks. Ooooooooohhhh... Of course, on a ship that had been sailing for months at at a time, a little extra space was a big deal.
The officers slept in berths like this -
As you can see, there isn't a lot of space, but it's a heck of a lot more than the enlisted men got!
And let's talk about food. Although the sailors did get three meals a day, they usually only got one hot meal - lunch. The rest were cold leftovers. And they had a huge variety in what they ate - heavily salted stew and hardtack. Every day. Yum. Since salting was the main preserving method of the day and they didn't have enough fresh water to soak the salt back out of the meat, they ate very salty meat.
Also, there were two cooks on board (yes for 500 men). One for the crew (hence the stews) and one for the captain. Let's just say, it was good to be the captain or an officer.
Prior to boarding, we went over to the museum. By the way, all of this exhibit is free to the public. They do have a suggested donation, which we did, and I recommend giving. The museum has a very cool kids' section upstairs that gives you hands on learning about how sailors lived during that time. Your kids can try out the hammocks and even walk amongst the rigging. And, like a Disney movie, it has plenty to keep the adults interested as well.
On the way to the museum, we passed the original dry dock -
They bring her in here, pump out the water, and she'll sit on the blocks below so they can clean the hull, repair it, paint it , and whatever else needs to be done. At one time, there were quite a few more of these in this area, as Boston was a huge shipping port. However, now only a few remain.
If I remember correctly, when they launched Old Ironsides, they took her out of this dry dock. It took several tries, and nearly a month, to launch her. She sunk down in the ways too much when they initially tried, so they had to excavate more before she could get into the harbor. Plus, they had to add a lot more men to the pulling ropes. The men lined the sides of the dock and literally pulled/pushed her into the harbor with well tied ropes.
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