Pictorial Supplement 13

Life Between Decks Under Sail

Numerous nautical writings including the works of Melville, Conrad, Marryat, Dana, and others have painted vivid word pictures of life at sea under sail. Marine artists and early photographers did much to document the actual ships, yet one subject unfortunately not recorded.with equal care either for reasons of artistic indifference or because film sensitivity too long remained too slow to capture images beyond the reach of the sun's rays was life below decks. The following plates from paintings, prints, woodcuts, and actual photographs, dating primarily from the nineteenth century or the early decades of the twentieth, have been assembled here to give a pictorial impression of contemporary life between decks under sail. The scenes include conditions aboard naval vessels, emigrant ships, packets and merchantmen, and fishermen and whalers.

Sailors carousing aboard H.M.S. Hermes
Courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Salem