Researching old sailing ships

[GamePhil]

I am doing some basic research on sailing ships of the Renaissance Period and before. I am looking for deck plans, construction details and crew compliments. Also for some sailing terminology used on bigger ships of the time. Any ideas of good books or sites?

 

Or movies, for that matter. The game will not be remotely realistic.

[Yamato]

Re: Researching old sailing ships

 

If you can find it, FGU out out a supplement for the Chivalry & Sorcery system (1st ed) that included historical information on ships form Egyptian times up to the late Rennaisance. It included deck plans usable for 25mm miniatures & gave game stats for use in C&S for them, as well as their actual stats. I used to have a set but they disappeared a number of years ago along with a large amount of my old C&S stuff. You also might want to try the Osprey "Men-At-Arms" series to see if they have done anything on sailing vessels of various periods. If they have, it's probably spread over several differnt books. Hope this helps.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Researching old sailing ships

 

The period is wrong (early 1800s), but Patrick O'Brian has an excellent series of books centering on sailing vessels (the central characters are Aubrey & Maturin) which provide a lot of detail about life on a boat, naval terminology, and combat at sea, much of which will be applicable to any time before engine powered vessels. The movie Master and Commander with Russel Crowe was based on O'Brian's books, although the books have a lot more detail in them.

 

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Water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink

Water water everywhere and all the boards did shrink.

[GamePhil]

Re: Researching old sailing ships

 

I really shouldn't stress Renaissance too much, any era will do for the shipboard part of life as long as there is sailing and relatively large ships. And cannon, there really must be cannon.

[Cancer]

Re: Researching old sailing ships

 

Galleys and Galleons by John Guilmartin is a very good source (no deck plans, but lots of other technical details) about galley combat in the 1500s, including the evolution of galley-carried artillery. Richly illustrated, spiffy details on armament of ships of that era. His other book, Gunpowder and Galleys, talks about the development of the broadside-firing ship in terms of tactics and history, but it's less useful in terms of gaming source material.