Boat Layouts

[SamL]

Hey! I'm about to run a boat-based drop-in 5thed D&D campaign (think Odyssey/Jason and the Argonauts meets Star Trek) and I was wondering if anyone could point me towards any links to real-world ship deck layouts, maybe from the renaissance era(?), so I can give my players a good idea of the space they'll be living on. Thanks!

[Marlowe]

Most deckplans I can find are from RPGs and I wouldn't rely on them, but here's a cutaway:


This is a ship from a couple of hundred years later:

[SamL]

Thanks! This is perfect!

[KarlMarx]

Google things like Santa Maria or "Swedish Ship Vasa" + Deck layout and you'll get a good idea. The trick is knowing the names of famous ships of the period.

Various types of oceangoing ships at the time might include:

Carvels

Caravels

Carracks

Holks

Cogs

Great Carracks

Galleons

Galeasses

Pinnaces

Barques/Barks

[JamesVail]

Ships will also be fitted differently based on their use. Merchant ships would typically have more space allocated for storage, military would have space allocated for cannons and bunks.

[KarlMarx]

But in the Renaissance era, this generally wouldn't involve fundamentally different ships. Navies would still augment their fleets with merchant ships that they gave temporary commissions or Letters of Marque to. The Dutch became the foremost naval power in the world in large part because of the Fluyt, a vessel with powerful capabilities as both a merchantman and ship-of war. The Spanish let their treasure fleets sail with no escort because the galleon was so heavily armored. Even as late as the 1700s, vessels of the East India Company could play a major role in battle simply by taking advantage of the fact that their lines were similar to those of battleships.

It's only in the steam era, when ships needed to be much larger to efficiently transport goods for the volume of coal consumed, that you see a fundamental distinction emerge between a navy and a merchant marine.

[hamishspence]

But in the Renaissance era, this generally wouldn't involve fundamentally different ships. Navies would still augment their fleets with merchant ships that they gave temporary commissions or Letters of Marque to. The Dutch became the foremost naval power in the world in large part because of the Fluyt, a vessel with powerful capabilities as both a merchantman and ship-of war.

While fluyts could be converted to carry armament, it wasn't designed to be capable of conversion, unlike previous designs - so armed fluyts were very much auxiliaries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluyt

[KarlMarx]

While fluyts could be converted to carry armament, it wasn't designed to be capable of conversion, unlike previous designs - so armed fluyts were very much auxiliaries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluyt

Whelp, looks like I've officially been playing too much ETW.

But still, the fluyt does provide a military advantage in that it can be manned by minimal crews, which means more men for the fighting navy.

[hamishspence]

It does typify specialism, at least. Maybe it can be the "dedicated cargo ship" and something else can be the "dedicated warship" which is terrible at Carrying Cargo but brilliant in battle.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Layout wise in general the important people go on top. As you see in the movies, the captain and/or the officers often bunk below the raised rear deck. This would also be a good place for any stuff the sailors whould not have free access to, like the booze and the weapons. Below the regular deck you'll usually find any off duty sailors, as well as what passes for their sleeping quarters. Any soldiers the ships is carrying will be stuffed further into the hold than that. They're expected to stay out of the way and act like cargo for most of the time. Any slaves and actual cargo are below that, and merchant ships at least often chose to carry some particularly heavy cargo, like some stone statues or a load of iron or such, to acts as ballast down in the keel. Ships that have guns have between 1 and 3 gun decks, with 3 typically being reserved for the real juggernauts, the heavy ships of the line of fleets like the Spanish and the British navy. (The Dutch typically stuck to two or two and a half gun decks, judging the heavier 3 deck layout as sitting too deep in the water for the shallower waters of the "Zuiderzee", the Westerschelde and other places they needed to be able to go. I could imagine fleets build for navigating the straights of the Baltic Sea and such to go for similar slightly lighter and more agile designs.) The gun decks often overlap with the crew and soldiers quarters.

So a medium warship might look like this from bottom to top:
1 cargo deck (Water, food including salted meat and fish, maybe a few live animals on long journeys, materials for repairs).
2 marines/soldiers and unimportant passenger at the front and back end, sailors in the middle, anything that didn't fit on either the deck above or below it, guns throughout.
3 sailors, sailing gear, guns throughout.
4 deck, officers, weapon lockers, booze, important passengers.
5 raised rear deck, steering wheel, rear mast goes through the raised section or sits just in front of it.

[Lord Torath]

Also remember, the wind blows from the stern. Officers get quarters at the rear of the ship, where the air smells the best. The toilet is located near the bow, or the head of the ship, where the wind will generally blow the stench away from the rest of the ship (hence the name "head" for the bathroom on a ship).

The 2E AD&D book Of Ships and the Sea may be helpful. It had several deck plans, if I recall.

[VoxRationis]

Google things like Santa Maria or "Swedish Ship Vasa" + Deck layout and you'll get a good idea. The trick is knowing the names of famous ships of the period.

Note: do not use the actual plans of the Vasa, or the voyage will be spectacularly short.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

P.S. They're ships, not boats. A boat is that thing on deck for trips to shore and for when you're sinking.

Oh, and a fun fact. Ever wondered how a sailing ship with no engine and no oars safely gets into and out of a harbor? They use the anchors. They take a sloop or boat and drop an anchor where they want to go, they reel the ship in place, and from there on the sloop or boat takes a second anchor to waypoint b, they raise the first anchor etc.

I had never heard that reason why the toilet is the head by the way, that's great flavor.

[Marlowe]

Also remember, the wind blows from the stern. Officers get quarters at the rear of the ship, where the air smells the best. The toilet is located near the bow, or the head of the ship, where the wind will generally blow the stench away from the rest of the ship (hence the name "head" for the bathroom on a ship).

The 2E AD&D book Of Ships and the Sea may be helpful. It had several deck plans, if I recall.

The wind doesn't always blow from the stern. Tacking is a thing.

The officer's cabins are at the stern so they're close to the quarterdeck, the best place to see the rigging and the course.

[Lord Torath]

I did say "generally" blows away from the rest of the ship.

Question: while tacking at a 45^o angle to the wind, at the end of a "tack", would sailing ships generally turn 90^o into the wind for the next tack, relying on forward momentum to help them complete the turn, or would they turn 270^o away from the wind, so they were never aimed directly into the wind?

[VoxRationis]

You have described the difference between tacking and wearing (I believe that's the term). Tacking would rely on forward momentum; wearing would accept reduced progress due to sailing backwards for a time during the turn.