Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil Masters
But that then raises the question of whether that's actually realistic. Crewman on a four-master presumably includes knowing how to help raise the sails right; Crewman on an airship might involve (I guess, from a position of extreme ignorance) walking round the gasbags once a day checking for leaks. Those kinds of routine-but-necessary activities really are quite hard to do in double time.
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I'll defer to an actual seaman if one pops up. Until then, seamanship and sailors' skills seem like the quintessential example of a crewman skill where experience makes a vast difference. Contrast the ordinary seaman with the salty old chief petty officer, who knows his knots, the weather and wind, how to belay gear properly. I suppose all of this is covered by other skills, and I agree that skill overlap is a problem, but given that it's a thing in GURPS seamanship is a big deal.
Certainly in the fiction seamanship skills matter.