Crew, Occupancy, and Accommodations on Ships [LT]

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Though I do get the feeling that it was more common to just man the guns on one side at a time. Unless you're running between two enemy ships you don't really have occasion to fire both broadsides at the same time.

And military and pirate craft were all notoriously overmanned compared to commercial craft. Lots of extra people to keep the craft running once they'd taken casualties.

[pyratejohn]

Most warships carry enough crew to account for deaths due to combat and disease. If you need a rough rule of thumb for minimum crew numbers during the Age of Sail, I'd say you could go with 1 per ten tons for fore-and-aft rigged vessels, and 1.5 to 2 per ten tons for square riggers.