[Low-Tech] Boating vs Shiphandling

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by whswhs

True for me, too. I take "boat" to mean all sorts of small craft, not just craft that one person can handle.

The brig in LT is debatable; at best it's at the upper end of anything that could be handled with Boating, and there's a fair case that it ought to require Shiphandling and Seamanship. There does seem to be a plausible zone of overlap, where big boats may sometimes be bigger than the smallest ships. It's a matter not of absolute size but of the organization of work.

Bill Stoddard

But the question remains, what trait of the organization is it that governs which skill is used? What leads a 30' single-masted fore-and aft-rigged Badan (LTC 3 p.41) to use Shiphandling, while a 21' single-masted fore-and aft-rigged sloop and a 50' two masted square-rigged Brig both use Boating (Low-Tech, p. 142)? When assigning skills to vessels not mentioned in the books, how does one determine which skill is relevant?