[Low-Tech] Boating vs Shiphandling

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by Humabout

After rereading the two descriptions, I don't see Seaman applies to small craft - although if it did, it'd make life easier. Boating looks to include Seaman and Shiphandling, where for large vessels, the two are split. Boating does mention that you use Crewman/Shiphandling split when the vessel's "bridge" requires multiple crew and a captain:

I'm not sure they do, though; AFAIK on tall ships it's mostly the captain shouting orders and everyone else following them, or the first mate if the captain's asleep or otherwise occupied.

Originally Posted by Humabout

Perhaps that is the simple dividing line: when bridge duties get split among multiple people. Perhaps Crewman represents working together and following orders as much as anything. I'm really not sure and am largely just babbling at this point. I'd be curious to see a Krommunication on this matter.

So would I.

Originally Posted by Gigermann

Boating/Crewman=Operation of the vessel
Shiphandling=Operation of the crew operating the vessel

Might make more sense to think of Shiphandling as Crewhandling. And you can do both at the same time, Shiphandling and Crewman, you just get the "doing two things at once" penalty. IMO, you could have a version of Shiphandling to manage the crew of a multi-oared boat, but I would probably default it to Shiphandling as-is, since they're really accomplishing the same thing.

My 2¢

(Sorry, no references right now.)

That throws a rowing cox back to shiphandling, which several people are arguing against, though. For those who've done competitive rowing, would you say that being a rower is a significantly different skill than being a coxwain?

Originally Posted by Humabout

So basically, if there's a guy in charge who doesn't physically help with ship operations, use Shiphandling/Crewman, but if the guy in charge helps physically, use Boating? That's an easy delineation to make. It might raise some eyebrows when it comes to sailors switching between Boating and Crewman based on if the captain is physically helping or not, but it works nicely for the captain.

Perhaps crewmen should use the better of Crewman or Boating? But that doesn't sit well with a sailor on a nuclear aircraft carrier performing duties with Boating. That break actually seems more problematic than the one between Shiphandling and Boating.

It's the same break, I think.