Tall Ship Sailor

Let's return to the Age of Sail with our guest K.C. Crowell, who tells us what it was like to be a sailor on a tall ship.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is job Slete. I'm Helen Hung and I'm Matt
beat and today it's all about tall ship sailors and
it's like whole you know, signs of beef just kind
of thrown into this vat of you know, wet brine,

(00:20):
like salty salty, salty water and just kind of left.
Imagine you're forced to live in an RV for a
few months. You're on the open road and constantly on
the move. Now imagine sharing that RV with twenty others,
and that you don't get to stop anywhere to freshen
up or get fresh food. In fact, there's nowhere to stop.

(00:44):
You're trapped on that r V and extremely close quarters
for months. Well I bring this up because today we're
talking about sailors, and not modern sailors who have access
to modern amenities, but sailors on tall ships. It was
a difficult life, but as we'll learn in today's episode,

(01:07):
one that led to great camaraderie. Yes, today we are
going to the age of sail So, Helen, I think
we all know what a sailor is. You know someone
who or do we know what a sailor is? I mean,
I guess the most recent things that I'm thinking about
our Pirates of the Caribbean, because that's kind of the
first place I went. I also think of like the Nina,

(01:30):
the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Of course loulically, like
that's kind of what I'm thinking about. Tall ships kind
of before, like you said, like things that were powered
by sale or by the currents, like they didn't have
an engine on them. You couldn't just like turn on
the engine and just head wherever you needed to go.
But going back to your intro, being trapped in an

(01:51):
RV with twenty other stinky humans with no way to
get off. As someone who's very sensitive to smells, that
is kind of my personal nightmare. It's nice and cozy
on there. It's not not much space at all. You're
cramped and you know you're bumping your head because the
when you go below deck, it's the ceiling so low

(02:12):
and you're you're sleeping almost on top of each other.
And yeah, the smells would definitely I think I imagine
you'd get used to it, probably, But oh, Ucky Russe,
that's so interesting that you think that you say that,
because like when you when you see tall ships and
movies like Pirates of the Caribbean is a perfect example.

(02:33):
Like they seem really big, like the ship itself seems
really big. But then if you think about it, it
was a lot of people and you can you couldn't
sleep on the top deck. You had to sleep below deck,
and so yeah, it was below deck was definitely cramped
and everyone was like startined in and that yuck. Yeah.
So I mean, and they're not taking showers, They're not

(02:56):
oh like I'm going to freshen up every day and
combine with the diet is not very good. So you're
probably gonna have a lot of bowel movements going on
that are not very pleasant. Sorry to go there already,
but the you know, fresh food is not going to
be available for most of these sailors because they're out
at months for months at a time, and that's why

(03:16):
almost famously, many of the sailors got scurvy. So, Matt, like,
what's the difference between a tall ship and like a
modern day ship. I think we should start with our expert,
Casey Krowl. But she is our tall ship expert, and
here's her definition of a tall ship. Tall shift is

(03:37):
kind of a it's kind of a funny definition. It's
one of those things where you kind of know it
when we see it, But generally it means a very
traditional looking, traditionally rigged, old school sailing ship. You know,
some say we're definitely more modern and have more modern
elements that you would see on like a modern sailboat.
But generally, you know, you really do know when you

(03:59):
see it. Their very old school looking and it is
very evocative of those like Pirates of the Caribbean kind
of kind of images the top into your head. Yeah,
so an old style sailboat, it's not you know, it's
bigger than your modern yacht, like or a one sale
sloop you have the big sales. Many people have different

(04:20):
definitions of what a tall ship is, but it is
what you think what when you think of like a
what a stereotypical pirate ship was. Also, Matt, I know
this is a sore point between you and I, but
had you ever watched Game of Thrones. I've seen a
few episodes, I just haven't seen all of them, Helen,
I can't believe I'm podcast partners with someone who's never

(04:41):
watched all of Game of Thrones. But you know what,
that's the topic for another day. But had you watched
every episode of Game of Thrones like I have repeatedly,
you would have seen many tall ships on that show.
I mean. That's the thing though, That's maybe where the
misconception comes from. Why like we assume that they're huge
is because of what we see on TV or movies. Yeah,
but they were not. They were not really that big. Yeah,

(05:05):
like the ones on Game of Thrones. They're literally transporting
dragons at one point, you know. Like the term tall
ship actually was popularized in the eighteen hundreds, so hundreds
of years after they first appeared by folks like Joseph Conrad,
who was a mariner, but more famously Henry Thoro. He

(05:28):
referenced the term tall ship in his work A Week
on the Conquered and Merrimack Rivers. So, and there's a
I have a quote here from that that book, quote
down out at its mouth, the dark No, maybe I
should do this in an accent. I don't know. Quote
what what accent would you pick? Early American accent of course? Okay, okay, please, well,

(05:50):
now that you've said it, you have to do it.
Quote down out at its mouth, the dark, inky main
blending with the blue above Plumb Island. It's end ridges
scalloping along the horizon like the sea serpents, the distant
outline broken by many a tall ship still against the sky.
And because unquote yeah, and there's so many people they

(06:14):
you know, it just kind of caught on. So that's
why they were called tall ships after that. So oh,
so is he the one that that gave it the
name tall ship, that popularized it? Yeah? Like I said
that these tall ships had been around since at least
the late fifteen hundreds, Like historians pretty much they set

(06:35):
the beginning of the age of sail beginning in fifteen
seventy one, because that was, as you know, the Battle
of Laponto. Everybody knows the Battle of Laponto, right, So
that we were talking about the lack of cleanliness on
the boat and probably the disgusting odors that were happening.
But what was life like other than that, Well, Casey

(06:59):
will describe what you would typically see on the docks.
I think if you walk down to a ship of
the dock, you know in eighteen fifties, you'd see a
lot of men, really predominantly men. This was this was
a man's man's world. Uh, and a lot of young men.
You know a lot of the a lot of the

(07:19):
sailors and the cadets and apprentices, like we're talking in
their late teens, early twenties. This is a very very
kind of young man dominated, uh profession, you know. And
then once you once you kind of move back a bit,
you know, like all the skilled tradesmen would typically been

(07:41):
a little bit older. You know, these were very often
men kind of each out of there like useful years
as deck hands. You know, maybe they had some kind
of injury or you know, just you're not as fast
as you were when you were eighteen climbing up in
the rings and kind of move into a more skilled
profession I think. And that kind of goes back to

(08:02):
the apprenticeship thing right where you like come in ato
smoke is a young debt and you know, work as
a deckhand, but then maybe move into salemaking or carpentry
or you know, engineering something like that. But yeah, it
was typically a lot of young men. Sounds delightful. It
sounds like like I could skip tender for a month

(08:23):
if I hung out around the docks with all these
young men. I don't know if you would want to
do that. Yeah, it was pretty rough, rough characters. And
you know, we usually think of pirates as the ones
who were the rough characters, but no, they were all
rough characters. And it wasn't a job that you you
went to college for, and you know, you worked towards

(08:43):
off the boat. You know, you just pretty much were
Oftentimes you were thrown onto the boat, sometimes literally and
kind of forced to be there, and like work, you
had to work your way up over time. And you
say rough characters, do you mean that everybody who worked
on the boat would have like an eye patch and
be like our mateen. I mean they would probably cuss

(09:08):
like sailors. I mean they would, right, That's where that
comes from. It would not be a place for Grandma
to visit, for sure. Grandma would be like, oh my word.
Let's just do a weird thought experiment here. Let's just
pretend that you're you're a young man at the height
of the age of sail. So let's say it's the

(09:29):
the six hundreds and you're a sixteen year old British
man who finds himself kidnapped and thrown onto a ship
and you're forced to worry. This is actually quite common
before they actually there's a term for it called shanghaiing,
where you would just be forced to you'd be kidnapped

(09:51):
and then forced to work on a boat. So okay, already,
as an Asian person, I'm already seeing this is problematic shanghaiing.
I don't know what it's in reference to, but I don't.
I don't like it. But also, wait a minute, So
I'm a sixteen year old young British man and some
dude just like puts a bag over my head and

(10:13):
drags me into a cart or something and then drives
me to the dock and throws me on a boat.
That's how I got this job. They probably drug you
first before they did that, but yeah, but that's how
the sailors got their start. Was like, wait, is that
is that? Because the job was so crappy, Like it
was a job that nobody wanted to do because it

(10:34):
was so hard, so they had to literally kidnapped people
to do it. Well, it was part of it for sure,
because yeah, I mean, and think about it though, you know,
it's like just an easy way to get help. And
what are they gonna do if they I mean, they're
kind of stuck. They're not going to escape, you know,
what are you gonna do? Jump out into the ocean
and swim back to shore. That's hundreds of miles away.

(11:12):
So yeah, let's let's pretend that we that you, as
a young British man, was kidnapped in there, You're thrown
onto a ship. You wake up, You're like, oh gosh,
So what do you think your job would be starting out?
What do you think they let you do to start work? Oh? Man,
this is so mind boggling. Okay, so I'm assuming if

(11:34):
I'm a young man, that I'm strong and healthy, relatively healthy.
What would they force me to do? Oh? Like in
the in the Pirate movies, there's always the guy who's
pulling up the sail. You know, like there's a sail
and you have to pull on this rope to drag
the sail up and then lower the sail. Like that's
that's the first job that I think of if I'm

(11:55):
like living on a tall ship, and that's very likely. Yeah,
I'm doing the kind of the physical requirements. So there
was like so keeping the mast in place, that's called
standing rigging and and the and running rigging handles. All
the action aboard a boat under sail, so moving the
sales to adjust to the wind. But yeah, you'd be
doing a lot of that, pulling ropes. Like he said,

(12:17):
if you're really young, you might actually be like what
we call a cabin boy, which is an assistant to
the to the captain, which basically the captain just says, hey,
do this, Like whatever they want you to do, they
they have to do it. But yeah, so what are
we talking like? Wow? Young are we talking? Are we
talking like thirteen or yeah? Some some as young as

(12:38):
thirteen fourteen. Yeah, and then you would probably work your
way up. So probably for the first few months you
would be an ordinary seaman. You'd be just kind of
at the bottom of the hierarchy, not sleeping very much,
just constantly making sure the ship is moving where it's
supposed to go. You might work your way up to

(12:58):
one of the higher positions over time. Some of the
ones who were not actually kidnapped, so that you probably
wouldn't be doing this with they Sometimes some ships had
carpenters if they were lucky. We're the ones who actually
fixed the ship if things started to break on the ship,
or sailmakers who specifically fixed the sales. Oh yeah, because

(13:20):
you can't kidnap those those that's not a random job,
like you actually don't know what you're doing to do that. Yeah,
And well, but you could learn a lot of this stuff.
If you're on a ship long enough, you're gonna learn
it all. You know, you could work your way all
the way up to captain over a period of several years,
of course, but be in charge of the entire ship.
Isn't that the dream? Yeah? I mean if I'm if

(13:42):
I'm a kidnapped sixteen year old boy who was drugged
and woke up randomly on a boat, I'd be like, yeah,
my dream is now to be captain of this boat. Yeah.
I mean, there's only one way to go, right. Wow.
I mean, I gotta tell you, you're not painting a
pretty picture for me here, Like, I don't think I
would follow a tier for this gig. Well, it doesn't
get any better. I mean, back in the day, it's

(14:06):
a pretty dangerous, dangerous job to have. These days, it's
much more safe. I will say that. You know, these days,
we have harnesses that we wear and you know, we
kind of clip into the riga and when we're climbing
up in the rigain. But that was not the case
back in the day, and it was pretty common for
people to die at see uh, And that was just

(14:27):
kind of the way it was. You know, I think
we have a very different uh. I think maybe a
very different relationship on the value of like human life
these days. Uh. You know, it's even in like even
in more modern trades these days, like it's not acceptable
for people to just kind of die on the job
for no. But that was, you know, very much not

(14:48):
the case back in the day of tell ships. You know,
if you can imagine someone climbing up in the rigga
news two drops in the air and just kind of
holding on for dear life, trying to like hold up
the sale and furl with say old during a storm.
You know, they didn't have any protection, they didn't have
any any special equipment. So it was it was a
very dangerous position. So not only have I been kidnapped,

(15:11):
not only have I been drugged and thrown on a
boat and I wake up randomly like what am I
doing on this boat? Now? I'm like, hey, kid, climb
up that giant sail. There's no safety, harness, good luck. Yeah,
And then you know, not much downtime either. You're constantly
worrying about the ship itself, making sure that it's going

(15:34):
where it needs to be, and sure you might have
a chance to eat every once in a while. So
you want to know about the food. I definitely want
to know about the food because I would imagine if
this is my life, the food is going to be
my only like source of comfort, like at least lunch
is happening soon. Okay, well, I don't want to crush

(15:54):
your dreams too much, but here's Casey talking about some
of the food. It was very a little chance to
enjoy anything fresh on board. You know, maybe you have
some like fresh vegetables the first couple of days out
of the court, but if you're out on the open
ocean for months or years at a time, everything that
you have has to has to be able to be

(16:16):
preserved in some way. So lots of pickling, lots of
you know, lots of salt beef like that was kind
of the only way that they had to preserve their
meat was these just huge barrels. And they talked about
it in terms of barrels of uh salt pork, salt beef,

(16:36):
and it's like whole you know, sides of beef just
kind of thrown into this vat of you know, wet
brine and like salty, salty, salty water and just kind
of left and the other The other thing that I
think a lot of people kind of associate with the
shipwork food are the ship's biscuits. So ship's biscuit is
just this little biscuit, this little square around piece of

(17:01):
bread that has been preserved through baking. So you know,
one way to preserve things is to salt it or
pickle it. But another way that you can preserve bread
is to just bake it so long and so low
that all the moisture just gets kind of evaporated and
be hydrated out. So what you end up with is

(17:22):
this very very tough biscuit that's you know, it's rock hard,
but it's not gonna melt. You know, it's not gonna row,
it's not gonna it's not gonna go bad because there's
no moisture left in it to feed the bacteria that
you know that rock needs or the decay needs. Oh wow,
I have so many thoughts on this, Matt because this

(17:46):
sounds miserable. So they've thrown a huge side of beef
into a salty vat of water, gurros. It's like it's
like beef sour krout without them moisture. Yeah. And then
this bread. You know what this reminds me of. Have
you ever bought like a baguette at the store and

(18:07):
it's like delicious, it's soft, and then like two days
later you could literally play baseball with it. Yeah? Oh
I hate that. But she's saying this is what they
ate on the regular. Yeah, it's funny how like she
essentially says it's technically edible. It's like it's so gross
that even the bacteria doesn't. Like it's basically what you're saying,

(18:44):
you know what, I actually like, I remember, you know,
I think we all learned in school, like sailors had scurvy,
right because they didn't have anything fresh and like that's
when they started sucking on limes to keep from getting scurvy. Yeah. Yeah,
and that's another thing that that I imagine was an
issue was just fresh water, Like yeah, because you you

(19:06):
have to carry it with you on the boat, right,
fresh water, and like I'm assuming there's not an overabundance
of fresh water. So here you are eating this extremely
salty meal every single meal, every single day, and you're
like Oh my god, that was so salty. I'm so
thirsty if only I had some fresh water, and they're like,
here's your one cup that you're allowed today. Yeah, it

(19:26):
had to be miserable. Well, now I see why you
had to kidnap people for this job, because who's volunteering
for this? This is awful. It's well, plenty of people
today actually do sign up and volunteer to do this.
Casey Crowle, who we've been talking to, guess what she
does this? She works on a tall ship for fun. Yeah,

(19:48):
so the first and she loves it. So I think
it's hard to tell that Casey loves it when you
hear her talk about her own experiences. Sometimes so Fa
Apple in this cliff, you'll hear kind of the erratic
sleep schedule that sailors still have even today. So you're

(20:09):
you could be on from midnight to four am, and
then you know, you sleep from four till noon, and
then new to four pm you're on again, and then
you sleep until midnight and you know, so there are
these these conversational watch structures that you don't have to
do if you're if you're gonna cook, which is really nice.
I was, I was on the twelve to four watch

(20:29):
for years working on boats, and it is kind of
a brutal. It's a really brutal sleep schedule. Uh, I'm
getting getting to kind of build your own schedule and
build your own time. Is it is nice also, you know,
it just feels good to be that kind of morale boost. Uh.
Definitely working on boats today and working on tellships today

(20:52):
is nowhere near as difficult or grueling as it was
in the eighteen fifties. But it's still hard work and
it can it can really great on you and it
can really take its toll. Wow. I'm super impressed that
Casey is a tall ship person today because, like you said,

(21:13):
like back in the day, there were no women in
this job. But that's so cool that she's like a
modern day tall ship sailor and she's a woman, and
she it sounds like everyone does like all the different jobs,
so like you rotate, so she's like, sometimes I'm one
cook duty, sometimes I'm on this crazy like deck duty,
and I have to do you know, this crazy sleep schedule.

(21:36):
So I'm assuming that today the tall ships are for
like tourism or right like like like you know, like
I think we've all seen tall ships like docked in
a bay and it's like, come see. You know, it's
like a tourist attraction. Educational purposes is the main reason
why you still see a lot of these ships operating,

(21:56):
and so yeah, there are museums that come to life.
You know. It's just it's great for for teaching how
it was. And that's a big reason why we know
exactly how it was because of their efforts. I just
love casey story that she just went as a visitor,
like a total nubie layman and was like, hey, I
think this is really neat. How do I get involved

(22:17):
in this? And they're like, here's a volunteer program that
you can be part of. There was no kidnapping. Yeah,
it's great when you're not kidnapped to do this. Yeah,
just volunteered. She wasn't even paid, and as we're going
to find out here, she absolutely just loves it. I mean,
it's it's all. She's all about it. There's one job
in particular that she has done that she has enjoyed

(22:40):
the most, and that is as a cook. The position
that I keep on having a hard time saying no
to me when it's all offered to me. Is working
as a coach. There have been a couple of times
in the past few years where, you know, a friend
of mine will be driving about, like a friend of
mine will be casting about and someone something will fall
through and like their quick blot show up or their

(23:02):
cook and their contract early. And usually that's when I
get a phone call saying, hey, we really, we really
need someone to come down and just you know, fill
in for a couple of weeks. And I have a
really hard time saying no to that job. I think
it might be my favorite job that I've done on board. Well,
I'm assuming that modern day cooking on a tall ship

(23:26):
is nothing to do with that giant vats of salty
beef and and like bread that's so hard you could
use it as a baseball bat. Yeah, so it the
food is much higher quality. Casey has access to better
technology to prepare the food for starters, and I think

(23:47):
so combined with that kind of that fun of it,
but with the fact that you know, it is still
a difficult job, as any any position on a modern
tall ships all is difficult, and so coming together to
eat is something that she really enjoys, like kind of
this therapeutic experience that they all got to share that

(24:10):
she provides, you know, so it sounds really cool that
Casey is like she volunteered for this job and she
really digs it and she was really drawn to it
when she was a tourist on a tall ship. So
and I'm assuming there's you know, everyone who works on
a tall ship today that you know, they volunteered. They
they're like really into tall ships and they're like, hey,
I wanted to have this really cool job. But back

(24:32):
in the day, like when did that switch happen? Because
you were saying like the tall ship era doesn't exist anymore, right,
like we don't need your tall ships. Yeah, we really
don't need them anymore because of the technology I mean
we have. First there was the the engines that were
driven by a steam and then later diesel engines, and
you know, i mean look at the ships today that

(24:54):
we have giant ships, those big cargo ships that can
haul all that cargo that in these giant ship containers
that's all driven by diesel. That's all you know, the
the sailors kind of don't have to worry about it.
You know. It's and so there really is this I
think what a lot of people are drawn to today

(25:15):
with just sailing in general, not just tall shifts but
just all sailboats. Is the the romanticism of it, where
it's just like you are very you know, connected to
the sea this way. I think Casey puts it really
well here with this quote. There's absolutely nothing like it,
you know, like especially kind of when you're waking up

(25:36):
for your watch and you come on deck and you
look out and just don't see anything but see it's
it's a really good feeling, you know, I just really feel,
you know, you feel this like sense of the sense
of being very small, but also like you're just surrounded
by all of the beauty in the world. It is,

(25:59):
it's unlike I mean, there's no there's no way to
replicate that, you know, there's no way to replicate what
it's like when you're when we're out there on seashore
long time. Yeah, And if I woke up and there
was somebody who looked like Johnny Depp on the deck,
that wouldn't be too bad either. That'd be a nice bonus. Yeah.
I guess there isn't a Johnny Depp pirate on every ship. No,

(26:22):
there's not. But I will say though the tradition lives on,
and listening to Casey kind of makes me understand, like, yeah, that,
I mean, I live in the middle of the country.
I am as about as landlocked as you can get
here in Kansas. I I can barely swim, but I
think I might give it another try after listening to Casey,

(26:44):
I really do. Oh wow, Matt, that's very nice. She
inspired you with her passion for tall ships? She did. Yeah,
And Casey has a nice quote here about kind of
preserving that tradition and what is the future of these
tall ships? Will they continue to kind of stick around? Yeah,
I think a lot of it. A lot of it
has to do with this this sense that the traditional

(27:06):
sailing is the thing that deserves to be preserved. You know,
there's definitely a historical kind of aspect there, in a
preservation aspect, but you know, also it's just it's unique.
It's a it's a unique way to to experience sailing,
you know. I feel like if you want to go
out and like go on a cruise ship, although I
don't know who wants to be on a cruise ship

(27:26):
right now, but it's a very different experience to go
out and go these kind of voyages under sale, and
I think people I think people think that they're there's
something worth preserving there, and that's an experience that's worth
being preserved. I think the hard thing now is a
lot of the organizations that are running lease ships are

(27:47):
nonprofits and a lot of these organizations haven't been able
to operate their ships because of the pandemic. And so
I hope that people still seem the value and kind
of maintaining these programs, maintaining leaship because I think that
there's a lot of I think that there is a
lot of value there, There's a lot of educational value,
there's a lot of historical value to keeping leadships, operating

(28:09):
the keeping leadships sailing. But it's going to be a
hard couple of years. So I hope that, you know,
I hope that people out there kind of understand that
these are really special ships and the chances to go
out sailing on them are things that we should absolutely preserve.
I do see it being a challenge, but you know,
I think again it comes back to the the just

(28:31):
how appealing it is for people that actually do experience that.
You like, it's it's cool to see that kind of passion.
Maybe we can maybe we can add a link in
our in this episode's description of like an organization that
you could donate to or go to so that you
can learn more about tall ship preservation if you want,

(28:52):
if you're interested, maybe Casey's Ship or Casey's Organization. Definitely,
And speaking of which, hey, we want to hear from
you if you are on a tall ship right now,
or perhaps you've worked on a tall ship or you've
been on a tall ship before. What did you think?
Did you like it? How was the experience for you? So, hey, listeners,

(29:17):
guess what. We have a Twitter handle. It's job Sleete
Pod at job Salete Pod on Twitter. And we definitely
want to hear from you if you have a picture
of yourself on a tall ship, because that's super cool. Right.
Did you ever play dress up like as if you're
Jack Sparrow and like you're a wooden leg sailor with

(29:40):
an eye patch and a parrot on your shoulder. We
want to see all that, so tweet us at job
Sleete pod on Twitter. Job Sleete is produced for I
Heart Radio by Zealots manufacturing hand Forge Podcast for You.
It's hosted by us Helen Hong That's Me and Matt
That's Me. The show was conceived and produced by Steve Samrki,

(30:04):
Anthony Savini, and Jason Elliott. Our editor is Tommy Nichol,
Our researcher is Amelia Paulka, our production coordinator is Angie Hims,
and the music is by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Special
thanks to our I Heart Radio team led by Nikki Etor,
Katrina norval Ali Cantor, Mangesh Hattie Kador, Will Pearson, conal

(30:25):
Byrne and Bob Pittman Sell