Can you do a short term list for us in a funny way?
Welcome my dear newcomers aboard HMS Surprise. You have been exclusively selected ( or gently beaten up and dragged here) to join us on our South America tour. I promise you excitement, sleepless nights, beautiful scenery, storms, sunburn, no water and a bloody French…. oops I mean great adventure. To help you find your way around on board, here's a short list of important terms.
Landlubber - you, if you need this list - speak a non-sailor who simply has no idea about being a sailor.
Ship - your new workplace - this wooden lady is now your everything and treat her well, she is your life insurance to get you home safely. But be careful, she is very headstrong and if you want to tell me now that she is just an object, you thought wrong. She is very much a living individual and she will make you feel that.
The rigging - that sort of spider's nest above you - is there to operate the sails. Look forward to getting to know the ropes very well.
Sails - those cloth rags hanging from the thick wooden poles. They are used for locomotion and are not blankets.
Wheel - this strange wooden wheel with spikes on it - no, it is not an instrument of torture, but is used for steering.
Anchor - heavy, made of iron and keeps our lady in place.
Compass - this strange thing that lives in a box and is constantly moving back and forth. To cut a long story short: You know which way is north and you can keep your course. You'll soon know it by heart.
Captain - Boss
1st Lieutenant - Second boss and the one who can really fuck you up if he wants to. Get in good line and please don't suck up to him. But he is the one who puts you in everything, be it ward, mess, hammock, etc.
2.nd. Lieutenant - me and I too can make you uncomfortable.
Master - knows where the sails hang and what course to set. Takes just a little more work off the boss.
Purser - is responsible for your food rations, but will also try to get you to buy something from him to make life on board a little easier. Don't do this, he's quite expensive.
Sailor - Your new colleagues, and depending on their years of service, they will know how to handle that wooden lady, how to set the sails and so on. You'll learn it too.
Old Salt - an experienced old sailor, stick with him if you want to learn and he is willing to share his knowledge.
Surgeon - the name says it all. We have a good one on board, be lucky. And if you're lucky, you'll come home with all your body parts.
Midshipmen - mini officers who still need to learn. They can be quite demanding and annoying, especially when many of them are still very young. But don't be surprised if a 12-year-old gives you orders, he's allowed to.
Mess - the place where you eat
Cannon - heavy, iron, dirty, hot and with a loud bang. Used to stop the enemy or inflict serious damage. Keep your limbs to yourself and only follow the instructions of those who know what to do with them. Otherwise you will only injure yourself unnecessarily.
Cannonball - heavy, made of stone or iron. Come into the cannon and please do not trip over it.
Admiral - comes along sometimes. Is the boss of the boss
Hammock - your bed, but don't get too comfortable in it because you won't get much sleep anyway.
Rum - elixir of life, next to coffee
Powder monkeys - yes, they are children, but they know what to do and you can learn something from them too.
Boatswain - also called Bosun, he whistles the orders and drives you to work. He is also your wake-up call.
Marine - our sea soldiers, there aren't very many of them, but the few that there are are fine. They are there for the safety on board.
Cutlasses, muskets, grenades, axes, etc. - makes autsch, hopefully not with you. You will learn to handle them.
Cook - as the name suggests, and yes, having only one leg is normal.
Quarterdeck - not your dance area, that's the officers' area, you're only allowed there if your duty requires it.
Wardroom - also not your area. This is where we officers live and have some privacy.
Great Cabin - living and working area of the captain (you remember? - boss).
Gun deck - remember those big black things that bang loudly? they live here.
Berth deck - this is where you live, sleep and eat. Don't worry, it doesn't get cold there, you share the space with about 170 men.
Well, there is more, but I think that should be enough to start with. The rest will come naturally later. Don't stress about it and I think you will enjoy next year by the sea so much that you will want to come back.
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so in an attempt to actually use positive thinking, anytime i fuck up and my brain reacts as if ive cause a minor apocalyptic event, i compare my fuck up to the 4 minute fuck up committed by the crew of the uss william d porter.
and only today, as i was having to explain what happened to my mom when i was explaining the whole comparison thing, did i realise that most people dont know about it and ive decided that needs to change because its objectively hilarious.
...which is a weird thing to say about an event that occured on a warship in 1943, specifically november 14th.
see the uss william d porter was a fletcher-class destroyer but you dont need to know what that means, just that she had guns that went bang bang and that she was escorting another ship, the uss iowa, to cairo.
while they were on their way there, they performed some gun trials like testing the anti-aircraft guns or the torpedos. and while they were running a torpedo drill, the crew of the porter managed to fire a live torpedo straight at the iowa which you know, in terms of a list of things to do while escorting a ship, shooting a torpedo at them is not on that list.
especially if the president of the united states is on board.
yeah so fdr was on board and the gun trials were actually his idea, and part of the trials was that they were conducted under radio silence.
and that means the crew of the porter couldnt just call the iowa to be like "move out the way, we accidentally shot a torpedo at you."
but they did have signal lamps and you know, the signalman on board was trained to signal this exact kind of message.
...and uh never mind, the signalman did manage to successfully tell the iowa that a torpedo was coming toward them but wasnt as successful when it came to the direction the torpedo was coming from.
not all hope is lost though because the signalman could still use the signal lamp to correct his previous mistake and-, never mind, he announced that the porter was reversing, which she wasnt.
yeah so at catastrophic mistake number 3, they broke radio silence to warn the iowa and she managed to turn out of the way just in time which meant no one got hurt. and even though the inquiry into the incident led to chief torpedoman (fantastic job title btw) lawton dawson being sentences to hard labour, fdr intervened and waved away his sentence, saying it was all an accident.
but yeah, so thats my new measure for "how much did i really fuck up?" and when i compared accidentally picking up a pencil case without a tag on it in wilko, turns out it was a very minor fuck-up. yes, the cashier had to ask another worker to grab a duplicate so they could scan the barcode, but i didnt nearly kill the president during wartime via accidental friendly fire
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