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Gulp! I get seasick real easy.

951 views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  Architeuthis 
#1 ·
I am an author and writing a novel that takes place in the 18th Century. One of my characters is indentured to a ship's captain as the cabin boy.
They sail from Plymouth with the goal of entering the Pacific Ocean around Cape Hope.

My problem is simple: I can find information on knots and leagues and all that mechanical stuff.
What I need to know is some stuff about how the ship actually sails.

In this case, the ship is a brig built in about 1750. The captain is an expert mariner with a sailing master who has sailed in almost every ship the British put afloat.
So, if they sail southward, how fast would the ship generally sail? And, what is the likelyhood of doldrums around the equator if they avoid both the Canaries and the Azores, making landfall in the English controlled islands in the south Atlantic.

So, let's say there are fair winds, how long would it take from Plymouth to Cape Horn? Then, from there to just west of the tip of Baja California?

Estimates and anything else is deeply, deeply appreciated.

MSgt US Army - Retired.
)2 trips aboard troop ships in the 50's and 60's assured that I am not, in any way, a sailor!!!!!
 
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#2 ·
I would just copy one of Cooks voyages. Have your voyages meet the same weather at the same time making the same distances even going the same places.

The goal should be to make money, that was always the goal.

More info can be found here:
Daily Life Abaord Ship in 1700s menu page
 
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