The Food of a British Sailor in Nelson's Royal Navy!

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'The Food of a British Sailor in Nelson's Royal Navy!'

200 years ago, Britain's Royal Navy was the most technologically advanced and supremely efficient force in the history of naval warfare.

But what was it like to live and work on board these ships? What did the men eat? How did the ships sail? What were the weapons they used?

In our latest documentary on History Hit TV, to commemorate the Battle of Trafalgar, Dan Snow explores what life would have been like for those whose served in the Nelson's Navy.

#RoyalNavy #Nelson #DanSnow
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Military life-99% pure monotony with 1% significant emotional events. I remember a show examining the bones of an 18th century RN sailor-no scurvy, good nutrition, excellent muscle development.

tomservo
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When Jackie Fisher was appointed First Sea Lord, one of his first actions was to have bakeries built on warships. Sailors would have fresh bread every day instead of hardtack. A little thing like this was a great morale booster.

lawrencemarocco
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I always find it so fascinating when you see how much of modern expressions and slang actually come from sailing and war time. "Learn the ropes" clearly comes from learning what all of the hundreds of ropes do on a sail boat. Going "over the top" is from WW1, where soldiers would storm over the top of trenches. There are thousands of examples of that.

keith
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Also swabbing the deck was a means of keeping the wood from drying out and shrinking. If that happened the next big rain would flow through the cracks in the upper deck down below, possibly sinking her if they were unable to bilge the water out.

aztecgoldmontizuma
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If you notice the platter that the food is served on is square. Thus, gave rise to the term 'Three square meals a day'.
The term "Boucan", or grilling and smoking meats on wooden grills became "boucanier" with the French sailors. Eventually becoming the English term "buccaneer".

stringfellowbalk
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Only a landlubber would think that you should scrub decks along the grain of the timbers! The first lesson I learned as a deckhand was that you scrub ACROSS the grain, scrubbing along the grain strips out the softer fibres and wears deep grooves into the timbers. I winced watching this.

Pete-tqin
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As someone who works on sea and it's always so interesting to see the similarities and the difference of life onboard a ship back then to today. Can't imagine the bravery it must have taken to spend months/years at sea back then knowing you may never return.

icedclips
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When American sailors saw how good their British counterparts had it, they were so impressed, they joined up right away!

Charliecomet
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The best historical fiction of the Royal Navy of the day are the Master and Commander books by Patrick O'Brian. Superb. Charlton Heston was a big fan.

johnwright
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Traditional British ales were made differently from European. At the end of the mashing process, the wort(sugar water) must be separated from the grain. The European process continuously adds hot water to the mash as it is being drained. When the vast majority of sugars are washed from the spent grain, the resulting liquid is fermented into beer.
The British process involves draining the liquid from the mash, and adding water in stages. The first liquid(gyle) that is drained is the strongest, and made into ale for the rich. Water is added, and then drained again, making a weaker ale for the middle classes. Water will be added a third time, and drained into small beer for the poor.
The process waned in popularity with the invention of 'stout porter', which was a blending of the 3 gyles. Without the different classes of drink, it was more efficient to make stout by the European method.
Most beer consumed by the Navy would have been in the range of 3.2-4% abv. They understood that weaker beer would not keep for a long journey. That is the reason the India Pale Ale was invented. The trade deficit with India made it cheap to ship most things there from Britain. They made ale extra strong and bitter to preserve it during the journey to India. It was assumed that the ale would be diluted to regular strength when it arrived in India, but the British soldiers preferred to drink it at full strength.

justin
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Hundreds of years later the Royal Navy still has an obsession with keeping the ship spotless, Standby for Captains Rounds and Evening Rounds.... as for the food, " he lies like a pussers menu " 😋

davidhoward
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He's like a recruiter for Nelson's Royal Navy. The food is great!

tegunn
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A sailors' day didn't start at 5am. Most vessels kept a two watch system where half the sailors worked 4 hours and the other half were "below". To assure that any one watch didn't have to always work the same watches, they had a "dog watch " in the afternoon where they had two 2 hour shifts to rotate the crew This was usually where the crew nade up for lost sleep, otherwise they made up for it when "below".
The "saillors didn't do the morning ritual of "holystoning the deck". That was left to the "idlers", gunners' mates, loblolly boys, carpenters' crew and officers' servants that worked during the day and were allowed a full eight hours sleep(when conveinient) at night. The officers ate much better than the crew, but they paid for their own mess along with the warrant officers and in some ships, sailors were allowed their own personal rations,

newtonmenlo
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An officer, and a gentleman, must always choose the lesser of two weevils.

Deatheater
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On my first ship, an old type 15 Frigate, in 1970 I had to sleep in a hammock! Serving on the old HMS Bulwark we scrubbed the wooden planked quarter deck the same way as they did in Nelson's day! The food was a tad better though! And I was also old enough to get my daily tot until it was stopped!!!! Served for 32 years through good times and bad times and wouldn't have changed it for any other way of life.

chrissharp
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I'm the son of a sailor. My dad & I try to teach each other maritime words & phrases, like "The Seat of Ease". I learned something new about the slush fund. I'm going to run that one by him. Great vid. thanks for sharing. Fair winds. 😁😁

fire
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If this one is correct its prehistoric. Before ships had midline rudders, they were steered on the same side canoes are paddled and steered from; that would be the steer- board (starboard) side (right). Because the rudder was tied to the ship on the starboard side, port side was the side the ship was tied up the the dock/port on.

patclark
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He’s missed out a few things:
Sailors were also served salt Pork as well as beef.
They didn’t just eat oatmeal for breakfast, also ‘Scotch Coffee’ which was burnt bread boiled in water added with sugar.
Another thing they used to deal with Scurvy was the Sea Scurvy Grass.

metaknight
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Lime juice in grug is how the Brits started getting called "limeys"

Virginia
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I loved this. I wish it were 2.5hrs long and went over more of the daily routines and labors of the Nelson era navy.

VideoClam