Author Results for Rear-Admiral Sir R. Massie Blomfield
British Naval Flags of Command
A table prepared by Samuel Pepys in 1685 showing the Flags of Command in use in the British Royal Navy when he became Secretary for the Affairs of the Admiralty is here transcribed and the build up to it over the previous century considered. Confusion in usage of such flags had increased following the death […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern) | Other (location)
Subjects include: Miscellaneous
Man-of-War Boats Part II
In this article the author describes the origin and uses of a number of boats carried by men-of war, mostly quoting 18th century sources. He differentiates between the pinnace (from pinewood, from which it was built) and the gig or galley by their size and number of oars; he describes the gig and the galley […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Eighteenth C) | Shipwrecks | Other (location)
Subjects include: Leisure & Small Craft
Hammocks and their Accessories
Christopher Columbus landed in Exuma in 1492 and first saw the natives’ ‘hamacs’; nets of cotton stretched between posts. Sir Walter Raleigh describes ‘hamacos’ in 1595 in Guinea, calling them ‘Brazil beds’ and the year after the Admiralty purchased three hundred bolts of canvas to make ‘hanging beddes’. Hammocks were slung 14 inches apart and, […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Early Modern) | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C) | Caribbean
Subjects include: Administration | Manpower & Life at Sea | Navies | Science & Exploration