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Hugh Reilly: School skippers have a tough role – but most kids are a joy

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Published Date: 11 November 2009
THE crew aboard HMS Bounty had it easy. For the matelots, life on the ocean wave had its origin in leaving the pub after a heavy drinking session and being headhunted by the Royal Navy's human resources department, ie: the press gang.
Contemporary bleedin'-heart liberals highlighted the alleged harshness of a sailor's life: back-to-back meetings with the cat o' nine tails, witnessing the occasional keelhauling of a cheeky colleague and appalling lack of grief counsellors for those...



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  • Last Updated: 10 November 2009 9:00 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Related Topics: Teaching , Hugh Reilly
 
1

Alternative (High-Octane) Fuel Head,

Edinburgh 11/11/2009 11:16:34
I haven't got a premium subscription but from what I've read so far, this article is well wide of the mark.

For a start, the Press Gang were mainly interested in seafarers---fishermen etc---who already knew the basics of being at sea. They did not, contrary to popular opinion, storm into pubs, hit people over the head and cart them off to a ship.

Secondly, although life in the Navy was hard, is was not brutal and punishments such as the Cat o' Nine Tails and floggings were threatened far more often than they were actually carried out. Why would you want to seriously injure a member of your crew, thereby preventing him from working and placing a greater burden on the rest of the ship?

As for keel-hauling, that was a punishment that almost certainly resulted in death and to my knowledge was hardly ever, if at all carried out by the Royal Navy. It was the preserve of pirates, privateers and certain disorganised foreign navies.

The rest of the article might go on to correct this but I thought I'd set the record straight just in case.

 

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