Professions on a sea-faring vessel

[Stormrunner]

Cooper is an absolute necessity on any ship expected to spend a week or more at sea: barrels will crack/leak over time if not constantly maintained. On small ships the cooper and carpenter are probably the same person; on large ships keeping up with all the barrels is a full-time job and so the carpenter is seperate.
Sailmaker is obviously necessary; ropemaker is another (he often makes the thread for the sailmaker too).

A couple of tools commonly used as weapons by sailors (because any medium to large ship will have lots of them lying around ready to hand):

Marlinspike: A long (6-18 inches), heavy iron spike with a crossbar ("T") handle. Used in ropemaking (rather like a giant knitting needle but requiring more muscle). Treat as a punch dagger.

Belaying pin: A shaft of stout wood (such as oak) an inch or more in diameter and around 2 feet long, with a slightly bulbous handle and often a disklike guard above the handle. Inserted into holes along the railing to create a temporary anchoring-point for ropes. Wielded like a policeman's truncheon: treat as a light club.

Gaff (more common on fishing boats): a long pole with a big hook on the end (often barbed, like a giant fishhook). Used to pull large fish(tuna, etc.) into the boat after hooking them with a line. A polearm that does impaling damage, may or may not have reach depending on the length of the pole. Designed as a tool not a weapon, so probably does no more than 1d6 and may have an awkwardness penalty (say, -2 or so). The hook would allow trip attacks.

Sailors and swimming: note that it's quite difficult for a big sailing ship to come to a stop in mid-ocean, much less turn around. If you fall overboard, by the time the ship can drop a sea-anchor, furl all sails, and send out a jollyboat to pick you up, it's probably at least several hundred yards away. At that distance, just spotting your bobbing head among the waves can be difficult. Unless you were a very strong swimmer AND lucky, if you fell overboard you were most likely done for. Therefore, most sailors preferred to max out skills like Balance and Climb, to avoid falling overboard in the first place.
The main exception would be fishing-boat crews, who probably grew up in a seaside community and spent their childhood playing on the beaches.

 

[Wilphe]

You are highly unlikely to have a blacksmith aboard unless you have a very well fire proofed (ie: magically) forge. Red hot metal and wooden ships do not go together very well, if at all. In the space and volume the forge would otherwise occupy you can carry all the metal items you are likely to need and more.

Ditto ropemaker, you just carry enough spares (which the bosun accounts for). Making rope requires a lot of space.

Of course what you may also have aboard are cows, pigs, goats and chickens for the fresh meat, so someone had better take Profession:Farmer.

 

[Bob Aberton]

You are highly unlikely to have a blacksmith aboard unless you have a very well fire proofed (ie: magically) forge. Red hot metal and wooden ships do not go together very well, if at all. In the space and volume the forge would otherwise occupy you can carry all the metal items you are likely to need and more.

Actually, most ships could and did carry a blacksmith - the forge was fireproofed much the same way that the galley stove was.

Crew positions depend on what kind of ship it was. On a small merchantman (for example, the brig PILGRIM in Two Years Before the Mast), there might be only 8-16 crewmen, a cook, sailmaker, and carpenter, and two officers - the first and second mates - in addition to the captain. In this case, the sailing-master(navigator)'s responsibilities would fall under the first mate's duties, the boatswain's responsibilities would fall under the second mate's duties, and the captain would also act as surgeon.

In most merchantmen, too, there would be a supercargo - a clerk, usually a direct employee of the owners, who would take care of the cargo (loading, transferring, unloading, selling, etc.) and the ship's accounts. He would also keep a close eye on the captain for his employers.

A whaling vessel would have three harpooners, whose only duty was to steer the whaleboats and harpoon the whales.

A navy ship would have a huge number of positions, kindly listed by Wilphe.

A ship in a fantasy world would probably also have a Ship's Mage (maybe even a Mage's Mate) and probably a Chaplain (cleric, of course) as a matter of course.

To add to Stormrunner's list of common shipboard tools that could be used as weapons, I would add:

Capstan bar - An oak or elm bar about 5 feet long, which was inserted into slots in the capstan and used as a lever to turn the capstan. Treat as a quarterstaff, probably.

Loggerhead - An iron bar with a cannonball welded on the end. The head of the loggerhead was heated red hot and plunged into a tar bucket to melt the tar (in order to avoid having to use a fire and risk spilling hot tar all over the ship). Treat as a light mace. Incidentally, this is where the phrase "at loggerheads" comes from, as sailors would occasionally settle their differences with loggerheads.

Harpoon - Many ships (even ships not engaged in whaling) carried these for the purpose of harpooning fish and dolphins to liven up a diet of "salt horse." Treat as a polearm with the ability to make trip attacks. -2 to attacks, though, I'd say, because the harpoon isn't balanced as a fighting weapon.

Caulking mallet - A wooden mallet used with caulking irons to drive oakum into the seams of a ship. Treat as a light hammer, perhaps?

 

[Magic Slim]

Women aboard ship were considered bad luck.

Unless there were enough for everyone

Slim

 

[Wilphe]

Actually, most ships could and did carry a blacksmith - the forge was fireproofed much the same way that the galley stove was.

Request time period and source, that's a lot of weight and effort for something of highly limited utility.

 

[kenjib]

Request time period and source, that's a lot of weight and effort for something of highly limited utility.

Have you read Moby Dick Wilphe? I think the passage where the ship's blacksmith forges the harpoon with Ahab's blood is the best part of the book.

The boatswain, being the voice of the captain relayed to the crew, also often had an important psychological role on the ship. He was the intermediary between the officers and the crew and on the big ships one of the few people who was expected to relate to both the officers and crew. He was also often responsible for discipline but also morale. In tense situations where mutiny was threatened his role could become very interesting.

A reflection of his in-between role is that sometimes he was an officer, and sometimes he was considered enlisted instead.

 

[Bob Aberton]

As to blacksmiths, ditto what kenjib said. After all, whaling ships needed someone to keep the harpoons, barrel hoops, etc. in good repair. Also, all naval ships (except maybe dispatch cutters and sloops-of-war sometimes) would carry an armourer if not a blacksmith as well. The armourer needs a forge, after all, or he doesn't earn his salt. Additionally, a blacksmith would be necessary on most if not all exploration vessels (the COLUMBIA REDIVIVA and LADY WASHINGTON in particular made numerous references to their blacksmiths forging metal tools to trade for furs with the Indians of the Pacific Northwest.). And the East Indiamen were often set up like naval vessels without the uniforms - they would have armourers or blacksmiths to keep the armament and other metal bits in commission, because a voyage to China would take months, either by way of Good Hope or the Horn, and in particular rounding the capes (Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope are known as the Stormy Capes for good reason) would entail a lot of storm damage to the vessel.

You can't just carry spares for every iron part on a ship - even on a wooden ship, there's quite a lot of iron (futtock-shrouds, channel braces, bob-stays chain-cable, whatever weaponry's on board, not to mention the anchors themselves, Charlie Noble, etc.). It would just be too heavy, it's much easier to carry a blacksmith and a small forge, small being the key word; a shipboard blacksmith's forge wouldn't be nearly the size of a landbound forge, and in some cases would even be portable.