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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bob Aberton" data-source="post: 1146044" data-attributes="member: 1518">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.</blockquote>

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