Cabin walls aboard a ship such as Victory provided visual separation but little acoustic privacy. Officers and some senior warrant or petty officers could bring wives aboard, and children were sometimes born during naval operations. Women and daughters appeared more often on large ships of the line engaged in long blockades than on small frigates. This social history complicates the image of an age-of-sail warship as an exclusively male community detached from family life.
Notable Point · 2:00:36-2:04:03
Families formed part of life aboard large blockading ships
Thin cabin partitions and the presence of wives, daughters, and children reveal how little privacy existed aboard large ships on long deployments.