Swabbing the decks?

I've always wondered why the Decks must be swabbed.
I have a librovox audio-book called "Dog Watches at sea"

I don't know what the Dog watch is. Nor do I know what 8 Bells mean.
But this is a pretty good story.

However, swabbing the decks has always been a question in my mind. Is there something wrong with Salty Brine on the Deck?

On the Troop ship, we had guys on mops all day and night. If not the Puke would have been an inch deep overnight. The mops served to keep those poor guys from falling onto that snotty deck.

But other guys were mopping the other decks.
What for?
What's the reason they don't put a Salt Water pump to work and rinse the decks. (and our bunk holds as well)

Let's hear from some Sailors.

 

some stuff is done just to keep the hands busy & not ***** & fight amongst themselves......... then they can direct that energy towards the officers. Jeff.

 

A bucket of salt water over the decks keeps them in a better condition than if they did not. Rain water or sweat water will rot them.

That along with the reason above.

 

The "dog watch" is the last watch of the night from early morning to day break, the hardest to stay awake. Usually ruins the day since you will not get much sleep the rest of the day either. Similar to "graveyard" shift in factory, worst watch you can pull, usually for the newbies.

Decks get slippery if not constantly washed off, also, as noted, keeps the crew busy. I remember reading that on all wood work boats they would apply mixture of pine tar, boiled linseed oil, turpine and bees wax about once a week on working ships to preserve the wood. that too would would keep the crew busy.

 

Try doing ALL the shifts as a solo. After 3 days the hallucinations are fun.

I fell asleep standing up once in Klang immigration office West Malaysia while standing up.

 

Six days shalt thou labor,
And do all thou art able--
And on the seventh, holystone
The decks and scrape the cable.

 

Thudpucker,

Clock bells go back many years. Instead of watching the clock, you could listen during your four hour watch. The 24 hour day is broke down into six, four hour segments. Each segment is made up of eight, 30 minute intervals. Each interval accumulates an added bell.

Google it and you'll understand.

 

As far as I know its done for discipline. Soap stoning the decks ?

On modern yachts no swabbing, now deckhands get a chamois.

Its also a form of watch keeping. Swabbing the deck and..... whats this huge metal clevis pin doing here ?

Fell out of the rigging

 

I don't think so! The Dog Watches are 2 hour stints in the evening. First Dog is 4pm to 6 and the second is 6pm to 8. The idea of introducing these 'half watches' is to make sure the watches 'rotate' each day and sailors were not stuck on the same routine day after day, irrespective whether your manpower was split into two or three watches. They also helped with feeding the watches the main evening meal.

The bells in 'The Dogs' went 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,8.

 

"Swabbing" or washing the deck is very important on a wooden planked deck. The frequent scrubbing with salt water preserves the wood, keeps moss or mold from growing, and keeps the planks swelled so the deck does not leak (much..).

 

Yep, and the reason they are called "dog watches" is because they are "cur tailed"...That pun BTW is ~ 200 years old, Captain Frederick Marryat used it in one of his novelas.

Yep, and you holystone a wood deck to keep it smooth from splinters but not slick with mold/alge in the grain. When ships switched to coal with steel decks, the call became "sweepers man your brooms, sweep down fore'n'aft, up trash'n'ash". This was needed because of the ash that dropped/blew on the decks due to the stacks and ash scuttles.