I'm curious to know how horses were transported by sea. Did sailors carry enough grain and forage to last the journey or were they forced to ration supplies to the bare minimum (or even starve the animals)? How did they handle other basic needs like water, exercise, or veterinary care? Also, how did they handle the problem of poo when horses were below decks?

When it comes to the Age of Sail there's so much focus on the West but I'm curious as to how the East was affected by the ships.

For example, the only Chinese sailing ship of that era people think about are Junks. How did China react to ships like Galleons? Did they ever try to adapt or get bigger ships?

What did sailors in the East do for rations? Admittedly it seems like sailors didn't travel as much as the West did, with ships making trips back and forth from Europe to India or the Americas, making long lasting rations a bit less of a concern, but I'd love to hear what Asian sailors ate and drank at sea.

I read that the Teutonic Order owned a Fleet based in its territories in the Baltic. How large was it? What kind of ships would make it up? (Cogs? River craft?) What was its purpose? (trade, war, both?)

How did shipbuilding tools change from Roman, early Medieval, late Medieval, Renaissance, 19th Century periods, besides ship designs? (i.e. if I gave a Medieval shipwright or Roman shipwright a ‘blueprint’ of the USS Constitution or similar ship, Could they build it?)

Without iron or any kind of metal, How did the Maori (or any Polynesian society) carve and build their ocean going craft?

What was the nature of seacraft for the new world civilizations? When Cortes arrived in Veracruz, would there have been anything like a port in the empire or were there only small boats?

When did the American colonies build their first proper port? How did they do it?

Ships of the Early Modern and Industrial era often get portrayed in the media as some sort of floating prison, with pressed crews who were routinely tortured into obeying orders or not jumping ship.
How far from the truth does this portrayal stray? I know pressing was a thing that happened, and there were pretty horrifying punishments in place, but has this image been romanticised into some dark fiction?

How active was American and Canadian whaling in the Pacific Northwest in the 19th and early 20th centuries?

I know there was traditional whaling by some of the indigenous nations in the area, but I was surprised to learn that four whaling ships were based out of Bellevue, WA in the 1920s. Was this unusual for the time period? When you hear about American whaling it's usually about New England in the early to mid 19th century, certainly not Puget Sound in the 20th. Were there other ports here in Washington, BC, Alaska, or Oregon that hosted whaling fleets?

Alternative history fiction often portrays earlier colonization of the Americas by Romans, Celts or Arab Caliphates. When was the earliest that a ship that can cross the Atlantic Ocean could have been built? What innovations led to a ship capable of traversing such vast maritime distances?

Using the Columbus route of traversing the Atlantic ocean directly, not the Leif Erikson's route. Not implying that anyone has done it before, just interested when the capabilities to cross such such distances developed.

The French Navy in the Early Modern period is often portrayed as qualitative inferior, especially in leadership, to other maritime powers as Britain, Spain or Netherlands. Was it actually the case? What structural problems plagued the French Navy that led them to underperform?

Most widespread US WW2 cargo ship types as Liberty, Victory or C2 line of ships had similar measurements (e.g. 14-15kt displacement, 130-140m length and etc.). What was the reason for it? What were the most popular cargo ships for other major sides during the WW2?

Well I saw ship’s cats mentioned in the post, so now I have to ask a question about them: how were ship’s cats fed while onboard a long voyage?

Also, to the distinguished panelists: what are some of your favorite examples or anecdotes of historical ship’s cats?

It's an old joke that sailors are gay. Do we have any documented evidence through the ages?

A relative of mine told me once, "the Romans were not great sailors, they preferred to relegate that role to other peoples like the Etruscans" Is there much truth in that statement?

Did the "discovery" of the Americas and expansion of colonization by European powers spark any innovations in the world of sailing or naval practices to account for the long journeys across open ocean? Or was that discovery and colonization made possible by preceding developments?

Was England really as frightened of the Spanish Armada as is usually portrayed? It seems that it's usually painted as them knowing or feeling that they were absolutely screwed and pulling through by divine will.

As a followup: Why, except for the weather, did England win the battle in the Channel?

From what I understand, war galleys in the renaissance and early modern period did not carry rams, as they did in the ancient world. Im assuming that ramming was not some sort of 'lost art' so what was the reason for not building ships with rams? Doctrine? Cost?

How did the navies of the Eighteenth Century through the Napoleonic Wars raise and train sailors? Did they just recruit men who had already learned the art of sailing through experience, or did they actually teach men new skills?

Also, was there anything similar to a 'division slice' for navies at the time? For ground warfare, only a certain portion of the army's total manpower serves in the combat formations of the divisions, with a large number of support or administrative personnel outside the division. So for example, Soviet Army divisions had about 14k personnel, but had a 25k man 'division slice' representing their total manpower footprint. Which is a roundabout way of asking, what would the total naval manpower footprint of a ship of the line be? Do we have a ship-slice of 1000 men for First Rates with 850 man crews?

In Patrick Obrian's Aubrey/Maturin series, the prevailing hierarchy is: English ships were more numerous and better handled, French ships were better built and manned by more competent gunners, American ships were few yet highly dangerous, and Spanish ships hardly a threat at all.

I know this is a hard question to answer, but is this a fairly accurate assessment during the Napoleonic Wars?

When reading Patrick O´Brian, I have always been intrigued by the ceremony where sailors crossing the equator for the first time are "made free of the equator". What was this ceremony? Why did they have it? Do you have any recommendations for further reading?

A passage from "The Mauritius Command" where the ceremony is briefly described:

But they crossed the line itself in style, with studdingsails aloft and alow, and with more than the usual merriment, for when they reduced sail to let Neptune come aboard, accompanied by an outrageously lewd Amphitrite and Badger-Bag, he found no less than a hundred and twenty-three souls who had to be made free of the equator by being lathered with rancid grease--tar was forbidden, being in short supply--and shaved with a piece of barrel-hoop before being ducked.

The Mauritius Command - Patrick O'Brian

For those with an interest in the War at Sea in WWI:

Do you know of any published first hand sources for the war at sea? Preferably from a crewmember(s) on surface vessels? As I've been doing my reading it really dawned on me how chaotic and bloody ship to ship combat in the era was, and that how otherwise banal and tedious patrols were and I'd love to be able to read some primary sources that aren't just a submarine's war diary.

Imperial Germany had a larger economy than Britain and produced more steel in 1900, Why then did it fail in the Dreadnought naval arms race?

Is it as simple as Germany just not having enough coast facilities to build ships?

This is a question I'm thinking of specifically for u/b1uepenguin: How did we reconstruct the methods that Polynesian navigators used for wayfinding? Was there or is there a navigational/wayfinding tradition that has been preserved through oral tradition, or were methods recreated by folks like the Polynesian Voyaging Society, or was it a combination of the two?

Does anybody know about the naval history of Chinese dynasties? It seems like other than the voyages of Zheng He, almost nothing is mentioned of pre-modern Chinese navies.

How was traffic handled at the major ports (EDIT: and rivers!) before things like radio or any form of easy and individual communication?
I imagine flag based communication, but surely that'd get complicated if you were handling multiple ships.

I've heard that Ancient Roman grain ships carrying grain from Egypt to Rome were some of the largest ship Europe has seen until Age of Sail. What exactly do we know of those ships?

During Golden Age of Piracy in the Caribbean, what were the usual targets of the Pirates? What types of ship did they prey on? Treasure ships, simple merchantmen, fishermen? Did they attack ships only, or also land targets?

What was life like in Ching Shih’s fleet? Was she really a ‘pirate,’ in the same sense as we use the word to describe the buccaneers of the golden age a hundred years earlier?

I have read that in the Napoleonic era enlisted British sailors slept in hammocks. When did this become common practice and what advantages did hammocks offer over other sleeping arrangements? Did sailors of other nations also use hammocks or some other arrangement instead? Did merchant ships use hammocks or just warships?

One question I've been wondering about for quite some time is:

Are there any known instances in history where a kite was used instead of a traditional sail configuration (with a mast)?

I'm asking this because modern cargo ships are now occasionally applying kites to supplement their fuel engines. Kites get more reliable and stronger wind than sails at sea level, and I can imagine that traditional ship with kite propulsion or supplement could have a distinct speed advantage (more important on navy ships probably?) on conventional competitors.

In case the answer is basically "no":

• was kite propulsion ever attempted/thought of?

And in case the answer to that is "No" as well:

• would kite propulsion be feasible, or even remotely possible with materials existing in pre-industrial civilizations?

James Cook is generally credited as the first European to discover the Hawaiian islands. Yet the Spanish had been active in the Pacific for quite some time before Cook, the Manilla galleons had been operating for two centuries before Cook landed in 1778. Why did the Spanish never discover the Hawaiian islands?

How accurate is this video about pirates? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORmUUhh6O-8

What’s the story with the Cherokee class brig-sloops of which the Beagle was an example? It seems they were roundly disliked and yet the Navy kept on building them. What type of ship did they replace? Surely there was no lack of designs of the same general size that the British could have used that would not have the same drawbacks?

I’m aware that merchants sailing the Monsoon winds would only go one direction until the season ended and the winds changed. In Muslim period before Western contact, what were these year long trips like?

What was the standard armament on a warship before cannons became standard?

How were the Portuguese able to win so decisively at the Battle of Diu? Did the Atlantic's difficult nature require innovations that their opponents did not have? Did Reconquista-related cannon experience help?