Would they have rotating crews? Would they stop mid-ocean, or is such a feat impossible. If, perhaps, most would go to sleep (leaving a skeleton crew up top, I'm sure) in what condition would the ship be left in case of a mid-night emergency? Was there a night-captain of sorts, or someone who would ymtake the lead? Any other neat information you might think applies here?
Generally speaking during the period of time I am interested in, the Royal Navy divided its crews into two "watches," usually named port and starboard (although this had nothing to do with what side of the ship they inhabited). There were certain men, called "idlers" who merely worked all day, such as the gunner, carpenter, boatswain, surgeon, chaplain, and other warrant officer. Any women aboard would also not stand watch. But most of the enlisted crew would have a four-hour-on, four-hour-off schedule, which would rotate because two dog-watches, or shortened two-hour watches, were added between 1600-2000 hours.
The traditional watch schedule was as follows:
So the function of the dog-watches was to shift the men's schedules so that they wouldn't always be working from midnight to 4 a.m., and so forth. The dog-watches are called so because they are cur-tailed, of course.
Men would get what sleep they could when they were off watch, by slinging hammocks on the gun-decks of the ship. They were each allotted 14" of space to lie in, which would be doubled by half the men not being on watch at a time, but the berthing would still be incredibly crowded by modern standards.