Becoming a sailor was the stereotypical escape from the pressure and monotony of everyday life for young men in age of sail, but how actually common was it for a captain to look at a well-dressed eighteen year old city boy who didn't know fore from aft and was talking about "adventure" and think, "Sure, let's bring this guy on board"?
For those who were hired having never been on a boat in their lives, how formal was their training?
At least in the Royal Navy, 18 is pretty old to start a career at sea -- even ignoring the boys taken aboard as midshipmen (people who intended to be officers), a lot of boys got a start at sea when they were very young; we hear of cabin boys being as young as seven or eight, and midshipmen would certainly need to go to sea before reaching 14. These boys would "learn the ropes" -- a term that comes from literally learning the rigging -- at sea, by doing small jobs at first and working up to be more expert seamen over time. New seamen would be informally assigned an older seaman to start learning how to "hand, reef and steer," and would be expected to learn the job on the job.
That said, there were certainly men who were taken aboard ship (either voluntarily or not) having no knowledge of the sea who were 18 or older; in the case of the Navy during the period I'm interested in, captains were generally in charge of manning their ships, and they had to have enough men to sail and fight the ship during the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, which had the country at a constant state of war pretty much from 1792 to 1815 (with a brief pause for the Peace of Amiens).
As much skill as sailing takes -- and it is a skilled profession -- there are plenty of jobs that take the form of simply doing heavy manual labor; even Marines could haul on a rope, and our hypothetical landsman might have other skills that could be used on ship (was he a tailor, or a butcher, or a cooper, by land? and so forth).
We know that captains would take completely unskilled men on board because they did so forcibly, throughout the period starting with with the Dutch wars and reaching a crest with the great mutinies at Spithead and the Nore. Impressment was in theory meant to apply to men who had some experience at sea, and in the Dutch wars and the wars of the Spanish succession, men would be impressed rather gently -- that is, they would be given an imprest (an advance on wages) at their homes or somewhere nearby, and show up for service for a season or two. The manning crisis of the Napoleonic period is when we think of the stereotypical "press gangs" grabbing men off the street regardless of their status.
I hope this was useful to answer your question. If you need to know more, please ask follow ups!
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My area of expertise and interest is different then /u/jschooltiger/ but the answer is essentially the same. A ships captain always seemed short of crew and were willing to bring on inexperienced people all the time.
I'm interested in the "Shanghai" period of US History from about 1850 to 1890, specifically how it impacted populations in West Coast cities such as Seattle, Portland and San Francisco.
Some background, the US Congress enacted laws in 1790 to "protect commerce," that essentially allowed Merchant Ship Captains to kidnap and hold as practically slaves any able bodied men they needed to crew the ship until the end of the voyage - no matter how long it was. This practice was known as crimping and then later as "Shanghaiing" due to the fact that the largest portion of ships using these types of crew were participating in the China Fur Trade and sailing to Shanghai.
Before 1850 most Crimpers were essentially military recruiters. They'd get a sailor a bath, lots of drink, a bed, and some female companionship for the night then they'd be signing up on another ship with empty pockets and a hangover a couple of days later.
But in 1850 the first of literally hundreds of gold strikes was made at Sutter's Mill California. Suddenly most sailors were headed to the gold fields. When the 1851 San Francisco Fire happened there were between 40 and 70 ships completely abandoned in the harbor, and another 30 or so that had been repurposed as floating hotels, taverns, residences, and brothels. A decade later it was 500, and smaller ports up and down the coast like Eureka, Crescent City, Coos Bay and Newport would have a dozen abandoned ships.
As manpower became rarer the Crimpers went from friendly recruiters to out right criminals, kidnapping sailors by giving them knock out drops in their drinks, or knocking them out physically while their back was turned. By the 1860s ships captains were frequently leaving harbor with less then four or five experienced sailors running the ship and another dozen in the holds sleeping off their drinks and/or injuries.
This law was finally completely abolished in 1915, but its importance to international commerce was such that local sheriffs and even the US Marshal Service would participate in it by riding ships out of port and keeping Shanghaied people prisoner until the ship was far enough out that no one could swim back. Or they would physically go out to gold camps looking for sailors who had jumped ship. A lot of people changed their names during this time period to keep from getting dragged back in chains.
Jails would be emptied of criminals. The homeless, vagrants, and debtors would be forced to become sailors. Even young boys who wandered too close to the docks or showed the least bit of interest in ships would be grabbed. There are dozens of tall tales (and books) "romancing" this period and the practice of Crimping and Shanghaiing, but there is a small grain of truth in many of them. It was an unsavory business towards the end and those doing it would be called criminals today.
So to answer your question during this period the American sailor, especially those in the Pacific Ocean, was frequently only on their first or second voyage. As the services of a Crimper got more expensive in the 1860s, sailors were often forced into a second voyage to pay off their fees. Those unwilling to work were frequently put into the hold without food until they relented. Worse case they were thrown overboard far from land.
Basic sailing skills are actually really easy to teach, pull that rope, tie it off here with this specific knot. Do it 50 more times today as wooden ships have to constantly be trimmed to maintain best speed. It is extremely hard labor but from my experience the hardest part (on a MUCH smaller boat,) was learning what the shouted orders mean and how to follow them correctly. Fail to do it right and you'll get flogged, or tossed into the hold and starved.
There was incentive to become a good sailor, fast. Even if they managed to mutiny, who was going to actually sail the ship back to land? Those that could read, had specialized skills (carpenters, sailmakers, barrel makers, and those with artillery experience from the military) or faster learners were often "promoted" with a reduction in hard labor as an additional incentive to get good. Lastly, you had the promise that you'd come out of the voyage with money in your pocket and could go back to your old life if you wanted when the ship returned home. A year or two worth of wages as a sailor wasn't much comparatively but getting it all at once could buy a decent piece of farm land at that time.
The fact is that most American captains during this time period, in the Pacific at least, were forced to sail with a majority of inexperienced men, or not sail at all. These men were absolutely a liability at first, but a decent sailing crew could be made out of inexperienced men within a short period of time. 3-6 weeks is typical to gain the basic skills and knowledge. If it was an armed merchant ship, there would be additional skills in loading and firing cannons but this was increasingly rare as the US built up the Pacific Navy Fleet to stop piracy.
Something else to keep in mind is that this manpower shortage during the 1850-1880 time frame was one of the major factors in pushing the development of ocean going steam ships. They needed a much smaller crew, so crew could be better paid. And there was less manual labor involved so experience crew would be more willing to sign up for repeat voyages. This in turn led to the final repeal of the law in 1915, although Shanghaiing as a practice was already dead by the mid-1880s.