I agree with Harold. While the ship was at sea the wheel would be taken by a seaman who would steer as directed by the mate of the watch, who would take his orders as to the course from the captain. Generally captains of ships of any size did not stand watches but were 100% responsible all the time, and could be on deck at any time of the day or night to supervise as they felt appropriate. So to answer the question of who actually sailed a ship, it was a crewman at the wheel, supervised by a mate, with the master in overall control. The skill (or lack of it) of the helmsman could be a factor in any accident. Approaching port, or another navigational hazard, a master would normally take a pilot aboard who would be familiar with the local tides, currents, rocks, shoals, wrecks and other navigational hazards. While the pilot was aboard he was in charge of directing the vessel, but the overall responsibility technically remained the master's, who was supposed to remain on deck throughout. If the pilot ran the vessel aground, though, it would as Harold says have been the pilot who got into trouble for it - as long as the master was present. However, a death at sea doesn't necessarily have to have been caused by shipwreck. As a couple of postings last week [Mariners deaths on ships to Hong Kong in the 1800's and How Many Ways Could a Person Die at Sea? 1800's] pointed out, deaths could occur in many ways, not only from falling from aloft and/or drowning or being injured in heavy weather, but from illnesses which it was beyond the skill of those on the ship to treat - which could be something like appendicitis. I'm not sure whether you are aware of the copies of Lloyds List available online, but there are some for your period which you can look up at http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000549597 . I had a bit of a look through 1807/08 searching for "Swain" and got a number of hits, none of them very exciting - it looked as if there was more than one Captain Swain. It is possible that you may be able to put some itineraries together. Cheers Piers -----Original Message----- From: mariners-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:mariners-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of suemaxwell Sent: 04 August 2011 18:48 To: MARINERS@rootsweb.com Subject: [MAR] dangers of the NY harbor I have an unsolved ship mystery in my background. My ggg grandfather, Shubael Swain, was a NYC ship captain who came from Nantucket. By 1803, at least, he was working there as a ship captain. Several old records indicate that he and his brother "died at sea in NY on Jan 10,1808" The research that I did led me to believe this was incorrect, and that he had not died. What I found out from his father's 1812 will was that he did not die but his brother did. He ended up naming his first son after his brother. I have someone in NYC how is supposed to be looking for a possible old article about it, but this person isn't doing it. I do have a theory- I have a 1807 poster copy of a painting of his clipper ship, The Experiment of NY, of which he was the ship master. I recently learned that his son who moved to Cleveland, and family, eventually had the original of the painting which looks like a water color. Anyway, my theory is that since he was a ship master, and one brother had already moved to NYC as a mariner, that he took this ship up to Nantucket to pick up the remaining brother and bring him back to NYC to go into the shipping business. The had a brother who was lost at sea some unknown date. I think that something drastic- what I do not know- happened as they entered the NY harbor. I just found the following article that I think may be of interest to people on the list as it talks about the harbor at that time and why and how it was dangerous. Very interesting article. http://www.yuhsg.org/webpages/hurst/files/Shipwreck%20Lesson.pdf Can someone tell me who actually sailed a ship? Was it the master, or someone else or both? Sue ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to MARINERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message