Orlop and Hold Details

Foremast:  The most forward of the ship's three masts.  Return to deckplan

Bosun's Store Room:  The storage area for sail cloth, cordage and associated materials.  Return to deckplan

Gunner's Store Room:  Except for powder and ammunition, the materials needed for maintenance of the ship's armament.  Return to deckplan

Carpenter's Store Room:  "'What I know, and what you don't know,' cried Jack, 'is that I have not so much as a single ten-inch spike left aboard.'     'God set a flower upon you, my dear, with your ten-inch spike,' said Stephen."  Extra timber and nails needed by the carpenter for repairs of the hull, yards and masts.  Return to deckplan

Sail Room:  "...in the sail-room, where the bosun joined them again, a very shocking sight - mould on the first stay-sail he turned over, and worse as the others were brought out."  Storage of sails not in use.  Return to deckplan

Pitch and Tar Room:  "'I might, at great inconvenience to other captains, find you some yellow paint, a very little yellow paint.'"  Stores of pitch, tar and paint.  Return to deckplan

Scuttles:  These deck openings gave access to the coal storage area below the fore platform.  Return to deckplan

Orlop:  "Up until this point the Surprise had not suffered badly, except perhaps in her hull; but this present hail knocked one of the forward guns half across the deck, striking it on its own recoil and maiming three of its crew, and again the thirty-six-pounder roared out: its great crash was followed by a screaming below that for two minutes pierced even the united gunfire. And now a bloody trail on the deck showed where the wounded were carried down to the orlop."  The orlop deck was comprised of the platforms laid directly on the hold beams, generally divided into fore and aft platforms.  Traditionally, the midshipmen's berth had been located down on the orlop (as it was on the Lively when Jack commanded her) but by 1813 it was more usually for that to be on the lower deck, ahead of the officers' quarters.  The orlop was used as an emergency medical station during battle as it lay below the waterline and was thus protected from enemy cannon fire.  Return to deckplan

Main Hold:  Under supervision of the master, ballast was laid down in the bottom of the hold and then bulky stores such as casks of water and barrels of salted beef and pork carefully stacked above.  Return to deckplan

Shot Lockers:  "... deep in their lockers at the bottom of the hold, some of the round-shot had corroded, as usual. They were roused up by the hundred, so many to each gun, and the ship clicked and ticked from stem to stern as the crews carefully tapped off the bosses and flakes of rust, making the balls as round as they could be and then brushing them lightly with galley slush."  These held the balls fired by the ship's guns and carronades.  Being very heavy, this ammunition was stored low in the center of the ship, adjacent to the mainmast.  Return to deckplan

Mainmast:  The center and tallest of the three masts.  Return to deckplan

Well:  "Four bells interrupted them, and clear round the ship came the cry of the lookouts and the sentinels: 'Lifebuoy, all's well.' 'Starboard gangway, all's well.' 'Starboard bow, all's well,' followed by all the rest. The carpenter's mate, bringing a lantern with him, reported eleven inches in the well - half an hour's pumping at dawn - and the midshipman of the watch, having fussed some little time with the lantern and the sand-glass, said, 'Seven knots one fathom, sir, if you please.'"  An open area around the base of the mainmast where the main pumps could draw out any accumulated water either from normal leakage or hull damage.  Return to deckplan

Slop Room:  Storage for crew clothing to be issued by the purser.  Return to deckplan

Steward's Room:  The purser's steward kept charge of the ship's provisions stored here.  Return to deckplan

Officers' Stores:  Personal property of the officers other than the captain.  Return to deckplan

Captain's Stores:  Personal property of the captain, including wine and food required for long voyages.  Return to deckplan

Magazine:  "The Surprise bore down, therefore, under her fighting-sails, with her master at the con, her guns run out, powder-boys sitting well behind them on their leather cartridge-cases, shot-garlands full, splinter-netting rigged, scuttle-butts all along, decks damped and sanded, and wet fearnought screens over the hatches leading to the magazine far below, where the gunner sat among his little deadly kegs."  The storage area for gunpowder.  No open flames were permitted in this area and slippers worn for fear of a shoenail striking a spark.  There are statements in some of the Aubrey-Maturin novels that a second, forward, magazine existed, as was common on larger frigates, but no such arrangement was indicated on the Admiralty plans and the Surprise was rather small to permit a second magazine.  It might be that a second magazine, with the necessary filling and light rooms and restricted access passage, was later added when Surprise was refitted as a private man-of-war, carrying a smaller crew than when a Royal Navy vessel.  Return to deckplan

Filling Room:  The cartridge bags required for loading the cannons were filled here and then carried up through the scuttle to the gunroom and above.  Return to deckplan

Light Room:  "... with infinite precautions they lit the lantern in the light-room and sat next door filling cartridges, stiff flannel bags made to take the due charge of powder, by the light that came through the double glass windows."  As no flames were allowed in the magazine or filling room, lamps in the light room shone through sealed windows into the filling room.  Return to deckplan

Passage:  This small room was the only access between the magazine/filling room and the rest of the vessel.  Return to deckplan

Pillar for Mizzenmast:  While the foremast and mainmast were stepped directly on to the ship's keel, the mizzenmast ended one deck higher, so support was provided by a pillar reaching down to the keel.  Return to deckplan

Bread Room:  "The sunbaked decks leaked abominably and the Surprise (though bowling along so cheerfully) echoed with the sound of drips right down to the orlop and the hold itself, wetting all the storerooms, except the tin-lined bread-room, all the cabins, and all the hanging beds within these cabins; and even before the evening sun went down in its abrupt, tropical fashion, the hot imprisoned air was filled with the smell of mould: mould, blue or green or sometimes a mottled grey, growing on books, clothes, shoes, marine specimens, portable soup, and of course the great beams under which everybody slept."  The crew's "bread" (mostly hardtack) was kept in this tin-lined area to protect it from water and rats.  Return to deckplan

Coals:  "... at the same moment the Surprise ran her bows into the advancing green wall of a roller, pointed her bowsprit at the sky and flung the already unbalanced Stephen forward. Unhappily a grating in the deck below was open and he fell a great way on to a heap of coals about to be whipped up for the hanging stoves."  Storage for coal used in stoves.  Return to deckplan

Spirit Room:  "This was greeted by a confused cheer, and Jemmy Bungs darted down to the spirit-room, returning with a beaker not of rum, for that was all gone, but of the even stronger arrack, a quarter of a pint for every soul aboard. This was mixed on deck with exactly three times its amount of water from the scuttle-butt, with stated proportions of lemon-juice and sugar, and so served out, Jack taking the first full pint."  Storage for rum, wine and other alcohol.  Return to deckplan

Fish Room:  "... a faint grey was showing in the east, and Honey came below, bare-footed and red legged from the cold and streaming deck, to put on his shoes and stockings in the warmth. He told them that the worst of the wet would be gone, swabbed away, in five minutes, and that the night's drizzle had lifted: 'Wind at north-east and a following sea. But it is precious cold still: will you not wait until after breakfast? It will be stockfish, judging by the smell of glue.'"  Traditionally used for storage of salted- or stock-fish, also used for other stores, including wine and spirits.  Return to deckplan

Orlop and Hold Deckplan