On Mon, 04 Apr 2005 11:57:56 GMT, Brian Whatcott wrote:

On Mon, 04 Apr 2005 01:54:48 -0400, Jan
wrote:

On Sun, 03 Apr 2005 19:48:38 GMT, Brian Whatcott wrote:

//

Ah, you can support the connection between ship's head and
sanitary head, because, in your view, there is not properly a plural
sanitary term in nautical use: "heads"

Got it!

:-)

Brian Whatcott Altus, OK

Brian,
If I may offer a little more clarification to this perplexing question.g When
I was serving in the Royal Navy in the early 50's it was my experience that the
terms "head" and "heads" were used interchangeably. One could go to the head or
the heads and everyone knew what was meant. In a couple of ships in which I
served, the layout of the heads, yes, there were two sets, one port and one
starboard, both right up in the bow, were not a great deal different from the
old sailing ship days, except it was no longer necessary to perform ones act in
the open. The layout consisted of a trough just above knee height which served
as the urinal, this trough then dropped down and continued beneath about 6
stalls. Sea-water was pumped continuously into one end, ran down the trough and
exited through a hole in the hull. Sea-boats had to be careful not to get under
the out-flow. One source of amusement was to bunch up a page of a news-paper,
light it and drop it into the trough when all the stalls were full. It was
advisable to beat a hasty retreat after doing so.g
This URL will show you just how the heads looked on HMS Victory, Nelson's
flag-ship at the Battle of Trafalgar, as you will see from the picture and the
explanation, this is situated in the bow section of the ship.
http://www.stvincent.ac.uk/Heritage/...ory/heads.html

The last modern war-ship I was on for a visit had flush heads, such luxury we
could only dream about.g

Jan
"If you can't take a joke,you shouldn't have joined"


Ah yes: a ship of the line had heads both forward and aft, of varying
sophistication. The only disappointment with this interesting URL is
that there is no mention of buckets.
At all!

:-)

Brian Whatcott

Probably because the only use for buckets was for doing laundry, fire-fighting
or carrying water and other items from one location to another such as the
galley.g The layout shown was common on all ships, not just "ships of the
line". With different degrees of sophistication, the head area of a frigate,
which was not a ship of the line, would be more spartan than the "Victory", the
same area in a sloop, barque, cutter or a transport would be on a similar level
as the frigate, however, buckets were never used as relief stations, or to be
more forthright "crapping in".bg A great deal depended on the size of the
ship, the smaller the ship, less room, less room, less sophistication. A ship of
the line was the largest thing afloat at that time, and even in the "Victory",
you have to watch your head as there is little head-room (pun intended) for the
average person to-day.

Jan
"If you can't take a joke,you shouldn't have joined"