r/Tallships

Hi all

Almost two years ago, I was diagnosed with advanced cancer, and it has been a wild and crazy ride for my young family and me. Through a lot of treatment, uncertainty, and long days, Patrick O’Brian’s world has been one of the places I’ve continued to find warmth.

Jack, Stephen, and the rest of the company have kept watch with me through some very rough weather.

Along the way, I’ve also been teaching myself computer engineering and AI as I prepare to get back into the job market...and, somewhat improbably, I ended up building a little game called 

The Quarterdeck.

• Play The Quarterdeck here
  • Share feedback: Quick survey monkey - THANK YOU

You get to take command of HMS Surprise, solve problems under pressure, and fight a French frigate. My hope was to create a small pocket of O’Brian’s Age of Sail that you can carry around with you: something fun and approachable that might make you smile for a few minutes.

There is a fairly thoughtful sailing and combat simulation underneath it, but the goal was never complexity for complexity’s sake. I wanted it to feel warm first...a little like stepping aboard with Jack, Stephen, and the company.

I’m not really trying to sell anything here. I built this during a difficult chapter because it brought me joy, and I wanted to share it with the community that helped inspire it.

I would genuinely love to hear what you think in the comments. If you have a few extra minutes, I’ve also included a short survey so I can collect more structured feedback.

If people enjoy it, I would love to keep building....more ships, historical scenarios, richer battles, and perhaps the ability to develop your own style of command. But for now, I mostly hope it gives a few of you some of the same warmth that these books and this community have given me.

Thank you all for the humor, companionship, and kindness you’ve unknowingly provided during a difficult couple of years.

I hope you enjoy it and feel free to share with your own communities, friends, and family. 

Mack & my own fighting crew (Claudia, Bennett [3], Parker [1])

I am creating a story around a captain and his crew sailing, but I need to know how many men/women I need to create for said crew, for that I need to know the type of ship I'd want for the story, and I kinda know neither of the answers 🤔

It'd be useful if someone could tell me what type of ships back then were used for with how many people they'd roughly need to be navigated. My story is a medieval-like time, a fantasy, I don't need chronological accuracy with our own timeline but I want to avoid modern ships with machinery, motor, whatever there is in a modern ship idk ^^'

I'll do my own research too but it might be long so while I do this search and struggle I also post here to have possibly more targeted answers ^^

Edit: I don't know what ship they would be on, I haven't made enough researches to know yet. But for some informations on what they do that would be useful for the kind of ship I'd need, here :
- I'd like if possible a medium sized ship (or larger if preferable, I'd like at least to have a crew of 10 people minimum around 25 people limit for the maximum)
- They are free spirits so they explore known and unknown seas, take commissions (to search, capture, bring back things or people), transport people or few merchandise on demand, act like pirates sometimes
- They would all mostly live on the ship annually

Idk what of all this is possible or what I need to compromise and remove to have other things available, but the most I can keep the better it is

Second edit: I might have been unclear, sorry if I was, but my world, tho medieval like, is entirely fictional ! Registration, rules, laws, this will be developed so my crew can sail how I want it to in all logic, and that's also why I am not restricted to any era for the boat's inspiration (that can be early or late medieval, renaissance, ect), I just say it's medieval-like as fantasy is usually set in an older time era most likely inspired by medieval europe. But my world is 100% fictional on its politics, maps, laws, kingdoms, and magic is also in there that can help with some other problems I'd encounter with ships for what I want it to do, so I can take whatever is the closest to what I want and make plausible adjustments with magic.