NationStates Jolt Archive

Little Known Naval History

The U.S.S. Constitution (Old Ironsides) as a combat vessel carried 48,600 gallons of fresh water for her crew of 475 officers and men. This was sufficient to last six months of sustained operations at sea.

However, let it be noted that according to her log, "On July 27, 1798, the U.S.S. Constitution sailed from Boston with a full complement of 475 officers and men, 48,600 gallons of fresh water, 7,400 cannon shot, 11,600 pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of rum."

Her mission: "To destroy and harass English shipping."

Making Jamaica on 6 October, she took on 826 pounds of flour and an additional 68,300 gallons of rum.

Then she headed for the Azores, arriving there 12 November. She provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of Portuguese wine.

On 18 November, she set sail for England.

In the ensuing days she defeated five British men-of-war and captured and scuttled 12 English merchantmen, salvaging only the rum aboard each.

By 26 January, her powder and shot were exhausted. Never the less, and though unarmed, she made a night raid up the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. Her landing party captured a whiskey distillery and transferred 40,000 gallons of single malt Scotch aboard by dawn.

Then she headed home.

The U.S.S. Constitution arrived in Boston on 20 February 1799 (only 7 months later), with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, NO rum, NO wine, NO whiskey and 38,600 gallons of stagnant water. :D

GO NAVY!

How the hell they make it back in one peice!?!? :D

Who needs pirates when you have the US navy!
Ho ho ho and gallons of Rum.

That's hilarious. Must've been tough (and stinky) bastards.

You can tell just how drunk they must have been... they set sail for England, and end up in the Clyde in Scotland :D

Little Known Naval History

The U.S.S. Constitution (Old Ironsides) as a combat vessel carried 48,600 gallons of fresh water for her crew of 475 officers and men. This was sufficient to last six months of sustained operations at sea. <snip> The U.S.S. Constitution arrived in Boston on 20 February 1799 (only 7 months later), with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, NO rum, NO wine, NO whiskey and 38,600 gallons of stagnant water. :D

GO NAVY!
Water's not for drinking... Water = Ballast. :p

The USS Constitution is the best vessel in US naval history.

252,000 gallons of booze. That's 75.789 gallons of booze per man per month... (2.5 gal/day) :eek:

I would guess, however that a good deal of that Rum went for reprovisioning in the Azores, but still, 475 men were able to "dissappear" 40,000 gallons of scotch in a month. (That's either 3.36 gallons of scotch per day per man on the trip home... or the long boats dropped off a few kegs before making harbor...)

Be still my bleeding liver...

..Wow...You have no idea how proud I am of those sailors. Damn it, I wanna get a time machine, go back in time, become a sailor on the ship..lol.

Holy Crap!!!!!

Those guys had to drink more liquor in a week than I could consume in a month (If I want to keep my job). Makes me proud to be a drunken American.

This would so be something I'd do a history report on if they forced me to.

I am very, very impressed. Truly I am. A bunch of sailors get completely and totally drunk off their rockers and still manage to scuttle a bunch of enemy ships. Imagine being one of the Brits getting sunk or captured. What an embarassment. Either those sailors had an incredible tolerance to alcohol, which isn't entirely discountable or they gave the Brits some booze and then captured and sunk the ships of the innebriated seamen. Either way, that's good. Where'd you find all those stats anyway? I'd like to cite some of that elsewhere.

I am very, very impressed. Truly I am. A bunch of sailors get completely and totally drunk off their rockers and still manage to scuttle a bunch of enemy ships. Imagine being one of the Brits getting sunk or captured. What an embarassment. Either those sailors had an incredible tolerance to alcohol, which isn't entirely discountable or they gave the Brits some booze and then captured and sunk the ships of the innebriated seamen. Either way, that's good. Where'd you find all those stats anyway? I'd like to cite some of that elsewhere.
It was emailed to me, but I would guess that the stats are verifiable if they are, as described, on the ship's log. If I were of a mind to research it, I would contact the US Navy/Park service that continues to operate the ship to this day...

It was emailed to me, but I would guess that the stats are verifiable if they are, as described, on the ship's log. If I were of a mind to research it, I would contact the US Navy/Park service that continues to operate the ship to this day...
I'm puzzled at where the modern Navy went wrong and decided to dry out. There's nothing like a belt of bourbon after a couple a bolters and a no-grade four wire.

I'm puzzled at where the modern Navy went wrong and decided to dry out. There's nothing like a belt of bourbon after a couple a bolters and a no-grade four wire.
You know, I normally don't repost "jokes" and crap because they just don't have enough truth in them to suspend disbelief. This one was different.

HOWEVER: Bubble bursting time. I just dug around for a bit this eveningand could not verify the claims. I DID find that the joke has wide circulation on Ship's Newsletters though...

According to the history of the USS Constitution (http://www.usconstitution.com/AHistoryofUSSConstitution.htm):
Constitution put to sea on 22 July 1798, commanded by Captain Samuel Nicholson, the first of many illustrious commanding officers. Following her trial runs in August, she was readied for action in the Quasi-War with France and ordered to patrol for French armed ships between Cape Henry and Florida. One year later she became flagship on the Santo Domingo station, making several captures including the 24-gun privateer Niger, the Spender, and the letter-of marque Sandwich. At war's end, Constitution returned to the Charleston Navy Yard where she was placed in ordinary.

So, sad to say, I do believe the joke to be only that - a joke. The United States wasn't at war with Great Britain in 1798-1799, so no English ships were taken and no raiding parties captured any whisky. It could be that this is an entry from the USS Ranger's log when she was commanded by John Paul Jones in 1779. (?) And could the reason that much of the alcohol was gone by the time she reached homeport is that Jones sold it in another port (traded for supplies, as was often the case in a mercantile (vs cash) global economy.




However, to make it up to you, I present this:

How To Simulate Life In The Navy (Or, Why Syniks did Navy Basic in San Deigo, then Joined the Army...) :D

1. Buy a dumpster, paint it gray and live in it for 6 months straight.

2. Run all of the piping and wires inside your house on the outside of the walls.

3. Pump 10 inches of nasty, crappy water into your basement, then pump it out, clean up, and paint the basement "deck gray".

4. Every couple of weeks, dress up in your best clothes and go the scummiest part of town, find the most run down, trashy bar you can, pay $10 per beer until you're hammered, then walk home in the freezing cold.

5. Perform a weekly disassembly and inspection of your lawnmower.

6. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays turn your water temperature up to 200 degrees, then on Tuesday and Thursday turn it down to 10 degrees. On Saturdays, and Sundays declare to your entire family that they used too much water during the week, so all showering is secured.

7. Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling.

8. Have your next door neighbor come over each day at 5 am, and blow a whistle so loud that Helen Keller could hear it and shout "Reveille, Reveille, all hands heave out and trice up".

9. Have your mother-in-law write down everything she's going to do the following day, then have her make you stand in the back yard at 6 am and read it to you.

10. Eat the raunchiest Mexican food you can find for three days straight, then lock yourself out of the bathroom for 12 hours, and hang a sign on the door that reads "Secured-contact OA division at X-3053".

11. Submit a request form to your father-in-law, asking if it's ok for you to leave your house before 3 pm.

12. Invite 200 of your not-so-closest friends to come over, then board up all the windows and doors to your house for 6 months. After the 6 months is up, take down the boards, wave at your friends and family through the front window of your home...you can't leave until the next day - you have duty.

13. Shower with above-mentioned friends.

14. Make your family qualify to operate all the appliances in your home(i.e. Dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc.).

15. Walk around your car for 4 hours checking the tire pressure every 15 minutes.

16. Sit in your car and let it run for 4 hours before going anywhere. This is to ensure your engine is properly "lighted off".

17. Empty all the garbage bins in your house, and sweep your driveway 3 times a day, whether they need it or not. (Now sweepers, start your brooms, clean sweepdown fore and aft, empty all trashcans over the fantail)
18. Repaint your entire house once a month.

19. Cook all of your food blindfolded, groping for any spice and seasoning you can get your hands on.

20. Use eighteen scoops of budget coffee grounds per pot, and allow each pot to sit 5 hours before drinking.

21. Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, read your magazines, and randomly lose every 5th item.

22. Spend $20,000 on a satellite system for your TV, but only watch CNN and the Weather Channel.

23. Avoid watching TV with the exception of movies which are played in the middle of the night. Have the family vote on which movie to watch and then show a different one.
24. Have your 5-year-old cousin give you a haircut with goat shears.

25. Sew back pockets to the front of your pants.

26. Spend 2 weeks in the red-light districts of Europe, and call it "world travel".

27. Attempt to spend 5 years working at McDonalds, and NOT get promoted.

28. Ensure that any promotions you do get are from stepping on the dead bodies of your co-workers.

29. Needle gun the aluminum siding on your house after your neighbors have gone to bed.

30. When your children are in bed, run into their room with a megaphone, and shout at the top of your lungs that your home is under attack, and order them to man their battle stations. ("General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations")

31. Make your family menu a week ahead of time and do so without checking the pantry and refrigerator.

32. Post a menu on the refrigerator door informing your family that you are having steak for dinner. Then make them wait in line for at least an hour, when they finally get to the kitchen, tell them that you are out of steak, but you have dried ham or hot dogs. Repeat daily until they don't pay attention to the menu any more so they just ask for hot dogs.

33. When baking a cake, prop up one side of the pan while it is in the oven. Spread icing on real thick to level it off.

34. In the middle of January, place a podium at the end of your driveway. Have you family stand watches at the podium, rotating at 4-hour intervals.

35. Lock yourself and your family in your house for 6 weeks. Then tell them that at the end of the 6th week you're going to take them to Disneyland for "weekend liberty". When the end of the 6th week rolls around, inform them that Disneyland has been canceled due to the fact that they need to get ready for Engineering-certification, and that it will be another week before they can leave the house.

36. In your grim, gray dumpster (refer to #1), with 200 of your not-so-closest friend (cite para. 12) regardless of gender, suffer through PMS!

37. Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Have you wife whip open the curtain about 3 hours after you go to sleep. She should then shine a flashlight in your eyes and mumble "Sorry, wrong rack"

38. Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of your bathtub, move the shower head to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you shut off the water while you soap down.

39. When there is a thunderstorm in your area, find a wobbly rocking chair and rock as hard as you can until you become nauseous, have a supply of stale crackers in your shirt pocket.

40. Put lube oil in your humidifier and set it on high

41. For ex-engineering types: leave the lawn mower running in your living room eight hours a day.

42. Have the paperboy give you a haircut.

43. Once a week, blow compressed air up your chimney, making sure the wind carries the soot onto your neighbors house. Ignore his complaints.

44. Every other month buy green or red marine primer and put it in a paint sprayer. Spray it over the roof of your house onto your neighbor's car. Ignore his complaints.

45. Lock wire the lug nuts on your car.

46. Buy a trash compactor, but use it only once a week. Store the garbage on the other side of your bathtub.

47. Get up every night around midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread.

48. Set your alarm clock to go off at random during the night, jump up and get dressed as fast as you can making sure you button up the top button on your shirt, stuff you pants into your socks. Run out into the backyard and uncoil the garden hose.

49. Once a month, take every major appliance apart and put them back together again.

50. Install a fluorescent lamp under the coffee table and then get under it and read books.

51. Raise the thresholds and lower the top sills of your front and back doors so that you either trip or bang your head every time you pass through one of them.

52. Every so often, throw the cat in the pool and shout "Man overboard, starboard side" Then run into the house and sweep all the pots and dishes off the counter. Yell at the wife and kids for not having the kitchen "stowed for sea"

53. Put on the headphones from your stereo set, but don't plug them in. Hang a paper cup around your neck with string. Go stand in front of your stove. Say to no one in particular "Stove manned and ready" Stand there for three or four hours. And say again to no one in particular "stove secured" Roll up your headphones and paper cup and place them in a box.

*snip*

....

Lol! :p