# of crew and ideal sailing date for 1800's merchant ship?

Question

I'm writing a story about a man being one of the few survivors of a shipwrecked merchant vessell in the 1800's and for accuracy's sake I would like to know two things:

1) What was the usual amount of crew members for a merchant ship sailing a good distance... we'll say it was a relatively small boat...

2) Being a merchant ship, I'm sure they sailed year-round but is there an ideal month that most of them would deploy, or any months they would strictly avoid?

Thanks very much!

Answer 1

ships sailed when they had cargo.....no one liked leaving New York in January, for example, and no one liked sailing anywhere in typhoon/hurricane season, but ships went out.....and some never came back....so there was no "season" per se......

as to crew...hummmmmmm.....a 100 foot schooner working between New England and the Caribbean could sail with as little as 12 people; a clipper ship going round the Horn from Boston to San Fransisco in 1850 might have as many as 45...so it depends how big a ship and what route...generally ships were sailed with what seems an impossibly small number of people, working 4 hours on, 4 hours off..except "off" hours were subject to emergencies, operations like changing course and setting / taking in sail...a brutally hard life.......