My understanding (not truly being a nautical man, myself) is that "Stem" is a actually just a term for a section of the keel, and by extension, boat/ship. If not, "stem to stern" would be less likely to mean "entire vessel."
If you could wait, say, a week, I might be able to get you more information from my friend who volunteers at his local maritime museum, but.. :-/
"Stem: A circular piece of timber, into which the two sides of a ship are united at the fore end. The lower end of it is scarfed to the keel, and the bowsprit rests on its upper end."
So I'm getting the impression that the stem and the keel are separate pieces, and also, that stem and stern don't "turn into each other" at any point because stem refers to a specific part on the extreme front end of the ship.
I don't know anything about floaty things, though, so you may want to look at some of the other pages that that search comes up with. There is a lot to sort through.
I think stempost is the term I'm looking for. Many thanks. And thanks for the info about the paint. I need to have this particular bit of wood covered somehow, but I think I'll go with pitch.
FWIW, it seems likely that ship paint in that period would be a form of oil paint. There aren't many other durable waterproof options at that point (something lacquer based is the only other option I can think of, I don't think casein would hold up). There's a bit on in one of Patrick O'Brian's novels about repainting the ship, but I can't recall details... sounds like pitch is a good option anyway. If it was oil paint, it would smell of linseed oil and take a long time to dry.
To be honest, a topsail schooner wouldn't be my first choice for a privateer - they were designed for speed, not fire power, and it's not much help to catch up with enemy shipping and then be unable to take it.
She is a tops'l schooner - there's no way I'm rewriting 106,000 words. I did a lot of research before deciding on this. Speed is her main weapon. She's chasing merchantmen not ships of the line. Her captain tries hard not to get her into the broadside-for-broadside type of exchange beloved of pirate movies. Of course it helps that the captain is also a weather witch. :-)
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If you could wait, say, a week, I might be able to get you more information from my friend who volunteers at his local maritime museum, but.. :-/
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http://256.com/gray/docs/nautical.html
"Stem: A circular piece of timber, into which the two sides of a ship are united at the fore end. The lower end of it is scarfed to the keel, and the bowsprit rests on its upper end."
So I'm getting the impression that the stem and the keel are separate pieces, and also, that stem and stern don't "turn into each other" at any point because stem refers to a specific part on the extreme front end of the ship.
I don't know anything about floaty things, though, so you may want to look at some of the other pages that that search comes up with. There is a lot to sort through.
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http://www.ageofsail.net/
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:-)
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