Wooden Ships and Iron Men: Difference between revisions

This trope generally involves a [[Used Future]] sort of vision of the age of sail, with dirt, grime, barnacles, scurvy, [[A Taste of the Lash|floggings]], and other unpleasant aspects of the real time period not glossed over. If a ship or its crew are suspiciously well-scrubbed and well-fed, it's not this trope - unless the protagonists are members of the British Navy, in which case failing to keep the ship spotless could lead to floggings. But tales of action and adventure abound, with swashbucklers, pirates, heroes and villains and damsels in distress all around.

== Live -Action TelevisionTV ==

* This might not precisely qualify,{{verify}} but in the 1500's1500s Knights of Malta who survived at least a year as a Turkish galley slave and were then rescued frequently lived to nearly 100, in an era in which the average life expectancy hadn't hit 50 yet. Jean Parisot de Valette (who survived a year as a galley slave in his youth) commanded the 9,000 defenders of Malta against 40,000 invading Turks from the front lines and won. At age 70.

** The Knights of Malta probably fit quite well, actually-; they were noted for their love of naval warfare, constantly harrying Ottoman trade in the Eastern Mediterranean. The Turkish campaign which drove them out of Rhodes, and the later (unsuccessful) campaign to drive them from Malta were intended to end their piracy. They're more strongly remembered as "knights" in the classical sense, given that they are mostly known as the successors of the original crusading order, and because their two most famous battles of the post-medieval era were the sieges of Rhodes and Malta, but naval warfare was actually what their contemporaries most knew them for.