The following illustrations and text are from: Biesty, Stephen. Cross-Sections Man-of-war. London, Dorling Kindersley, 1993

The drawing above shows the main parts of an 18th c warship. Towering above the main body of the ship, the hull, rose three huge masts - fore, main and mizzen. These supported the yards, large horizontal poles from which the sails hung. The hundreds of ropes controlled the sails and supported the masts, making the sailing warship, or 'man-of-war', an incredibly complex piece of machinery.

Horizontal cut through the decks of a Man-of-war

A note on the Dauntless in Pirates of the Caribbean. Looking at photos of the ship, it appears she had about 80 cannons. As a rule of thumb, there were 8 men to a cannon on a British Navy warship in the 18th century. Therefore she would be crewed by approximately 650 men.

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