Forepeak

The forepeak served as a stowage and work area. Note the rivet work -- these rivets were set very nearly by hand, by a team of two or three men in the shipyard. A boy carried hot rivets to the outside man, who whacked them through the hull with a primitive power tool. Then the inside man smashed the head of each rivet down, spreading it out and clinching the join. The task must have seemed endless. When a big ship was under construction, a hundred or more men might be setting rivets all day long. Note the substantial tubing of the bowsprit and the bower anchor windlass.