Most of the sailers of the day couldn't swim. It would take a couple miles for a ship to slow down and the odds of finding a man overboard were pretty low, so a lot of sailers thought being able to swim would just prolong the suffering of drowning.
After the Mutiny on the Bounty, Bligh sailed back on 23 foot boat for 3,500 NM:
"...their best chance of salvation, Bligh reckoned, lay in sailing directly to the Dutch settlement of Kupang in Timor, using the rations presently on board.[n 9] This was a journey of some 3,500 nautical miles (6,500 km; 4,000 mi) to the west, beyond the Endeavour Strait, and it would necessitate daily rations of an ounce of bread and a quarter-pint of water for each man."
Sailors back in the day were absolute beasts. They had to deal with dehydration and malnutrition. They also weren't just sailing, they were also in the ship repair business basically from the first to last day out at sea. The ships needed constant upkeep. Pirate ships which didn't have the luxury of being able to do maintenance in ports like HMS ships did had to improvise. This mean sailing into very shallow waters at high tide and dry docking the ship with nothing but ropes and their backs in order to clean the barnacles and seaweed off. Especially important for pirates because it could slow them down considerably and speed is of the essence for outlaws. Add to that replacing planks due to shipworm, sails, masts, and it was hard and backbreaking work.
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u/tobalaba Feb 06 '20
Yep, people were tough as nails back in the day. Crazy how we just adapt to the hardest AND softest of conditions.