In talking with my father the other night I mentioned that Hattie Atwood Freeman had sailed with her father in the 1890s on board the sailing bark Charles Stewart. She says in her diary that the crew consisted of 7 sailors, the mate, the captain and the cook. The painting of the Charles Stewart shows a full rigged sailing bark, one of the big ones. My father commented that they probably used their donkey engines for the heavy work.

This makes sense to me but... There was a lot of canvas on those ships and seven men could only do just so much at a time. And often a lot has to be done when a squall comes up suddenly.

Plus, it seems to me, that a donkey engine would be useful only in fair weather.

I checked our previous threads and we haven't discussed the donkey engines very much. A search of Google shows some donkey engines used in logging but none at sea.

So what can you find? If these were as ubiquitous as all that what information is on the web to look at. Are there any old photos? Any diagrams show placement on deck? What can this crack team of researchers come up with?