A pirate’s life of toil

After watching a film like “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” or even “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” you might assume a 19th century sailor’s life was all about having sword fights, searching for treasure and getting to wear a really cool eye-patch. According to Ivan Stoner, however, the life of a sailor 200 years ago consisted mostly of, well ... work.

“In many ways it was not a particularly good life,” says Stoner. “Life was hard, there wasn’t a lot of food and you were doing backbreaking labor pretty much constantly.”

Stoner should know. For the last two months he’s been sailing the high seas as “education officer” with the crew of the Hawaiian Chieftain, a reconstructed 19th century merchant ship that is currently traveling down the coast of California.

For Stoner, the day starts at 7 a.m. After a quick breakfast, he and his mates get down to business. Daily duties include swabbing the deck, cleaning the head (that’s sailor speak for “toilet”) and in general taking care of the many things needing taking care of on the 103-foot sailboat.

But the modern-day sailors still have it easy.

“The way these boats used to work,” explains Stoner, “is that there would be two watches, each of them four hours at a time. So you never got more than four hours of sleep. It was pretty grueling.”

The Chieftain was built in 1988, but it looks as though it could have easily sailed the high seas of 1821 with a cargo of Indian spices or American tobacco. The ship boasts enormous wooden masts and billowing sails, its shape is sleek and fast, its detailing the work of craftsmen.

Accompanied by the Lady Washington (just back from starring as the HMS Interceptor in “Pirates of the Caribbean”) the Chieftain is, at the moment, in Long Beach, after docking at various harbors along the California coast.

“We usually dock for a week or so,” explains Stoner, “we do three-hour tourist sails and we also have historical programs for kids. So you can come on the boats and learn how they were sailed and what it was like for the sailors who lived on them. You can even steer. It’s pretty amazing for a fourth-grader to feel like they’re in charge of 97-ton ship.”

The boat’s educational program, “Voyages of Discovery,” lets fourth- and fifth-graders get an up close and personal view of nautical life. Participants not only steer the ship, they also take part in the kind of battles seen in “Master and Commander.”

The Chieftain’s sailors (who all dress in period costume) reenact sword fights and high-speed chases. But Stoner insists that one of the visitors’ favorite parts of the program is a show and tell in the hold, where kids learn about history while studying the various items that made up a sailor’s daily life.

“We have all kinds of artifacts we let everyone see and touch,” says Stoner, “and we talk about things like the food. It’s always fun to watch people see the hard tack, which is what they would eat on these voyages because they couldn’t bring anything that would go bad, like fruit or vegetables.”

“Hard tack is a kind of bread,” he says. “It’s basically the same recipe as Play-Doh, but it’s baked for a really long time, so it’s hard as a rock. You can hit it against the deck and nothing happens.”

Despite the long hours, the lack of sleep and the Play-Doh for dinner, life on the Chieftain is still cool enough for Stoner to want to stay aboard.

“I just signed on for another two months,” he says. “Just about every group of kids we have on ends up not wanting to leave. I guess I’m the same way.”

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Tall Ships

Hawaiian Chieftain, Lady Washington, Lynx and others: Long Beach Sea Festival, Saturday and Sunday

Lady Washington: Port of Long Beach, through Jan. 11

Where: Rainbow Harbor, 200B Aquarium Way, Long Beach

Sailing and Dockside Programs

Voyages of Rediscovery, history programs for fourth- and fifth-graders. Jan. 5-9. $5 dockside, $30 sailing.

Battle Reenactment Sails. Saturday-Sunday and Jan. 10-11, 2-5 p.m., $45 adult, $25 child.

Adventure Sail Training. Jan. 11, 10 a.m.-1 p.m., $40 adult, $20 child.

Tours

Guided tours, today-Friday, 2-5 p.m., $7 family, $3 adult, $2 students and seniors, $1 children under 12. Free dockside tours, Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.

Info: (800) 200-5239 or www.hawaiianchieftain.com.

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Hawaiian Chieftain

History: The ship was built in 1988 by designer Raymond Richards at a cost of $100,000.

Details: It’s 103 feet long and carries 1,800 gallons of fuel, 1,800 gallons of water and 47 people. Its main mast is 75 feet high.

Fun fact: If you sewed all its sails together, you’d have a 4,200-square-foot piece of canvas.

Home port: Sausalito

Jessica Hundley can be contacted at weekend@latimes.com.