Oliver and I spent the day walking around Mystic Seaport http://www.mysticseaport.org/ looking at all the cool seafaring displays. The crown jewel is the Charles W Morgan, a whaler built in 1841.
These guys and girls are squaring the sails on the Morgan, and climbed the rope like monkeys.
The old whaling days have always interested me, 2 good reads are THe Heart of the Sea and the old classic 2 Years Before the Mast. Those 2 years must have seemed like an eternity cramped as it is, before the mast.