There, prisoners who faced the heaviest accusations by the officers (such as sedition, mutiny and extreme forms of cowardice) were put to the “round of fleet” flogging ceremony in which the sentenced number of lashes that prisoner had to endure was divided by the number of Royal Navy ships that were present in port. In addition to the whipping measures that Captain could immediately invoke on the sea, the most brutal form of corporal punishment in Royal British Navy happened when ships were stationed in ports. Official punishment with Cat o' nine tails was performed on the main deck of the ship, with all crewmen being present and the prisoner being brought to the flogging by marines with fixed bayonets. This short whip features nine knotted strands of rope that are connected to the main handle. The second and more painful one were the floggings using special “Cat o' nine tails” or “captain’s daughter” whip. First one was mass whipping during “knittles” or “running the gauntlet” where the offender was forced to walk between the two lines of sailors who whipped his back as he walked. Punishment for severe offenders was much more painful and involved one of two whipping techniques. Quick and immediate punishment by the single-tailed whip (often named by sailors “rope’s end” or “starter”) was used for smaller indiscretions and management of discipline. The flogging techniques that were used there were separated into two types. Whipping the backs of sailors was very greatly popularized on the English military vessels where sailors even managed to think of it as a character-building tradition, they took pride in the fact that if you want to be a sailor in British Royal Navy you have to be strong, durable and be able to tolerate pain. Among them all, the most used was the technique of flogging in which offending crew member, captive or slave was tied to the mast (or hung in the air by the hands or leg angles from the mast) and flogged mercilessly. During the Golden Age of Piracy in the 17th and 18th century, punishment at sea was commonly used for enforcing rules and subduing prisoners both on pirate ships and on military ships of many nations.
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