Exactly.
> was one gallon per man per day.
It'd be interesting to see how it was consumed. I'd imagine most sailors rarely took their entire ration and it'd be after shift as a binge.
I like this quote -
"You mustn't imagine that naval ships were sailed by crews of drunken sailors," says Dr van der Merwe, general editor at the National Maritime Museum. "Everybody drowns if sailors are drunk all the time."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8859000/8859506....
This is like the myth of split sleep, I don't know why people think these things are possible.
We know how we live, we know how really poor people live and these things just don't fit, they are illogical but people still believe them.
No it wasn't. There was never a time that a whole gallon per day was a normal rum ration. It was a gallon of beer, later a half pint of rum. A half pint of strong rum is still a lot to consume every day, but it's nowhere near a gallon.
Over time it was reduced until it turned into basically a shot, and then even that was stopped.
I mean, the daily ration of beer in the Royal Navy, when they were in English waters and not on hard stuff, was one gallon per man per day. And they were scampering around in the mastheads...