I am pretty sure, that there were several times barriers and obstacles on the way towards the capstan, and I know often they had to dismantle things like guns, ladders etc. in order to be able to work with a capstan - but they did it
here the example with the messenger cable during lifting the anchor
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Take a look at
@dafi building log where he showed in detail how it was looking when they worked on the capstan
lower deck
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upper deck
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Here is a small excursion into the interior life of the Victory around 1900. The difficulty is that there are far fewer pictures and it is much more difficult to put them in chronological order. The first picture is of the upper gun deck, the photographer standing at the level of the foremast...
shipsofscale.com
I am pretty sure, that Daniel also checked the way of such a messenger cable towards the capstan
but also this topic
This is a portion of John McKay's drawing of the Discovery1789. If you look on the QD you can see that the bars would clear the stairwell rails but down on the main deck you would have to pull the bars on every revolution to clear the stairs. Is it possible that they used the lower portion for...
shipsofscale.com