Fountain of Knowledge

I'm about to start the "2nd" part of my novel and it's going to be mostly on a merchant ship from around 1600 - the time isn't set in stone yet, but I'm hoping to get an idea of accuracy, before doing the serious research, so if anyone can help me out with these general questions, that'd be great.

1.) How big would a merchant ship have been? (In feet if possible) Living in Plymouth, MA most of my life I've seen the replica of the Mayflower that the Pilgrims came over on. Would that be a pretty accurate design of a merchant ship?

2.) How many masts would it have had? 2? 3? 4? 500?

3.) How many crew members on average? I'm going with 11 or 12 at the moment but would there have been more? less? Who would have been on the crew? Cook? Doctor?

4.) Where did the crew sleep? I know nobody had their own room - or possibly any rooms - but were there designated sleeping and eating quarters?

5.) General layout of a merchant ship - how many decks or levels? I'm thinking 3 - the hull or storage, one for people to live and the top deck, but really I have no clue. Was the storage area separated from the living area at least? (See questions about the Mayflower in 1)

6.) Could a captain own his own ship? Or did someone/s hire him?

7.) How long did the ships generally last? ie: their "life-span"

Just a side note: the ship in the story will ideally not be taking passengers - maybe one or two will show up in the story but it's not dealing in slaves or sending people over to the new world.

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure there will be a bunch more, and eventually I'll have to go out and do my own research, but if there are some people out there who have a general idea about ships around the 1600's and could help me out with basics, that would be fantastic.

Thanks!

~unicornsong

** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **
"Invalid Item" 

[Linked Poll's access is restricted.]