Who crews the boats?

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Alfirin

I asked this question as part of another thread, but did not really get a good answer. When boats leave from the Grey Havens for the blessed lands do they have formal crews or do those going to the West crew the boats themselves? The boat that leaves at the end of ROTK is carrying Elrond, Galdriel, Gandalf, Frodo and Bilbo. That's five people, two of whom, being hobbits (who don't really travel on the water) are proably not particualry good sailors. That's and awfully small group of people to crew what, in pretty much every picture I've ever seen, is take to be a reasonably good size boat. so are there other elves there who work as the actual boat crew or are five really all you need to sail, come to think of it is much actual sailing invoved or once the straigh path is reached does the boat just automatically follow it?

The crews are Teleri, Cirdan's folk. They go both ways (and I am not referring to sexual orientation).

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

The crews are Teleri, Cirdan's folk. They go both ways (and I am not referring to sexual orientation).

Without getting into dangerously funny double entendres, I wonder...

I've always been of the understanding that the voyage to Eressëa was a one-way trip. Círdan and the Falathrim may be there to build and service the ships that depart for the Undying Lands, but if they get onboard, they're not coming back.

I mean, after all, it's pretty clear that the Straight Road is a one-way path. The arrival of the Istari in the 3rd Age is very, very clearly an extraordinary occurrence. When debating over whether Glorfindel of Rivendell was the same as Glorfindel of Gondolin, Tolkien concluded he was, but then had to come up with a decision as to when and how he returned to Middle-earth. He considered that he might have come with the Istari, but seems to have disliked this solution--for the obvious reason that Elves coming back in the 3rd Age is more or less rejected. Instead, he goes with the idea that Glorfindel sailed back by way of Númenor in the 2nd Age, when travel (for the Elves) was permitted both ways.

My point, essentially, is that while Círdan's people may have supplied some of the crew for the ships, they most certainly seem unlikely to have returned to the Grey Havens thereafter. And it is possible that some wished to depart, as the Ages wore on. After all, look how quickly the sea-longing came on Legolas after a mere whiff of ocean air? Little more than a century later, he was gone. Think of the effect on the Falathrim, living right on the western shores!

All the same, if the population of the Grey Havens remained more or less constant, then there can't have been too many boarding the white ships. This raises the question, though, of whether the Elves that were departing had to be themselves trained in the art of seamanship before they sailed? In addition to building ships, were the Falathrim engaged in cruising around the Gulf of Lhûn, teaching Eressëa-sick Sindar and Noldor how to hold a course and trim the sails? Or was there some sort of magical autopilot, whereby if you manage to get your white, Círdan-stickered, ship into the Straight Path, it'll take it from there?

Somehow... I doubt it.

[Alfirin]

That's sort of what I was getting at. The only other thing I want to add (on top of what I wrote earlier) was this thought. If the boats were largely crewed by Cirdan's folk and required the crews the boats that size would need (given the size usually picked by "approved" illustrators I would estimate we are talking about a crew of twelve to fifteen constant which proably means a crew of twenty to thirty total (elves don't tire like men, but I would imagine that you would still need at least some spare sailors and more than one shift,) and who would make the trip one way, then that would bring up the question of whether people ever got "stuck" at the grey Havens for a time, that is were froced to stay there until sufficient quantities of "weary" had accumulated to make a full crew. Then again if by the end of the third age, eleves really were beginning to desert Middle Earth en masse , maybe such a wait was uneccary as boat were leaving fairly often, so getting together thirty took on a few days or weeks.

[Morthoron]

I still believe the ships were crewed by Cirdan's folk for both departures and arrivals, simply through scales of economy. I mean, really, how many fancy swan-prowed, grey Elvish ships are you going to make over a few millenia, several thousand? Talk about de-elvestation of the forests. And then there is the actual act of sailing, not an easy thing in an oceanic sea like Belegaer (not many 3rd Age Elves were sailors, were they?). Finally, there is a precedent for ships arriving in the Grey Havens, as the Istari and Glorfindel both took ship from Valinor and were greeted by Cirdan. Someone had to taxi them there, and it doesn't seem plausible that Elves long resigned to living in Valinor or Tol Erressea would be enamored of leaving Aman for the vagaries of the open sea and the wilds of Middle-earth just to drop off a few dusty old men.