Is this a good setting idea? // making it unsettling/eerie/disturbing???

Actually, it makes perfect sense. Being able to swim wouldn't help them much, if at all.

I spent summers as a child with my grandparents on the coast of Maine -- Penobscot Bay, which is about halfway up the coast, just south of Blue Hill and Acadia National Park. The ocean temperature in mid-summer was only about 50 degrees F. There were a number of lobstermen and crab catchers who sailed out of our harbor. My grandfather knew some of them, and none of them knew how to swim. Their view was that if they went overboard or their boat went down, they would have succumbed to hypothermia and died long before anyone could possibly have arrived to rescue them, so ... "what's the point?"

 

You'd be surprised. It would not fit the era in question, but sailors (or anyone) not knowing how to swim was normal even in costal areas until the years leading into WW1 (are rare even than). The British Navy had such a large problem with seamen drowning that giving swimming lessons to sailors became a thing during the Napoleonic Wars.

 

Holy shit, you guys are breaking my brain. I thought it was common sense sailors should know how to swim. But I think more people would have my misconception about this than not. So it could be a bit distracting to add in for "realism".

 

Welcome aboard! It's a really common misconception, so don't feel bad. Learning to swim became a big deal in the 1870s when going to the beach on holiday came into fashion. However, it's not until having regular access to pools that it became supper important (especially for kids) to learn to swim. Most people where I live know how, but we also live near large bodies of water. The further inland you go, the less common it becomes.

My wip is about a Royal Navy (British) expedition in 1848-50 and the Age of Sail is a pet topic. If anyone is wondering why I know all this.

 

I grew up on the Gulf of Mexico. My parents were inlanders who never learned to swim, though my father spent a lot of time in boats either fishing or hunting. They put me into swimming lessons when I was five. I took classes almost every year through senior lifesaving. My mom said I had to know how to swim in case she ever started to drown. Never was sure whether or not she was joking. My son has his first swimming lessons when he was not quite 2. I swear my daughter was born knowing how to swim.

 

I remember an episode of Deadliest Catch where a sailor (a crabber?) fell overboard. This was in the Northern Atlantic. Luckily someone either saw him fall or realized he was no longer standing at the rail where he had been a moment ago. The boat was turned around rapidly and they managed to pull him out, shivering but alive. I don't remember if he was wearing a life preserver or not, it's probably standard practice. But then a crab boat is much smaller than a cargo ship, and on a cargo ship I don't imagine they stand against the rail throughout the voyage.

But my point is that a person who falls overboard can be saved if it's possible to turn the boat around quickly or maybe drop a smaller boat to retrieve him.

 

Of course that's totally different from trying to swim to safety. No way could you make it to an island or anything. They pulled him out within I think 3 minutes, and he was just about done. He wouldn't have lasted another minute.

 

Hi. I'm new here and not sure about etiquette on this site, so please taken no offense if I am out of line.

That said, it occurs to me that you could draw some useful inspiration from the original 'Alien' (1979) starring Sigourney Weaver and Tom Skerritt. Though it is an interstellar ship, the atmosphere of the Nostromo looks very much like what you describe. Translating that to the written word is the challenge. You might pick up a copy of the novelization written by Alan Dean Foster and see how he approached the subject. As others have said, how your characters react to the setting will tell the reader how scary the setting actually is.

Also suggest finding a copy of 'San Andreas' by Alistair Maclean. Been a while since I read it but I think it takes place in the North Sea during WWII. Good descriptions of hazards for ships and some of the things crew could do to make repairs.

Good Luck!

 

I think it's great!

One thing I love about psychological horrors is when the setting starts off as something innocuous and then slowly becomes creepy. It reminds me of an old broken-down cruise ship that my brother once bought with the idea he would fix it up and flip it for a profit. But it became almost like a horror show with all the problems he ran into. And it did have all sorts of dark hallways, and storage rooms. I could see something like people having a similar romantic idea with an old freighter. For example, a bunch of hippies buy it and try to turn it into a commune. And slowly the weird stuff starts to happen...

 

That is clever idea.

 

The Alan Dean Foster novelization of Alien was actually a big influence for this story! I used to love the Alien franchise and I would read the novelization over and over again.

 

Your setting sounds like an attention-getting way to ignite a reader's curiosity, to leverage him or her into your story. You might consider posting your opening paragraph for feedback. I say paragraph because it can be very difficult to satisfy your criteria for the opening of a story in just one sentence. Cheers!