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Need help - Stateroom vs Coach

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Nov 15, 2020
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Hillsburgh, ON, CAN
I’m building the HMS Fly and the plans show the main deck cabins as Great Cabbin, Stateroom and Coach. The Great Cabbin is self explanatory and I’m guessing Stateroom is where the Captain sleeps. What is Coach? What is it used for? I’m trying to select what furniture I’m going to create but can’t move forward unless I know what the rooms are for.
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Coach means "economy class". That means they are smaller, utilitarian rooms used for lower rank crew members, or inexpensive travel for passengers.
Then why is this the 2nd largest room on the entire ship? The only larger room is the Great Cabbin. All the ship’s officers rooms are half the size of the Coach room. Perhaps in the 17th Century this meant passenger room? Still guessing the ship’s commander sleeps in the stateroom.
 
You will often see the description "dining coach"
The great cabin (in an English Man of War) would be the absolute private space of the captain, and would normally not have a long table to accommodate the whole staff as seen in the movies. There would rather be a desk, several armchairs for guests, and a lot of walking space.
A large table can be rigged there for formal dinner parties, but that is not the normal state.
Typically in front of that would be his bedplace (on Sb), with a cot, and the dining coach (on Ps), with a table for maybe six guests. That is also handily close to the captain's pantry, which in many cases will be one deck below together with the wardroom/gunroom pantry.
I have never seen a drawing with a corridor between the coach and the bedplate, so one assumes that it is also the entrance to the cabin, where the marine sentry would stand just outside.
on some ships, small arms racks may be there for safe keeping, and the table would have to share the space with a gun or two, likely stored fore and aft on the side.
In Lavery's book on Bellona, the coach is labelled lobby, and there is a small adjacent cabin for the captain's clerk.
Note that usage in other navies tend to make the great cabin less private, and accessible by other superior officers or distinguished passengers, particularly in single deck ships where the gunroom is a not very welcoming confined space. Think for instance about access to the heads in the galleries, one for the captain, do officers have access to the other?
 
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