Prize crew is a term used to indicate a number of crew members of a ship chosen to take over the operations of a captured ship.
In the early days of sailing and up into the American Civil War, capturing enemy ships was quite common. As a result, warships optimistically carried extra crew members for use as prize crews.
Prize crews were required to take their prize to appropriate prize courts, which would determine whether the prize crew had sufficient cause to have the title of the prize awarded to them.
Today, as evidenced by results of sea battles during World War I and World War II, ships generally were sunk, not captured. Therefore, prize crews were no longer an integral part of a ship's complement. If, however, a ship was captured, a prize crew would be selected from the winning ship’s complement.
Read more about Prize Crew: Examples
Famous quotes containing the words prize and/or crew:
“I prize the purity of his character as highly as I do that of hers. As a moral being, whatever it is morally wrong for her to do, it is morally wrong for him to do. The fallacious doctrine of male and female virtues has well nigh ruined all that is morally great and lovely in his character: he has been quite as deep a sufferer by it as woman, though mostly in different respects and by other processes.”
—Angelina Grimké (1805–1879)
““10 April 1800—
Blacks rebellious. Crew uneasy. Our linguist says
their moaning is a prayer for death,
ours and their own.”
—Robert Earl Hayden (1913–1980)