Deck stoning

She was the flagship of the Channel Fleet and later the Eastern Med Squadron.

I would guess the answer was “ often”. There’d be a lot of spit and polish on her.

What I remember reading of period standing orders is that the decks were washed & stoned daily.

Part of that is that no soap/detergent was carried for the decks; the decks were simply sluiced down with sea water and the stones floated in that.

This was less a maintenance item as a method of putting a few hundred idle hands to work lest they get up to mischief.

Now, I've never read, in orders, contemporary accounts, or even fiction, as to whether the guns were cast loose to was under them, or how the spirketting & waterway fared with groggy tars bashing sandstones about.

That's my 2¢ at least

Well ;

 It's my understanding that " Stoning " was a daily thing . One , to keep the deck clean and Two , To give the swabbies something to do if they weren't needed on gun crews or in the rigging .

Thanks, guys.  I'll mix up that deck color to have more wood color.

Royal Navy sailors holy stoning a deck on the HMS PANDORA during the early 20th century. These sandstone scrubbers were about the dementions of a bible and the fact that the sailor-scrubbers had get on their knees to scrub a ship's deck.

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