Where did they sleep?

On the Yamato sailors slept in hammocks. The netting variety of hammock from the Caribbean became quite popular around the world, though canvas beds were apparently known in Europe for millenia, and possibly used in English ships before Columbus. How the Japanese sailors slept before Western contact didn't turn up on a quick search.

Bunks seem like the obvious way to store sleeping crewmen if the vessel is tall enough and you haven't developed hammocks, and even if you use them you'll need vertical space between them--not everybody can sleep at once.

Viking longboats had space on deck for the men if they took the sail down and tied it over them for a tent. Triremes, though--there wasn't a lot of room on those things. If they hauled in all the oars there might be room to lie down between benches, but probably this guy had the right idea: "Usually under blankets around their campfires on the beach." Non-warships would have more space--you could sleep lying on top of cargo, perhaps, and being taller in the water might make part of the deck available. Jonah was asleep in the hold. Coasters with short trips still have people crowding the decks to sleep however they can/dare.

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Another rabbit-hole: what became of Viking longships? The Mediterranean ships were taller and stronger, making it hard/impossible to assault them from a longship, and aspects of that design were quickly adapted, making the classic longship obsolete.

Another trireme effort

Chasing rabbits again: from an essay on "Could Napoleon have won?"(*) I ran across the tidbit that Napoleon III had indulged an interest in archaeology and had a trireme built. His son had a toy one.

Finding non-paywalled information was a bit hard. The Christian Science Monitor said it was used for target practice. There's a brief description of the project in French, and a much longer analysis (also in French) at academia.edu. (For more information about the 1980's Greek efforts with the Kyrenia II, this is succinct. I tried a rough translation of a few lines in the academia.edu paper. I fear my French is somewhat like that of H.G. Wells: "the strange dialect which I have inadvertently made for myself out of French, a disemvowelled speech of epicene substantives and verbs of incalculable moods and temperaments"

Jal and Dupuy de Lome each seem to have thought they were directing the project. Jal was a historian, and was accused of treating ancient authors' descriptions with a less critical eye than he applied to more recent authors. de Lome seems to have wanted to make something better than the ancients had.

On 9-March-1861 it was launched for two days of tests on the river.

After the two days of tests, neither Jal, nor Dupuy de Lome, nor the emperor seem to have wanted to continue the program. Perhaps this was due to simple disinterest, a sign of hidden difficulties, or having seen an unacknowledged check. No document tells us. In June 1861 it was towed to Cherbourg and "disarmed"; in August 1863 it was beached, and 26-April-1878 it was decided to demolish the trireme. (Jal had been dead for 5 years, Napoleon III was not only not emperor anymore he was also dead. de Lome was now a senator.)

I found no details about how it was "demolished" but wikimedia seems to think it was dismantled instead of blown up. I wonder if people took souvenirs.

I've written about that ancient technology before here and here. It doesn't inspire enough curiosity for me to make it a hobby, but I notice it when it appears.

(*)Spoiler: yes, if Napoleon and the generals had adapted their technology and tactics to match their enemy's instead of sticking with the same old stuff.