In my humble opinion, it took a huge amount of guts to go down the sea as a fighting man. What with unsanitary living space, so so food, savage discipline, the high chance of having a sadistic & maybe insane Captain.
Plus ships make for a huge target / lead magnet and if you get hurt or wounded its best to not think of what will happen to you. I will also not get into the issue of possible cannibalism if your ships sinks and you make it to a life boat.
So it all makes for me to say that I am so grateful to have been a soldier instead. Grumpy