Everyone has a specific job to do on a ship. The captain commands, the cook cooks, the engineer looks after the engine. Deckhands, in a nutshell, do everything else. Whether it be cleaning, repairing or building, deckhands are the legs upon which a ship stands (in which case they should be called decklegs, eh?).
These pictures were taken during the tour of the East Coast of the United States as part of Project Thin Ice 2005.