Looks nice an clean from above, like an ant hill ...

�
... but deeper ...
... and even deeper, then, yes then one can understand that it was a tough job to do ...
So here comes the same story, but from a different point of view:
First there were the 120 man on the capstan on the middle deck, easy to remember. Then there were over 60 in the orlop in the cable tier to arrange the sturdy, wet and heavy cable into a neat coil, those ones are easy to be forgotten. And on the forecastle a larger number was preparing the davits and the fishing of the anchor, also a quite relevant number of man.
But also on the lower gun deck there was quite a lot to be done.
Lets start at the capstan, overhead on the middle deck 120 man are turning it without danger of stumbling over some cables. As the anchor cable is too thick and sturdy to go around the capstan, a messenger cable is used as a link. And here we go with some man to guarantee smooth and undisturbed revolutions.
Starting at the capstan we can see Mr Thor with HIS hammer, checking the messenger hitting the right place.
Next three man are making sure that the messenger is leaving the drum without getting stuck.
Interesting are the heavy pillars with the rolls, protecting the pumps from the messenger. (picture from before assembly)
The elm tree pump sucks seawater from underneath the hull and puts it with pressure into sail cloth hose (witch will be seen still)
Left we see some men, that make sure, that the cable passes smoothly through the rolls hanging from the deck beams. As the messenger is a endless loop, it is linked by some ropes through the eyes. Two men make sure, the eyes pass through the rolls.
In the bow the cable shiftes direction by the help of the two rollers.
The manger is the place, where the hose ends. One man uses it to wetten the incoming anchor cable, two boys are scrubbing the mud off by the help of brushes. That is why there are two extra big scuppers at each side of the ship. If the cable had extra protection because of a stony sea bed, then this protection would have been taken off here too by some extra men.
Straight after the manger, some man are fixing messenger and anchor cable to each other, called nibbing.
For that there are no open ends traveling through the ship, I positioned a man at each free end of the nibbing rope walking with it.
On the other side some men are bringing back the ropes to the bow.
The next tricky job is to untie the nibbing cable in time before the anchor cable disappears in the cable tier. I took out the stairs of the companion way and still should have taken out the grating too, but unfortunately me stupid glued it too well in in my dim and distant past ...
And now the messenger is free to travel back to the capstan to be hammered into place.
Looks easy, doesn�t it? One only needs some men
These are just some 40 men, in real life I would guess the double quantity, plus some supplements for special duties, possibly some 100 men altogether.
Cheers, Daniel