Avast me hearties!

The Adventures of Tintin

2012-01-09T12:13:00.001-05:00

The Adventures of Tintin is an adventure movie set in the 1930s but it contains a rousing back story involving pirates.

The movie itself is Steven Spielburg's first animated movie and his most entertaining movie since Raiders of the Lost Ark.

According to IMDB, Spielburg has wanted to do a movie based on the Belgium comic strip character, Tintin, since the 1980s. A few years ago he called Steve Jackson to see if Jackson's Weta special effects unit was available to do a live-action version of Tintin. Jackson convinced Spielburg that the movie should be done as an animated movie instead of live-action.

The result is a gorgeously animated movie that never seems to hit the Uncanny Valley. Among other things it features an amazing chase after the clues to the pirate treasure. Most of the chase was done as a continuous take with the camera constantly shifting as it moved from one character to another.

Pirate fans will be glad to know that a good bit of the action takes place at sea - either on a 1930s freighter or on the 17thc century Unicorn.

I suspect that Spielburg had more fun making this movie than he has had in years.

Tintin is not well-known in the US and the movie did not do well here but it was a huge hit overseas and grossed over $300 million. A sequel is planned with Jackson directing and Spielburg producing.

Book review: Fiddler's Gun/Fiddler's Green by A. S. Peterson

2011-12-20T15:44:00.001-05:00

These books follow the adventures of Fin Button as she goes from being abandoned at an orphanage to becoming a legend.

The first part deals with Fin's life in the orphanage. She is a tom-boy in her late teens who hates the orphanage. She hopes to help build the new church. Instead she is assigned to help the old cook. He teaches her to cook and play the fiddle. When he dies she inherits his fiddle case which also contains a blunderbuss pistol named Betsy.

The Revolutionary War intrudes and Fin has to flee. She becomes a sailor and discovers that she loves the sea. As the war progresses her crew becomes privateers. It turns out that her captain and the old fiddler are connected. This leads to conflicts both with the British and her captain. By the end of the book Fin is voted captain.

In Fiddler's Green, Fin and her crew are offered a deal by Congress. They will be pardoned for past of offenses if they save a countess from the Barbary pirates. It soon becomes obvious that they have bitten off more than they can chew.

These books are readable and fairly well researched. The story drags a bit at the beginning but picks up when Fin goes to sea. Some of the plot twists are predictable - almost painfully so. This is mainly true in the first book. The second book is an improvement. Few of the plot twists in the second book are telegraphed.

These are not happy books. Most of Fin's companions die along the way which Fin blames herself for.

A few notes on the premise:

Women sailors disguised as men existed. There were even more women disguised as soldiers from the Revolution through the Civil War so Fin passing herself off as a young man is quite possible.

The book has several ships of the line taking part in the Revolution. I don't think the author realizes just how big and powerful these ships were or he would have used "sloop" or "frigate" instead of "ship of the line". This and Ben Franklin's use of "kilometers" are the biggest historic goofs that I noticed.

Fiddler's Green is a special heaven for sailors. The song is from the 20th century but the legend goes back at least to the 18th century.

The books are available through the official site and through Amazon. Both books are available in the Kindle format. Only the first one is available as a Nook book.

Neverland

2011-12-06T13:07:00.001-05:00

So, what to make of Syfy's Neverland?

Obviously the movie was a prequel to Peter Pan. Not so obviously, the producers probably did not pay royalties so the production was a little strange.

The main characters were Peter (I don't think that we got his last name) and James Hook (who did not wear a hook and was never referred to as "Captain Hook", even after he took command of the pirates). Instead of being Blackbeard's quartermaster and a look-alike for King James, this Hook was a Victorian fencing master and thief. He did eventually pick up a red coat.

Instead of pixies and fairy dust, we had tree spirits and mineral dust.

Peter did learn to fly. Instead of whistling, he carried a tin whistle. Instead of green, he wore his London clothing. He did lose his shadow at the end but not in a Victorian nursery. In a nod to the book, Peter was cursed to lose his memory and be eternally innocent (that was his description in the book). It wore off.

Peter had a band of orphans with him but they were never called the Lost Boys.

Plus there were pirates, indians, and a giant, eight-legged crocodile (this was a SyFy production, after all). There was also a giant scorpion that could spin webs.

The pirates had a nice ship and looked ok (except for one who looked like a Jonny Depp impersonator). The pirates were led by a woman and was probably inspired by a couple of historic pirates.

The whole thing was a two-night, four hour (including ads) production. The problem is that they only had enough plot and special effects money for two hours so they padded it with a lot of talking followed by more talking.

Bob Hoskins reprized his role as Smee which he played in Hook, another production that ran too long. He was generally wasted as was Kiera Knightly as the telepathic voice of Tinkerbell.

The concept was good but the production was too serious. A lighter touch would have helped a lot.

When I first watched Hook, I ad a hard time rooting for Peter Pan. I knew that I would fit in better with the pirates. The same was true with Neverland.

Damn You Mythbusters!!

2011-11-16T13:15:00.001-05:00

I ran across a Cracked list of pirate myths and, sure enough, number 3 is that they wore eye patches so that they could see in dark holds. The justification for this was the Mythbusters pirate episode. The rest of the list wasn't very good either and I'm not going to bother linking to it. In fact, their lists aren't very well researched. In a list on real people who were hard to kill, they implied that Lt. Maynard's two sloops were bigger than Blackbeard's. Actually, Maynard's sloops were so small that they didn't have any cannon and only one of the sloops was involved in the actual fighting.

While it was nice that Mythbusters did a pirate episode, I suspect that they made up some of their pirate myths. Using rum for washing? The one real pirate myth, that splinters were more dangerous than a cannon ball, they got wrong. Their tests showed a cannon ball cleanly penetrating a hull with minimal splinters. This contradicts centuries of actual experience. What happened? They shot their cannon ball at close range with a full charge. If they had backed off a few hundred yards or used less powder then the ball would have made more splinters (the British have actually tested this).

As for eye patches, I never heard of anyone wearing an eye patch to preserve his night vision before a fantasy novel written in 2000 and that did not have any pirates. A soldier would go into a seedy tavern and flash some money while wearing an eye patch. He would go back into the night and remove the eye patch. Then he and his companions would seize and would-be robbers and confiscate their money.

I can imagine this making its way to the Mythbusters as a pirate myth and they did not spend any time checking the historic accuracy of the myths they tested. They just went with them.

Then their fans across the country accepted it as fact.

Damn you Mythbusters!

Blackbeard's Cannon Salvaged

2011-10-27T09:57:00.001-04:00

A massive cannon was salvaged from what is believed to be the wreck of Queen Anne's Revenge.

This was actually the 13th cannon that has been recovered and it will take five years of conservation work before the cannon is ready for public viewing. One cannon from Queen Anne's Revenge is already on display at the North Caroline Maritime Museum in Beaufort.

Review: Pirate Hunter of the Caribbean: The Adventurous Life of Captain Woodes Rogers

2011-09-28T17:09:00.001-04:00

Officially this is a biography of the twice-governor of the Bahamas and the man who ended piracy in the Caribbean. While Woodes Rogers had an eventful life, details of it are sketchy so the book is padded with a lot of general information on piracy. It also contains a mini-biography of Alexander Selkirk who was an inspiration for Robinson Crusoe.

The book was written by David Cordingly who has written other major works on piracy such as Under the Black Flag and his familiarity with piracy shows.

While Rogers was twice governor of the Bahamas, this was not his major achievement. He was one of the first captains to circumnavigate the world and his exploits doing this and attacking the Spanish in the Pacific are more exciting than a Pirates of the Caribbean novel.

In addition to Rogers and Selkirk, the book follows other pirates to their end including Blackbeard and Calico Jack Rackham. Several battles are described in detail showing just how audacious the pirates and privateers were.

Talking Like a Pirate on the Santa Maria

2011-09-19T10:51:00.001-04:00

We held our annual Talk Like a Pirate Weekend on the Santa Maria September 17 & 18. The event is held on the closest weekend to Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Gas prices, health problems, and competing festivals kept the number of pirates down but we still had a decent turn-out. Counting ship staff members who put on costumes, we had nearly twenty pirates.

This is an educational event and the pirates worked hard. We had different stations where people were presenting something relating to pirates. This included Mission's pirate surgeon display, a gaming table, and cooking. I brought my new cannon and ran visitors through cannon drills. Michael made a hammock. There was also a table where kids could get certificates making them part of the pirate crew. These were hand-lettered and had wax seals.

We had to scale back the battle. Sometimes we have had enough pirates to fill three boats. This time we only used one boat with no effort to actually board the ship. I don't think that the visitors noticed the difference.

Attendance was not as good as last year but it was still a very good weekend taking in just under $2,000 for the weekend.

Disney contacted us and donated hundreds of posters and certificates for two Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides DVD so every family got a posted and a chance to win a DVD.

Small Boats

2011-09-09T14:28:00.001-04:00

I've been reading Pirate Hunter of the Caribbean: The Adventurous Life of Captain Woodes Rogers and I was struck by the use of small, open boats. In several cases pirates left their ships behind and attacked ships or even cities from boats.

Attacking cities always meant landing which usually meant using boats. It was common for pirates to land some distance from a city and attack it from land. But other times they would land and attack.

Fighting a ship from a boat seems foolish. One good hit from a cannon and the boat is gone. On the pirate's side, they could only carry small arms.

Surprisingly this was enough. In one case three dug-outs carrying sixty some pirates met three warships with over two hundred sailors and soldiers. The pirates won, driving off one ship and forcing the other two to surrender.

Boats offer a few advantages over ships. Boats were faster and could move against the wind. In the case above, the pirates shot the helmsman of one ship and it turned into the wind and stopped - what is known as being "in irons". They continued to shoot anyone who tried to take the tiller. Since cannons are mainly aimed by turning the ship, that rendered the cannon useless.

The pirates were better shots than the Spanish. After the battle ended, the Spanish tallied their dead and wounded. Only a half-dozen were completely unharmed.

I read a different account in in Exquemelin where he describes a small ship taking a much larger one. In this case the Spanish captain saw the pirates but dismissed them as being too inferior a force to threaten his ship. After dark the pirates used a boat to board the Spanish ship, took the captain hostage, and forced the surrender of the ship.

Brigand's Grove

2011-08-15T14:00:00.001-04:00

Right off the bat, this was a disappointing event. It replaced the Pirates of Paynetown which was a wonderful event. When the site fell through, the organizer substituted an event in what amounts to his front yard (actually a field across a highway and down a hill from the historic building that houses his business).

A lot of participants dropped out and the new site was missing Paynetown's best features: a large lake, an attack from boats, and showers. Also it was no longer a "pirate" event. The new focus was on pirates, brigands, and other law breakers.

So it was a much smaller event and the field was not shaded most of the day which baked us, especially on Saturday.

And it wasn't a pirate event. It was a generic 18th century event with a couple of displays on piracy.

Also, the John Work House turned out to be further away than it appeared on the map. The map didn't show the steep hill with a slippery path that had to be climbed to get to the house (plus another story to get to the tavern). This resulted in a split event. Some people spent most of their time in the house and some in the field. I don't think that there was any point when everyone was in one place.

So, what good can I say about the event?

I got to use my cannon. I ran full cannon crew through the drill a couple of times them we did it with powder. I finally used enough powder for a decent bang - twice the charge as in my swivel gun. I also ran some visitors through the drill.

The "battles" were unusual but fun. We never had more than a dozen people on the field and not all of them were armed but this fit the scenario.

The first "battle" was a skirmish at the tavern. A bunch of us complained about the prices and it escalated to shooting. The redcoats arrived and drove the rowdies off.

For the official field battle, some of us went to the British to register our complaints. Things quickly got out of hand. Someone (Micky) was arrested and beaten to death. Someone else (me) was arrested and shot. Talk about the violence inherent in the system.

We got our own back. On Sunday we raided the tavern and made off with some stuff. Later we returned and found the redcoat officer by himself so we shot him. Finally I proclaimed, "In the name of no one in particular, I claim this land as ours. God save us!"

New England Pirate Museum

2011-07-28T01:18:00.000-04:00

We visited the New England Pirate Museum in Salem, Mass. last week. It was our first visit since the early 1990s.

The museum is a small-scale operation housed in a brick building with trompe l'oeil pirates climbing up the outside walls. Tours are given every half hour. They are conducted by a guide in a "pirate" costume consisting of a lace-up shirt, black pants, sash, and bandanna. The tours last 20-25 minutes. There is a small gift shop where tours start and end.

The museum is not bad for what it is. It is mainly a series of sets with manikins dressed to represent historic pirates. Some of the sets are ambitious. The biggest one has part of a ship, a tavern, a gallows, and other building fronts. The manikins run from hokey to horrifying but they are really launching points for the guides. The real tour consists of the guide telling about various New England pirates. Many of them were unsuccessful.

The focus on New England gives the museum a fresh feel. These are pirates with a local tie-in who are seldom discussed. Bellamy and the Whydah, Blackbeard, and Kidd all had New England connections and are also mentioned.

I didn't catch and outright errors, just a few over-simplifications so even hard-core historians should enjoy the tour.

Book Review - PotC: Price of Freedom

2011-07-11T01:09:00.001-04:00

The Price of Freedom (Pirates of the Caribbean) by A. C. Crispin is a PotC tie-in telling Jack Sparrow's back-story. It was already known that the Black Pearl was originally known as the Wicked Wench but was sunk and burned. Jack made a deal with Davy Jones to raise it. We also know that Jack's father was the Keeper of the Code and that Jack was branded as a pirate after failing to deliver a load of slaves. This novel was written to fill in the details.

The plot mainly follows Jack as he goes from first mate on an East India Trading Company ship to captain of the Wicked Wench. There are a lot of flashbacks to Jack's earlier life on Shipwreck Island explaining how he came to leave it. Jack is working for Cutler Becket and we get his back-story as well. For good measure, there is a princess from a lost colony of Egypt who is searching for her lost father and brother.

The book has several familiar cameos. There is also a pirate princess and a group of rouge pirates who do not follow the code.

It isn't a bad book but it has one major flaw - the main character just doesn't feel like Jack Sparrow. He's too nice and totally trustworthy. He plans things out ahead of time.

As pirate books go, it isn't bad. The author did a lot of research although there are some anachronisms lie the use of a Blackwall Frigate which was designed in 1830. Several other details are better researched and it provides a nice explanation for some of Jack's appearance in the movies.

I suggest waiting for paperback.

Goodbye Paynetown

2011-06-30T15:14:00.001-04:00

The Pirates of Paynetown event has been canceled due to differences between the site and the organizers. I am really sorry to see this event go. This event was what got us into pirate reenacting in the first place and it was always a favorite. It had several things to recommend it including:

A large lake
A fairly unique battle involving an attack on the camp by boats.
A well-shaded camp site that had few anachronisms (as long as you didn't face north).

The event is being replaced by Brigand's Grove which will be a more general event featuring all kinds of rogues instead of just pirates. The new site does have a stream but no lake.

Put-In-Bay Pirate Fest III

2011-06-27T14:30:00.001-04:00

While there were a few rough spots, the 2011 Put-in-Bay Pirate Pirate Fest went quite well. The festival is held on the village green in the middle of town. Most of the surrounding merchants participate in some way and lots of visitors wear pirate hats and/or eye patches.

The main attractions are the historic pirate camp that we set up and the cannon firing.

This was our second year as official participants. Two years ago Michael and I checked out the festival and entered the costume contest. There was a historic encampment that year but the group that set it up has not been invited back. They didn't impress me. I had the impression that they were a F&I that said that they were pirates.

Last year was our first year. We were provided with a field to camp in that was a couple of blocks from the display area. This caused a little extra work since we had to tear down the displays Saturday night and set them back up Sunday morning. Still, it kept us separated from the drunks.

This year we were more comfortable with the set-up. In addition, we were provided with a better golf cart for hauling equipment and people so things were smother in general.

Our camp last year was so successful that the organizers asked us to bring back twice as many pirates this year. This lead to the main rough spot this year - cooking. Last year we cooked lunch and they fed us dinner. This year, with a larger group, they offered us groceries instead of meals. This meant cooking for 20+ over braziers. It also meant that we had to stick around the display camp where the braziers were. Some people went to the numerous restaurants and were not around when the time came to pack up the displays.

But enough of the rough spots. Highlights were:

The weather: Last year it was nearly 100 degrees. This year is was much cooler, especially on Friday and Saturday when there was a strong breeze.

Cannons: We arrived earlier this year and went looking for the organizer, Ty. He was piloting a barge full of cannons, attacking the town. He pulled up to the docks and three of us came on board as cannon crew. We had four cannons and five people so I ended up running a four-pounder by myself. I came back on Saturday when we repeated attack.

The tactical: This year we arranged to use the cannon area for a short tactical. This was thrown together fast and only ran for a few minutes but it was still fun. What it consisted of was a group of pirates, led by me, attacking from one side of a gazebo. A cannon fired and we retreated to the other side of the gazebo. A second cannon fired and we went back to the original side to exchange fire with some defenders. After we ran out of charges we did some hand-to-hand combat, killing the defenders. We regrouped and barely had time to declare "Nothing can stop us now!" before a final cannon went off, killing us all.

The last I heard, the organizers wanted us to bring even more pirates next year.

Pirate Treasures

2011-06-10T10:24:00.001-04:00

Slideshow of artifacts from the Queen Anne's Revenge here.

Pirates 5 Director

2011-06-07T14:20:00.001-04:00

There are rumors that Rob Marshall who directed PoTC 4 is not interested in directing PoTC 5. Since PoTC 4 is very profitable thanks to overseas sales, there will be a PoTC 5. Currently five directors are rumored to be on the shortlist: Tim Burton, Alfonso Cuaron, Shawn Levy, Sam Raimi and Chris Weitz.

I suspect that Burton is on the list because of his long association with Johnny Depp. He also has worked with Disney. His version of Alice in Wonderland was Disney's top-grossing movie in 2010. His batman movies and Sleepy Hollow show that he can make good adventure movies. Regardless, I doubt that Burton would be interested. He is so well-established that he doesn't have to direct someone else's franchise. He can pick and choose his own projects and he has always excelled at filming his own interpretation. This is four movies too late to bring in Burton.

Raimi can certainly do special-effects adventure movies. He could probably make a good Pirates movie but, like Burton, I don't think that he would be interested.

Of the three left on the list, Cuaron would be my pick based on his Harry Potter movie. He took over an established franchise and put his own mark on it. Disney Family has been showing marathons of the first five movies and Cuaron's is the best-directed. The movies that Chris Columbus made were more like theme park rides with a plot, full of little details that slowed the action but delighted the fans. Cuaron turned down the spectacle and turned up the visuals. A few examples - the Whomping Willow went from a mechanical effect to a digital one and modified to look more like a real willow. Hagrid's cottage went from sitting by itself just outside the gates to being across the covered bridge (a great addition itself), and down a hill and surrounded by a garden. Cuaron is also a good story-teller. The Prisoner of Azkaban has a complicated plot involving time travel and the same event seen from multiple perspectives. Cuaron kept all of this clear.

That would be an asset in a franchise known for complicated plots.

Pirates at Fort de Chartres

2011-06-06T14:02:00.000-04:00

I was at the annual Rendezvous at Fort de Chartres with the Crew of the Mercury. This event is basically a large rendezvous with some military units at a partly-reconstructed French fort.

When it was built the fort was on the Mississippi but the river has shifted and is now around a mile away. The French built timber forts in the area starting in 1720. The stone fort was largely completed by 1754. In 1765 the British gained control of it as part of the end of the Seven Years War. It was abandoned by 1771. The river undercut the walls and the buildings were stripped of their stone for building materials.

So, what were a bunch of pirates doing so far inland? The idea was to have an event that mid-west members of the Mercury could come to. Our camp wasn't particularly piratical although we did have some nice handouts thanks to William Red Wake.

As far as I was concerned the main reason for going was to hang around with the Mercury members.

I did get to see a live-fire cannon contest. If I go again I will seriously think about entering my new cannon. There was one there that was about the same size.

There was a short battle between the French and the English. We bolstered the English numbers. The brown bess that I was firing needed a new flint and was misfiring every other shot so I went down as a casualty. The Mercury Crew died to a man.

The event was hot, possibly the hottest I have ever been to. We heard that the temperature on Saturday was 102 with 75% humidity. Sunday was a lot more comfortable - 83 when we left.

On to Put-In-Bay.

A New Cannon

2011-06-01T13:40:00.001-04:00

I bought a new cannon at the World Steam Expo (a Steampunk convention). It's around 1.5 times longer than my existing swivel gun and cast iron. The bore is just a bit bigger than the swivel. It is more or less a scaled-down three pounder. Let's call it a half-pounderer. It is about as big a gun as I can handle by myself. I was told that it weighs 150 pounds but I can still lift it easily. Any bigger and it would weigh 250 pounds or more and I would have to have help moving it.

I could have gotten it with a naval carriage. I went for a swivel carriage instead. It was a lot cheaper that way and I can make a naval carriage easier than I can make a swivel mount. I have dimensions figured up for the carriage and it shouldn't take too long to make. I made a carriage for my bronze swivel gun a couple of years ago and it only took a few days. The hardest part will be the iron straps that hold the trunnions down. I may have to fire up the forge for that.

On Stranger Tides - the novel

2011-05-26T11:23:00.001-04:00

The novel On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers was re-released to go with Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. The two have very little to do with each other except for the inclusion of Blackbeard and the use of magic. I read the book when it first came out in 1987 but I didn't remember a lot about it. I did remember that it featured a puppeteer who became a pirate, a trip to the Fountain of Youth, and a few other details.

The novel was one of several that Powers wrote dealing with magic in a historic setting. These are not alternate histories where major events are different than in our world. Instead they include historic events. The first of these novels, The Drawing of the Dark, centered on the Siege of Vienna (one of them, there were several). The Anubis Gate was the best of these and is considered an early Steampunk novel. On Stranger Tides is not as epic as The Anubis Gate but it is still a good book.

On Stranger Tides takes place at the tail end of the Golden Age of Piracy. It follows John Chandagnac, the son of a puppeteer who is traveling to the New World on family business. His ship is taken by pirates and he is forced to join the crew. The pirates decide that his name is too long and he is soon rechristened Jack Shandy and made the cook. He learns about ships and works his way up the ranks.

During the voyage over, Jack became friends with fellow passenger Beth Hurwood. Her father and his companion, Leo Friend are both sorcerers who have come to the New World where magic still works.

Magic is in great supply in the Americas and all of the pirates have picked up a few tricks. Some are very powerful, especially Blackbeard. It is possible to become even more powerful by traveling to the Fountain of Youth.

The book is well researched and manages to shoehorn the historic Blackbeard's actions into the novel. His eccentricities, things like drinking rum and gunpowder and wearing smoldering slowmatch, are done for magical reasons.

One constant in Powers's books is that nothing comes easy. Jack Shandy may triumph at the end but he will pay for it with pain and blood.

Interesting side-note - the novel was a major influence on the computer game Monkey Island which in turn influenced the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

2011-05-20T11:49:00.001-04:00

It's finally out and it was worth the wait. In many ways this is the movie I was hoping that PotC 2 would be. The feel of it is much closer to the original. While Jack's motivations are always in doubt, everything else it pretty straightforward. It is also a Jack-centric movie. There are very few scenes that do not feature Captain Jack. This is fine with me since he was always the big draw in the previous movies.

Just a handful of regulars from the other movies make it into this one - mainly Barbossa and Gibbs with a couple of cameos by Jack the Monkey. We think we spotted a British officer from the original but he has no lines. The new cast also gives the movie a fresh feel.

The third movie ended with Jack starting on a quest for the Fountain of Youth. This movie picks up there. It seems that Jack has not been successful although he has not given up. In the meantime, the Spanish get a clue to the Fountain and launch an expedition. King George II does not want the Spanish to have sole access to the fountain and sends his own expedition commanded by Barbossa who managed to lose the Black Perl and a leg. Also racing to find the Fountain are Blackbeard who is trying to stave off his prophesied death and his daughter who, like Jack wants a few extra decades of youth.

The movie is much darker than the others, both figuratively and literally. Blackbeard is bloodthirsty and most of the scenes take place at night or on cloudy days.

The movie is a bit scaled back from the third movie which spent a rumored half-billion dollars but it has a very large budget. The main thing missing is over-the-top special effects. This movie does not use two full-sized gimbal-mounted ships or a cast that is half-CGI.

On Stranger Tides does feature early-18th century London and an unnamed island (Hawaii) which gives it a very lush look. Rob Marshall, the new director, improves the cinematography so it is actually a better-looking movie.

I didn't notice any references to the PotC ride in the movie but there are several references to the prior movies - just enough to let people know that this actually is PotC movie.

I only have a couple of complaints. The action is mainly front-loaded. The movie begins with several set-pieces and compared with them the ending is almost anti-climactic. Similarly, there is nothing comparable with the skeletal duel between Jack and Barbossa from the first movie. The closest thing is the fight with the mermaids which comes earlier. This does not mean that the ending was unsatifying, just not as memorable as in previous movies.

Two final notes - fans of Tim Powers' book On Stranger Tides should not expect to see much of the book in the movie. The credits say "inspired by". This consists of giving Blackbeard supernatural powers and having a quest for the Fountain of Youth.

Also, zombie enthusiasts will be disappointed by the movie's zombies. They are ugly and unkillable but nothing like the brain-hungry monsters in pop-culture.

Will Pirates 4 Be Any Good?

2011-05-18T17:00:00.001-04:00

The first review of PotC:On Stranger Tides is out and the reviewer didn't like it. Of course, the reviewer seems mystified that anyone liked the first three. As a side note, she is also unaware that brain-eating zombies are a recent cinematic invention and that the zombies of folklore were corpses reanimated as servants.

Anyway, I distinctly remember a number of bad reviews of the first three movies. Critics felt that the original one was too long and repetitious. I suspect that big-name movie critics feel that reviewing pirate movies is beneath them.

I readily admit that PotC 2 was not as good as PotC 1 and that PotC 3 fell somewhere in-between. Disney was in such a hurry to shoot the movies that they didn't wait for a finished script so dropped plot threads abound. Also, I can understand why they wanted to keep Will and Elizabeth in the movies but their storyline really ended at the end of the first movie. That complication has been dropped and Depp assures us that the script is more like the original.

I have no idea how they will adapt On Stranger Tides. The book is about a puppeteer who accidentally becomes a pirate. Probably the subplots about Blackbeard and magic are used.

One thing I am hoping for is the return of some actual pirates to the franchise. Except for the sack of Port Royal early in the first movie no one engaged in any piracy. In the second and third movies, the pirates were the good guys and the villains were not pirates. Maybe Blackbeard will add some piracy to the Pirates franchise.

Santa Maria Event

2011-05-16T15:34:00.001-04:00

It's over and it was a success. We worried for the last few weeks about the weather. The river flooded multiple times this Spring but it was back around normal levels by last week. The forecast was for rain all three days but we got lucky. The rain completely missed us on Friday and we only got a bit of rain on Saturday. That left us with a wet Sunday.

One immediate problem was launching the boats. We had planned on using both of my boats but there was a significant amount of mud on the boat ramp from the flooding. Michael and I removed the crown of this with a shovel and mattock then launched the Black Sheep. I decided that the ramp was too chancy to launch the Firefly. If we had rain then the ramp would become too slick to retrieve the boats. Also, we had some last-minute cancellations so we did not need the extra boat.

We had a nearly full crew by Friday night.

On Saturday the city was hosting a Race for the Cure and people had trouble getting to the ship. Next year we will probably move to the 3rd weekend to avoid this. The race was over by opening time and we had enough time to hold a safety meeting and assign people to the ship and the boats.

Everything went well on Saturday. Attendance was down a little, probably because of threat of rain, but it was still well above normal. The battle went perfectly. Diosa did a great job of organizing the visitors as defenders. This time we had boarders from both boats - six in all and we made the defenders stand back until they were on deck before fighting.

Because a front was moving in, the gunfire was especially loud. We had a brief shower after the battle then it cleared up again.

This time we had people go through the ship on self-guided tours. This meant fewer breaks for the crew but we didn't have unmanageably large tour groups.

After closing, Ed, Margarita, and I spent an hour or so swapping tunes and singing shanties.

The rain moved in in earnest on Sunday. The Hard Tackers were performing but had to move onto the ship. This made things a little crowded.

It was too wet to use the boats so we did an abbreviated battle. I issued boarding pikes to the visitors and alternated having them threaten imaginary pirates and having people fire from the shelter of the awning.

Things broke up earlier than when we have clear weather so everything was cleared off of the ship by closing.

I left the Black Sheep at the ship, tied off to the ship's canoe and the final eight of us had pizza.

Time Travelling Pirates

2011-04-18T14:37:00.001-04:00

Two recent books involved a teenager being mysteriously transported to the Golden Age of Pirates and becoming a pirate.

The first one, Pirate Freedom by Gene Wolfe is the better of the two. In it, a young American named Christopher leaves a monastery in post-Castro Cuba and finds himself in the 17th century. He signs on as a sailor, eventually becoming a pirate and working his way up to captain. The mechanics of time travel are never explained, they just happen. The book is very well researched, even if Christopher manages to attract more pirate women than Calico Jack (who had the only two known). The plot covers all aspects of piracy, even the cow killers. It has a couple of sub-plots that only become obvious over time. It is a good read.

The new one, Steel by Carrie Vaughn, just came out. In it, a 16-year-old girl named Jill goes on vacation to the Caribbean after a major fencing match. Jill finds the broken tip of a magic rapier and is transported back in time to the Golden Age of Pirates. She end up on a ship commanded by a woman pirate who is the arch enemy of the pirate who owns the rapier.

The book is ok and probably aimed at teenagers although Vaughn is best known for a series of books aimed at adults about a werewolf named Kitty. The book is a quick read and feels 50-100 pages too short. It has several missed opportunities leaving me wondering if Vaughn was trying to get it onto the stands before Pirates 4 comes out.

Vaughn went to some effort to research her pirates but I do have some complaints. The first one is central to the story - the use of rapiers. I am sure that she used rapiers because they have the closest modern equivalent, the epee. The modern foil and saber are so much lighter than their historic counterparts that the skills needed are completely different between them. The problem is that rapiers were weapons for private duels and nearly useless on a ship in a crowd.

My other complaint is Vaughn's use of women. Jill's captain is a woman and the book says that other members of the crew were also women but dressed like men. None of them are given names or personalities.

While Vaughn tries to present her pirates as historically accurate, they are not very effective. They spend very little time in actual piracy and they set free the slaves that they capture. Note that I have the same complaint about the Disney movies - the pirates spend very little time engaging in acts of piracy.

While the book could stand a rewrite, it is still worth reading as is.

Could Pirates Swim?

2011-04-13T17:06:00.001-04:00

By tradition, most sailors cannot swim. I've checked around and I can find quotes saying this from the 16th century to the 20th century. Some could but most could not. I find this puzzling.

Swimming is a very useful talent if you are working in and around the water. Sometime things have to be retrieved from divable depths. Some emergency repairs at sea can only be done from the outside by divers.

I can understand why sailors who frequent northern Europe and New England would not know much about swimming. Even in the Summer the water in these latitudes is too cold for swimming and in other seasons it would quickly become fatal. But what about the Caribbean and other warm latitudes?

In some centuries swimming in general was thought to be unhealthy. These were periods when washing was thought to remove needed oils from the hair and skin.

There is also the theory that sailors did not want to know how to swim because it would just prolong their suffering if they fell overboard. There might be something to this. Even sailors who could swim never got in the water unless the ship was at anchor or becalmed. A moving ship would leave them behind quickly and they would be hard to spot in high seas. Then there is the problem with the cold that I already mentioned. In most months someone who fell overboard in the northern Atlantic would be dead from the cold before he could be saved.

The problem is finding a period quote to document this. Sometimes when "everyone knows" something, no one thinks to write it down until it is too late.

Captain Blood

2011-03-09T17:24:00.001-05:00

I just finished reading Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini for the third time. I have been a fan of Sabatini since several of his novels were reprinted in the 1970s but this is one of his best. It has several of Sabatini's recurring themes - a noble and witty hero who is forced by circumstances to become an adventurer and a romance foiled until the last moment by bad luck and misunderstanding.

In this book, Peter Blood is a former soldier who has taken up the more peaceful practice of medicine. He refuses to participate in the Monmouth Rebellion against James II but is arrested and convicted anyway for treating a wounded rebel. Rather than being executed, he is sent to the Caribbean to be sold as a slave. Eventually he and some of his fellow slaves escape and steal a ship. Even then, Blood's first goal was to simply resume his career as a doctor. Circumstances make piracy his main choice and he proves a natural at it.

Sabatini's hero is not a typical pirate. Instead he is honorable, rescuing women and only raiding Spain.

One section of the book was lifted from Captain Morgan's real exploits. Sabatini explains this away by saying that they were really Blood's exploits and that Morgan later claimed credit for them.

Fortunately for Blood, he is opposed at every turn by opponents whose self-importance exceeds their competence. This makes the villains of the book easy to hate.

This is one of the best pirate novels ever written. Blood is believable as a pirate with principles and, unlike Treasure Island, the book has several sea battles. If it has any faults it is that it makes these battles seem too easy. A broadside or two and the battle is decided and any blood spilled is spilt out of sight.

It should be no surprise that the book is longer and more complex than the movie which, in itself, is one of the better pirate movies.

Searle's Raid

2011-03-07T13:16:00.001-05:00

As Spain's northern-most colony, St. Augustine was a natural target for pirates from Francis Drake (in 1585) to Robert Searle (in 1668). Drakes's and Searle's raids are reenacted annually. This year Searle's Raid was held on March 4th and 5th.

There are actually two separate events. A military camp was set up at the Fountain of Youth park on Friday and Saturday with cannon demonstrations and other military drills. At 4:00 trolleys carried the participants to the site of the battle in the oldest part of St. Augustine. The forces were split into English attackers and Spanish defenders with the attackers having slightly higher numbers. Searle's actual force was only around 40 men against a garrison of 35 Spaniards.

The battle itself was a fairly long one for reenactors. It began at five o'clock when the English fired from a couple of locations near the Plaza. The forces met at the Plaza and the Spanish were eventually forced to retreat through the streets of the town. There was more firing at designated locations before the battle was rejoined at a redoubt near the Huguenot Cemetery. Eventually the Spanish were forced to surrender. The battle finally ended around six fifteen.

The combatants included musketeers, pikemen, small cannon, and swordsmen engaging in choreographed duels. Along the way a tavery was looted and three women taken prisoner for ransom.

This is an unusual event, straddling both pirate and 17th century military. On one hand, Searle was a pirate nominally he was a privateer but his commission had been withdrawn) and many of the participants are pirate reenactors. On the other hand, the historic event took place before the Golden Age of Piracy and the differences in the clothing are obvious. It was the only pirate event I have been at that included marching and pikes. Matchlock muskets were common. Pistols and blunderbusses were rare. During the fight, the English were cheering for King Charles.

Either way, I felt right at home.

Historic note - Robert Searles was a privateer and pirate during the time of Henry Morgan. He was arrested but released without punishment for the raid on St. Augustine. Later he was a sub-commander during Morgan's raid on Panama. His raid on St. Augustine was moderately successful. The Spanish silver he had hoped to steal had already been shipped to Spain but the Spanish paid him heads of cattle to leave. In addition, his men sacked the city and took hostages to ransom. This raid finally convinced Spain that the city needed better fortifications than a wooden fort and four years later construction began on the existing stone fort.

Commodores

2011-02-16T15:21:00.001-05:00

Someone in a piracy forum started calling himself "commodore" so I decided to look up the title. I remember it from McHale's Navy and, of course, Pirates of the Caribbean.

The term is used for someone between the rank of captain and rear admiral who commands multiple ships in a squadron. It came into use at the end of the 17th century. The US stopped using the rank by the end of the 18th century although it was revived during World War II. The British and other countries kept the rank.

From the viewpoint of the GAoP, commodore was not an actual rank. It was a posting. You remained on the list of captains and you were a commodore only as long as you commanded a squadron. Once your posting changed, you reverted back to captain. apparently the British did this to reduce the number of admirals on the payroll.

By that measure, Norrington was never a real commodore. He only had two ships and he lost the Interceptor. Granted, the other ship was a ship of the line but it was still a single ship. We never saw him commanding a squadron. The only time multiple ships were assembled under a single command was at the end of the third movie under the command of Beckett who was always referred to as "lord".

As far as I can tell, being a commodore did not entitle you to a big hat.

The Doctor and the Pirates

2011-02-11T01:11:00.000-05:00

The upcoming season of Doctor Who will include pirates. Here is an article about it complete with pictures of companion Karen Gillian on a ship.

Time and The HMS Victory

2011-01-11T16:17:00.001-05:00

A new survey of Nelson's flagship, the HMS Victory, shows that the ship is in poor shape. The problems are that the dry dock is warping the timbers and it has significant rot from rainwater. See here for more details.

None of this surprises me.

We went through the Victory last May. At the time I was surprised at how spartan the dry dock supports were. Ships are built to float. This puts an even pressure against the entire hull. A ship that spends any significant time in dry dock will not be supported evenly and will warp. In this case, the ends of some of the beams are now 10 centimeters (about the length of a cigarette) from touching the hull. During the last restoration the knees were only attached to the inside layer of the hull. (This ship has planking on both the inside and the outside of its timbers.)

I remember a talk during the preservation of the USS Constellation. The hull was hogging (drooping at the ends) and they were combating that by stacking pallets in the center and running cables to straps around the ends. This put more pressure on the center and held up the ends. Someone asked why they didn't just put it in dry dock. The answer was that if it went into dry dock for any significant length of time it would never float again.

I had this problem in miniature with my Whitehall boat. The trailer I had used rollers to support the boat and these were leaving marks in the hull. I replaced it with a bunker trailer.

The problem with rainwater is universal. The Santa Maria has leaked for 20 years. Re-caulking stops the leaks for a few day or week then the seams open up again. I have asked around and most other ships have the same problem. The Mayflower II had to make serious repairs in the 1990s. The metal fasteners that fastened the outside hull to the timbers had rusted away leaving holes. Rainwater got into the holes and rotted the timbers. They had to remove a lot of the hull in order to get to the timbers to replace them. It was a major project that took a couple of years and disrupted their first-person interpretation program.

It is amazing the the Victory has survived as long as it has. It was begun 1759 and launched in 1765. She spent 13 years in storage and was eventually ordered to be converted to a hospital ship. After the loss of the HMS Impregnable in 1799, it was decided to refit the Victory. There were already many problems and the refit took four years. She was finished in 1803 and served as Nelson's flagship in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. She ended active service in 1812 but was used as a signal ship and barracks until 1904. After that she was mainly a tourist attraction.

By 1922 the Victory was in poor condition and needed a major restoration. This is when she was moved to her current location in Dry Dock no. 2 in Portsmouth - the oldest dry dock in the world. The latest restoration was in 2005 for the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. At that time she was made to look as much as possible like she did in Nelson's time.

(most of this history was condensed from Wikipedia)

Note - while the HMS Victory is the world's oldest commissioned warship, the USS Constitution is the oldest commissioned warship still afloat.

WikiLeaks

2011-01-07T17:04:00.001-05:00

Who would expect WikiLeaks to come up in a pirate blog?

It turns out that some of the leaked diplomatic cables are about recovered (possibly) Spanish gold. Spain is claiming 15 tons of treasure recovered by Odyssey Marine Exploration. Odyssey says that the treasure came from Merchant Royal, a British ship that sunk in bad weather in 1641. Spain says that it came from the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, a Spanish navy frigate that was sunk by a British warship in 1804 during the Battle of Cape Saint Mary. the US government filed a brief supporting Spain.

Odyssey is suing the US government based on a leaked cable. This cable gave the impression that the US supported the Spanish claim in exchange for Spain's help in recovering a $20-million Pissarro painting claimed by a U.S. family that says it was unfairly obtained by the Nazis in Germany.

Pirates 4 - Rumors and Speculation

2010-12-27T13:19:00.001-05:00

The first real trailer is out for Pirates of the Caribbean 4. I am going to make some guesses about the movie based on this and rumors. This may contain spoilers (depending on good my guesses are).

The only members of the original cast are Jack, Barbossa, and Gibbs.

Barbosa has a peg leg.

There is a video on how the Black Pearl was rebuilt to be the Queen Anne's Revenge. The first production stills leaked are of Jack, Barbosa, and others surveying a wrecked ship. I'm going to guess that this was the Black Pearl. This may also be how Barbossa ended up with a peg leg.

The trailer shows Jack in London. Some of this looks like Greenwich. In fact, some of the buildings also show up in Jack Black's Gulliver. Johnny Depp showed up at a school class in Greenwich near the end of filming. The school is only a few blocks from these buildings.

You can also see the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall. This was built by James I and the site of Charles I's execution.

Blackbeard was supposed to be an Englishman but in the trailer he seems to have a Spanish accent. That might be to match his daughter, played by Penelope Cruz who is from Spain.

Penelope Cruz was pregnant during filming. Rumor is that her sister acted as her body double.

I read On Stranger Tides when it came out. It follows a puppeteer whose ship is taken and ends up falling in with a group of pirates on the Florida coast. I don't see much room for Jack Sparow so I'm assuming that they threw pretty much the plot from the book out the window. I expect the main thing they kept was Blackbeard finding the Fountain of Youth and using it to gain immortality and power. The fountain was a fountain of energy instead of water. The Blackbeard in the book did not have a daughter nor did the historic Blackbeard.

Pirate Latitudes

2010-11-01T16:03:00.001-04:00

I finally got around to reading Pirate Latitudes, the unpublished book found on Michael Crichton's computer.

This was probably an early draft so it is difficult to be too hard on it. On the other hand, it has been published as a finished novel.

I'm betting that Crichton was inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and decided to write his own pirate novel, one that could be turned into a movie.

It's ok as a novel but it is not up to Crichton's standards. When I read a Crichton novel I expect it to grab my attention. This one does not. The first chapter appears to be an attempt to show off all of his research. It covers everything that the royal governor goes through on rising and preparing for the day. It takes a few chapters before we meet the main characters. First Crichton introduces the background.

Technically this is not a pirate novel, it is a privateer novel. It takes place in 1665 during the Golden Age of Privateering when Charles II was on the throne and it is a poor fit. This was the period when Morgan could raise hundreds of men - enough to attack and sack cities but this only has one small ship and crew.

The main character is Captain Hunter and only a half dozen of his crew is named. The plot can best be described as "one damned thing after another" as Hunter and crew meet and overcome every conceivable obstacle. Most of these are quickly dispatched which is why they have to meet so many different challenges. Possibly Crichton would have fleshed out some of these and eliminated others in later drafts.

John Drake's Flint and Silver books are much better but Crichton's will do if you want to read a light pirate novel and it is much easier to find.

More Pirates for Richards

2010-10-20T13:37:00.001-04:00

http://kgmi.com/pages/8378912.php?contentType=4&contentId=7001462

Rolling Stones rocker Keith Richards is returning to the big screen by reprising his role opposite Johnny Depp in the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

Depp has long credited the guitarist with inspiring his popular character Captain Jack Sparrow in the swashbuckling franchise, and Richards joined the cast to play the actor's on-screen father in the third installment of the movie series, At World's End, in 2007.

The musician will now return as Captain Teague in the forthcoming Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which is currently filming in London, according to Reuters.

The movie is set for release next year.

Edge or Flat?

2010-09-27T02:14:00.000-04:00

While giving a talk on pirate weapons, someone volunteered that parries were always done with the flat of the sword instead of with the edge. This probably came from Mythbusters. They had a segment on trying to cut through one sword with another and they stated that parries were always done with the flat. You can see the segment here. Around 4:30 in they say, "In real life you never block an edge with an edge."

They in turn, probably got it from ARMA (the Association of Renaissance Martial Arts). You can read their essay on the subject here.

The thing is, they are specifically talking about 15th century and earlier techniques. The essay makes this clear in the first two paragraphs.

Many historical fencing enthusiasts do not grasp the concepts of parrying against cuts with cutting swords as described in numerous Medieval and Renaissance fighting manuals. These texts teach the concept of defending by counter-striking or by receiving blows on the flat portion of the blade. As will become clear, edge-on-edge parrying was not taught as doctrine. In fact, defense, or warding of cutting blows, is described in many ways in 15^th century fencing texts by many masters and never as a direct resistant block of deliberate opposition of sharp edge on sharp edge (so common in stage-combat and sport fencing and derived from 18^th and 19^th century methods of swordplay).

There is a tremendous, if not outright complete, lack of any support for doing so that can be found within any of the source literature (at least prior to the 17^th century).

Since the GAoP starts in the last quarter of the 17th century, it is clearly outside of ARMA's essay. Fencing manuals from the early 17th century clearly show edge on edge parries. Here are some (rather explicit) examples.

Not only is the edge shown facing the opposing blade but the wrist is straight.

So, combat styles changed between the 15th and the 17th centuries. This should not come as a surprise. Everything else changed. The 15th century swords were big heavy bars of iron. They were used two-handed, often against an armored enemy. By the 17th century, guns made armor too heavy to wear. Swords got lighter and the steel they were made from got better.

What about marks on surviving swords? A few points here. I have done edge on edge combat with real swords as well as schlager blades which are close to real weight. A tempered steel blade does not show much damage. Blades that have not been tempered do show significant notching. Those are the ones that would not have survived. Remember that only a fraction of swords have survived, mainly dress swords that never got near actual combat.

Even when an edge is notched, it isn't that hard to fix. I have had to take notches out of my pruning shears. You can get rid of most of the damage quickly with a hammer and anvil.

A final note - the Mythbusters declared it a myth that you can cut one sword with another. They did it several times but they disqualified these because the sword broke instead of being cut. I'm not sure I agree with their assessment. If I hit someone's sword and it separates into two pieces, I don't really care if I cut it or broke it.

A Short Entry on Slops

2010-09-22T02:25:00.000-04:00

I have held for some time that pirates and sailors in general did not wear breeches under their slops. While some people insist that slops were worn as an over garment, I have yet to see an example. On the other hand, here is yet one more period picture showing a sailor in his slops with no trace of breeches underneath.

This one is "The Sea Cook" by Thomas Rowlandson, done in 1780. Note the wooden leg. When a sailor lost a limb he was often retained as a ship's cook. In Treasure Island, Long John Silver is signed on as the cook for the voyage.

The Pirate's Arsenal

2010-09-20T13:08:00.001-04:00

When I am giving a talk on pirate weapons I usually begin with the question, "You just sighted a merchant ship. What item in the pirate's arsenal is most likely to make them surrender without a fight?"

Most people answer "cannons" followed by "guns" and "swords". The correct answer is the pirate's black flag. The most common pirate flags were either black or red and most had some representation of a death's head. This carried a message - "surrender or die" for the black flag and "surrender or we will spill your blood" for the red flag.

The skull and crossbones was a common symbol for death for centuries. You see it on New England headstones and on poison (not so much anymore but it was still there when I was growing up). Flying it from your mast was a promise of death.

For most sailors, that was enough. They were hired hands. It was not their vessel or cargo. At most they might lose some or all of their wages - not enough to die for. If they surrendered they would likely survive. They had a good chance at keeping their ship or at least being put in a longboat with provisions. They might be roughed up a bit or they might be given friendly treatment. They woudl not be fighting for their lives against a larger, better-armed crew.

The cannons, guns, and swords were needed but mainly to make good on that threat.

Talk Like a Pirate Day on the Santa Maria

2010-09-20T02:29:00.003-04:00

Actually, it was Talk Like a Pirate Weekend on the Santa Maria.

Some aspects of it were grueling. This was the ship's busiest weekend and several of us were doing presentation for the tours. That was a lot of presentations. Also, so many people were going through that the groups were larger than normal which made it hard to get everyone around. The price of success.

We had fewer pirates than during the May event but not by too many. The pirates who were there were enthusiastic. I've been to a lot of different events and this was the only one I can remember where most people waited until the 5:00 closing to start packing to leave. Usually people start packing around 3:00. This meant that we finally left the ship after 6:30.

Both days had a battle between the boats and the ship. On Saturday we used the Black Sheep and the canoe. On Sunday we had a few more people and added one person in a small boat.

There was an arts festival going on on the other side of the river so several of us spent some time checking it out and publicizing the event.

One woman spent much of the weekend playing "the governor's daughter" being help for ransom (she's the smiling red-head holding the flag). She went through the arts festival with her wrists shackled and, both days after the battle she was captured and hustled into the hold where she was "locked up". A couple of kids took this very seriously. One girl refused to leave the ship until she saw the prisoner rescued. She even stole the keys to her shackles. A boy at the arts festival on Saturday made his parents bring him to the ship Sunday so that he could pay the ransom (I think he offered a penny).

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

2010-09-17T16:38:00.001-04:00

Talk Like a Pirate Day (ITLAPD) is 15 years old this year (technically that makes this one the 16th). For something that started as kind of a joke between a couple of guys playing racquetball, this has really taken off. It helps that three of the decade's most successful movies featured pirates but I think that they tapped into a societal need to play at being a pirate. Even before the movies several Renaissance festivals included pirates and some had become full-blown pirate festivals.

Of course, what really got the ball rolling was the Dave Barry column. At the time, Barry was the country's leading comedy columnist. There was even a sit-com based on his books. Barry's column got the word out to the world. I remember reading it in 2003. In 2004 I wore a pirate T-shirt on ITLAPD. I also wore a pirate T-shirt in 2007 and people stopped me on the street (of Charleston, SC) to tell me that it was Talk Like a Pirate Day (Why do you think I'm wearing the T-shirt?).

We are having a pirate weekend on the Santa Maria. The event got mentioned in the local papers because of ITLAPD. Lots of kids show up in pirate hats or wearing an eye patch (usually pushed up to the forehead).

The weather forecast for the weekend is perfect so it should be a good event.

Pirates of Paynetown

2010-08-16T15:56:00.001-04:00

This has been one of my favorite pirate events but I have to admit that this year was a bit off for several reasons:

The main organizer, Nate, has been overwhelmed by his first child and by modifying a historic building so a lot less preparation went into this year's event. It is running on "auto-pirate".
The weather was not kind to us. Friday was very hot - in the mid-90s. Saturday was a bit cooler. Sunday started cooler but got hot again in the afternoon.
The event seems less like a pirate event and more like a generic one. In previous years there were a lot more displays and jolly roger flags visible.
Attendance was down. One entire unit came down with the flu.

That said, it was still an enjoyable event.

Not a lot happened Friday. It was too hot. Also, there was not much breeze for sailing. Last year we had a dusk cannon firing and an improvised ship battle on Friday. This year we had cannon firing both Friday and Saturday but no ship battle.

On a personal note, my wife injured her knee Friday and could not walk without crutches.

I didn't get much sleep Friday night. Some musicians camped next to us played past 3 am. They ran out of period music around 1:30 and degenerated into "do you know this?" followed by a snatch of music. At five, my wife needed help going to the bathroom. At six the wind picked up, threatening rain so I had to quickly get things under cover.

The wind did cool things down. There was a slight drizzle a while later which blew over quickly.

The Saturday battle was cut short by an actual rainstorm. We go off a couple of shots before the guns became too wet to fire. The rain didn't last long.

Sunday's battle was far better. The Priddy Princess joined in as a British ship so we had a battle between it and the other boats. This was the second time I got to use the full-sized swivel gun on the Black Sheep. It was quite loud, matching the bigger pieces in the camp and outclassing the Princess's smaller swivel.

As always, the event had a variety of historic boats with people often going out sailing or rowing. The breeze was light so no one sailed very far from camp but it was common to see one or two boats on the lake.

Flint and Silver

2010-08-11T13:22:00.003-04:00

I wrote about John Drake's Treasure Island prequels after reading the second novel in the series, Pieces of Eight. That one was on the bookshelves when I was in England in May so that's what I read first. It was good enough for me to get the first book in the series, Flint and Silver.

First, I want to stress that these are not children's books. They are aimed at adults who enjoyed Treasure Island as a child. The object of the series is to tell the back story of who Captain Flint was and how his treasure came to be buried on a desert island. It also tells how Silver lost his leg and gained his wife and parrot.

Flint and Silver is the story of how the two men became pirates, joined forces, then split apart. It is well-written in period-sounding, nautical language that any pirate will enjoy.

Of the two novels, Pieces of Eight is the better. There are a few oddities about how Flint and Silver is constructed. Drake is anxious to get his characters together so the chapters are not in chronological order. When the heroine, Selene, is introduced, Flint and Silver have already been sailing together for some time but the chapter where they actually meet come later. Be sure to pay attention to the dates at the top of the chapters and it all makes sense.

Another quibble - the book glosses over the time that the two spent working together.

Regardless, it is still a fun read.

Flint and Silver

2010-08-11T13:22:00.001-04:00

Pirates of the Caribbean 4 Trailer

2010-08-04T22:10:00.002-04:00

Pirates of the Caribbean 4 Trailer
Uploaded by teasertrailer. - Full seasons and entire episodes online.

Navigation

2010-08-02T15:14:00.001-04:00

Yesterday the Santa Maria celebrated the 518th anniversary of Columbus leaving port (the actual date is tomorrow but special events work better on weekends). Since the event is called "Navigation Day" I brought some of my personal collection of navigational tools and gave some talks on period navigation. At the same time, I've been reading Flint and Silver. A major plot point of this (and of Treasure Island) is that Long John Silver and his crew of pirates do not know how to navigate. This was also a plot point in Captain Blood. This got me thinking about period navigation. What was it that made navigation so difficult?

Any time a ship was out of sight of land it used "dead reckoning." This boils down to keeping careful track of what direction you are going and how fast you are traveling and figuring your position from that. The basic tools were the compass, the sandglass, the traverse board, and the log line (with its own sand glass).

Every half hour the helmsman would turn the glass and put a pin in the traverse board. The traverse board looked like the face of a compass and had eight concentric rings of holes. Each ring corresponded to a turn of the glass and each hole corresponded to a point on the compass. There were 32 points.

At the same time, the ship's speed would be taken with a log line. This was a spool of cord with a piece of wood on one end. The piece of wood would be thrown overboard and it would pull the cord out after it. The cord had knots at regular intervals. A sand glass would be turned. When the sand ran out you would see how many knots had unspooled and mark that on a scale at the bottom of the traverse board.

At the end of a shift, the results would be written on a slate and given to the navigator. He would use this to plot how far the ship had come and which direction and mark it on his charts.

This is where things get complicated. Each chart might have its own scale. Trying to match positions from one chart to another could be difficult.

Any changes in course would affect the accuracy. If the course was changed five minutes into a shift it would still show the same as if it had been changed 25 minutes into the shift.

The effects of currents had to guessed. The only way of measuring a current was to drop a sounding lead into the water and see if the line bowed out some.

The majority of people at that time could add and subtract but not multiply or divide. Some multiplication and division was needed.

There were other tricks that came from instruction or practice. If the bottom was close enough for a sounding, you would put some fresh tallow into a depression in bottom of the sounding lead. This would bring up a little of the bottom. Really detained charts of known waters might include information about the bottom - sandy, gravel, silt, etc. Even if you were out of sight of land, silt meant that a river mouth was near.

You could check your latitude with various instruments that measured the angle of the sun or North Star. There was no way of figuring longitude at sea.

Sailors left all of this to the navigator. Without charts and the logs, there was no way for them to tell anything but the rough direction, anyway. All that mattered to them was not getting lost.

The Black Tot

2010-07-30T12:00:00.001-04:00

Yes, that's Black Tot, not Black Spot.

Back in the good old days, British sailors got a daily rum ration called the tot. In fact, from the mid-17th century through the early 18th century, they got two rations of a half pint each per day (for a total of a pint a day). To be sure that the rum was not watered down, they would mix it with gunpowder and try lighting it. It it still lit then it proved that it was still strong. This point was just over 50% alcohol which is why today's 100 proof is 50% alcohol.

In 1740 Admiral Edward Vernon started issuing rum diluted with a quart of water per pint to reduce drunkenness. This mixture, known as grog, may have been named form him. His nickname was "Old Grogram" because of the grogram cloak that he wore.

The tot was gradually reduced to 1/8 pint, once a day by the 20th century.

In 1970, the British Navy decided that even that was too much and abolished the tot. The last tot was issued July 31, 1970, known as Black Tot Day.

Don't feel too bad for the Brits. Their beer ration was increased by one can a day at the same time.

In contrast the American Navy had ended the rum ration September 1, 1862. Instead of beer, the US Sailors got free coffee.

BBC News has more here.

The tot ended before the rum stores were emptied. What was left was saved. If you have some spare cash and a desire for history, you can buy a bottle of official navy rum for 600 pounds. See here for more details.

Early Slops

2010-07-16T02:11:00.000-04:00

It's been over a year since I did any research on slops. That time I relied mainly on second-hand sources. A friend at Jamestown asked for justification for slops on the sailors there so I did some original research of my own.

I started with this guy from Gentlemen of Fortune.

They list him as being from 1720. He looks earlier so I looked up the artist. This led to the British Museum. I did an image search on their site and hit gold. This one is Dutch from 1600 and is perfect for my purposes. He is wearing slops, a cassock, and a thrum cap. This is fairly close to what I have worn when doing an early 17th century impression.

Next are some harbor views from Flanders, from 1647.

All of these have one or more people with some sort of slops. There is also this one. Notice the sailor sitting on the left.

Finally, this site has a woodcut from 1577.

A few points. First, this shows that slops were fairly common from the 16th century and were worn at least into the early 18th century.

I have seen some sites say that they were used as overalls. These etchings do not show any sign that the slops were being worn over breeches. 17th century breeches were very full and would show if they were worn under these slops.

Finally, there are arguments about the bottom of the legs - were they hemmed or not? You can make a strong case either way from these etchings. Some, especially the earliest, looks like they are. The later ones might not be or could have been at one time but the hems are worn.

Grand Encampment 5

2010-07-12T11:25:00.003-04:00

Officially we were batteau-men, providing transportation to the British soldiers at an F&I reenactment. This was a major event with hundreds of reenactors and a couple of dozen sutlers.

We were afraid that we would be encamped with the British army. They were a long way from the lake where the boats were so we were not looking forward to that. Fortunately, they created a British Boat Camp beside the lake. This had eight or nine tents and at least fifteen people so we had a mini-event separate from the main event. Not only were we closer to the boats but our camp was a lot cooler than the main British camp. The French and Indian camps were cooler yet since they camped in the trees.

Funny thing - the only groups that bring boats are pirate groups. In addition to our Scioto Pirate group, the Great Lakes River Pirates were there. We know them from Paynetown and they are always fun to be around. At some point people started calling the camp "the pirate camp".

For boats, the River Pirates brought two small boats and two medium boats. I had the Black Sheep which was the largest of the five. The park provided two impressive 30' war canoes and rangers to command them.

All of that was good. Not everything was perfect. The nearest port-o-let was a long way away at the far end of the Sutler's Row. Water had to be fetched from the French camp (although we had plenty of cool drinking water from melting ice).

Months ago, a call went out for boats but the organizers never really planned how to use them. We "flotillas" on both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday we loaded soldiers into the boats and the canoes, rowed them half-way across the lake then back again. They landed and took a nap under some shade.

On Sunday we decided that the canoes had been under-manned so we had them load the soldiers into one canoe and we acted as escort. Again, we rowed half-way across the lake and back. We were supposed to be met by the rest of the British army but all that showed up was a narrator.

Saturday seemed hotter than is should have - possibly because of the lack of a breeze. There was more wind on Sunday and it felt cooler. The two boats with sails took advantage of the wind.

We took the Black Sheep out rowing both days. On Saturday when we were transporting troops, we managed to load ten people onto it. I wasn't happy with the trim - too much weight forward - but otherwise it worked fine. With two people rowing we were at least as fast as the smaller boats although I think that Firefly would have been faster yet.

In all, we had a good time but I'm not sure that we would do the event again. The heat got to everyone and it was a lot of work just to ferry some soldiers back and forth.

Here are the River Pirates, lurking in the shade.

Here is the ~~Pirate~~ British Boat Camp

And here is the Black Sheep with a full crew and passengers (with me at the tiller).

And here's one of the flotilla from the Black Sheep.

Boat Maintenance

2010-07-06T16:57:00.001-04:00

I did a little more work on the Black Sheep over the long weekend.

I made a mast, mainly for show, for Put-in-Bay. This worked but the block that the base went into came loose. I glued this back into place and strengthened the join with some wooden pegs.

The thwarts were wrapped with twine to limit wear on the oars. The twine was in poor shape. I re-wrapped some of it and replaced other parts.

I got some pine tar-based finish and applied this to the seats, the rudder, and the thwarts. Nothing makes a boat smell more nautical than some pine tar.

Put-in-Bay Pirate Fest II

2010-06-28T11:09:00.002-04:00

For the last few years, some of the bars at Put-in-Bay had a pirate weekend. Last year this was expanded to an official island-wide festival. Mickey and I checked it out and thought it might be nice to come back with a display. He contacted the organizers. things stalled out a few times and we ended up pulling a group of historic pirates together at the last minute. The idea was to add some historic depth to the festivities. A lot of other pirate festivals do the same thing.

Since Put-in-Bay is an island, the first problem is getting there. We brought two boats so the organizers got us passes for the boats and the cars hauling them plus passes for the participants. Everyone put their gear in the boats.

There were a few rough spots. The mayor did not want us camping in the park where we would be setting up so we were camped about two blocks away. That meant more set-up time and more tentage was needed. The organizers planned on providing dinner for us Friday but we were later than expected and the kitchen closed. They still managed to accommodate us with some nice chicken dinners.

On the other hand, the organizers provided many amenities that we were not used to. They gave us a couple of dinners and breakfasts and a local historic hotel let people use their showers. They also provided a golf cart (the most common means of transportation on the island) and they gave everyone T-shirts.

It was a pretty laid-back event. There were no battles so all we had to do was provide the display. The festival also had a costume contest and many of the pirates entered (M.A.d'Dogge won first prize - a trip to the Cayman Islands).

We used the Black Sheep as part of our display. Since is it flat-bottomed, it represented our long-boat. In late afternoon, we launched Firefly and rowed around the harbor. We even threatened the Brig Niagara (we had a musket and most of their guns weren't mounted).

Saturday was pretty warm although a breeze helped during the day. Sunday was outright hot with no breeze until a chain of storms came in. We got caught in a downpour while we were striking camp. That meant bringing home wet canvass but it also cooled everyone off.

The lake was rough because of the storms. The rain had stopped but a lot of spray came over the rail, drenching people - a lot like standing too close to a water ride at a theme park.

In all, the organizers were happy and want us back next year with even more pirates. The participants all enjoyed the experience, also. With luck, we should see this event grow.

Working on the Black Sheep

2010-06-24T02:25:00.001-04:00

I have the Black Sheep home for a few days until the Put-In-Bay event. I took the opportunity to do some minor work on her.

The rear-most bench was made in two parts. I suspect that it was cut wrong and a wedge-shaped piece added to keep it in place. I had some extra wood sitting around so I cut a new seat. As a bonus, I found that the old one fits in-between the forward rowing bench and the loggerhead where the swivel gun is mounted. When I was firing it during the Santa Maria event I was sitting on a pile of life jackets so this is a big improvement.

There was no place to tie the stern. When it was at the Santa Maria, they tied a line to the rear bench (the two part one). I added a ring. It is on the inside of the stern post instead of the outside so it does not interfere with the rudder but it should work.

I noticed a landscaping timber that has been sitting around in the garage. This is a good piece to start with for a mast. It was not long enough so I raised it up with some glued-up 2x4 that was also sitting around. I should be able to fit it and hoist the yard by the weekend. With that rig it will only sail downwind but it will look better.

The bench where the mast goes has a big hole in it for the mast. I was sitting on it when we rowed the boat to the boat ramp and the hole is a pain. I made a cover for it with some more spare lumber. I set some dowels in the front to keep it in place.

Most of the thwarts were loose so I glued them back in. The cord on them needs some pine tar so I ordered some. I will do some other touching up with it when it comes.

Pieces of Eight

2010-06-18T16:21:00.001-04:00

Treasure Island is full of characters whose past is only hinted at. Chief among these is Captain Flint who buried the treasure and died in Savannah before the novel starts. British Author John Drake is writing a series of novels filling the back-story of these characters and answering such questions as how Long John Silver became a pirate and lost his leg, where Flint's treasure came from and why it was buried and how Pew lost his eyesight.

The first of these books I found was the second - Pieces of Eight. It and the first novel, Flint and Silver, are available through Amazon (currently Pieces of Eight is a Kindle-only edition). The next novel, Skull and Bones is coming.

So far I've only read Pieces of Eight but it was good enough that I have Flint and Silver ready to read next. While they are written as a series, it is fairly easy to read as a stand-alone novel.

Apparently, in Flint and Silver, Flint mutinied on an English navy ship full of treasure. It ended up on the island (known as Flint's Island) in the novel. Only Flint and Billy Bones know how to find the island.

There was a fight between ships commanded by Flint and Silver with Silver's ruined ship beached on the island and Flint limping off to gather a force and take the island and the treasure from Silver.

The novel follows the preparations the two make. Silver has a limited number of men and has to fortify the island against a likely overwhelming force. Flint is short on cash and has to convince others to sign on with him.

The narrative is different from Treasure Island. That was told in first person from the perspective of the boy, Jim. Drake's novels follow multiple characters so it is written in the third person with a number of nautical references that give it a period feel.

Anyone who has read Treasure Island has some idea of how things will turn out. Several characters will survive and escape but the treasure stays on the island. That still leaves a multitude of characters who are fair game to kill off including an entire tribe of Indians.

All of the characters are fully fleshed out and flawed somehow. Flint is not only a ruthless bastard but he has a little problem with women. Then there is Captain Danny - six foot four, a fierce fighter, and womanizer who is actually a woman. Silver is the most admirable character.

I may have to buy a Kindle just to follow the series.

Splinters

2010-06-03T05:05:00.002-04:00

In one of their pirate specials, the Mythbusters investigated the question - do splinters cause more deaths than cannon balls? They pronounced this a myth. Since this conflicts with period accounts, they must have gotten something wrong, but what?

I found the answer in a display on the HMS Victory - Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar. They combined period accounts and modern experiments and came up with a different answer.

It turns out that splinters don't just happen. There is an art form to making them and the Mythbusters did exactly the wrong thing. They used as much force as they could to penetrate their mock-up hull but, the more force you put into your cannonball, the fewer splinters you get. What you want is to just barely pierce the hull. That makes the biggest splinters.

Pirates on the Santa Maria - Spring 2010

2010-05-18T12:18:00.001-04:00

We had our pirate event on the Santa Maria. It was a major success. The weather was nearly perfect. Everyone seemed to have fun. The ship sold a lot of tickets - this may be the biggest weekend of the year.

There are several things I like about this weekend. It gives pirates a chance to do something on a real ship. The pirates themselves are all fun to be around.

For the battle, we had enough people to man three boats on Saturday and two on Sunday.

I finally got the Black Sheep in the water. It performed perfectly. I think that at one point we had seven people on board. It worked fairly well with four - two rowing/shooting, one at the swivel gun, and one at the tiller. There was room for a fifth. We had no trouble standing up. In the future, I will need a small bench for the person at the swivel gun. I was manning it and there was no place for me to sit. The next bench back was taken by someone rowing.

Firefly had a few problems on Friday. With the Black Sheep blocking my driveway, I had not been able to soak Firefly properly so the seams were still open when we launched it. They closed up by Saturday but it meant a lot of pumping in the meantime.

Painting the Batteau

2010-05-10T02:01:00.000-04:00

With Micky's help, I got the Black Sheep painted. I like how it turned out. It freshened the boat up a lot and it looks a lot more 18th century to my eye.

Armed and ready

Fixing the rot

2010-05-08T00:19:00.001-04:00

The weather finally cleared up long enough for the rotted wood to dry. I put a few coats of Minwax Wood Hardener on it to stabilize the remaining rot. According to reviews, this isn't the best wood hardener on the market but I've dug out most of the rot so it doesn't have to sink in very deep.

Once the hardener set I used epoxy putty and a piece of 2x4 to fill in the gap. The original piece had been glassed over. For my replacement I used a tube of epoxy gel to seal the wood. That should get it ready for painting later this weekend.

Here's what the repair looks like. The black part is the epoxy putty. The replacement wood is below that.

I've said before that it is a good thing I fixed it when I did. It the rot continued another inch further up then I would have had to fix one of the mounts for the rudder. That would have complicated a simple repair.

Oars and Rot

2010-05-02T02:20:00.001-04:00

The oars are coming along. I Need to do some sanding on the handles but otherwise they are about ready for painting.

I used a couple of chisels on the rot in the stern stem. The good news is that the stem is made from two pieces glued together and the rot was limited to only one piece. The bad news is that there was a lot more rot than I was hoping. At one point the wood I was scooping out was the texture of wood putty. I ended up taking around six or seven inches off the end of the stem.

I'm going to let the wood dry then apply some wood hardener in case I missed any rot then fill in with putty and wood.

Here's a picture showing the rot.

The Pirate Candidates of London

2010-04-30T15:23:00.001-04:00

Two "pirates" are running for Parliament in the Cities of London and Westminster district. One represents the Pirate Party which advocates an end to copyright. The other dresses up and promises duty-free rum, free duct tape for every household, and requiring schoolchildren to be trained in swordsmanship an' gunnery.

Oars for the Black Sheep

2010-04-30T03:25:00.002-04:00

The Bateau Black Sheep came without oars. I guess that the original ones are no longer usable. I was advised that I should go for ten foot oars. This seems reasonable. My Whitehall's oars are nine feet and the Black Sheep needs longer handles on its oars so that one person can hold an oar with both hands.

I checked out Lowes. I was hoping to find some cedar but what they had was not usable. All of it was either knotted, splintery, or warped. Instead I found some 1"x3"x10' poplar that was nice an straight and clear. Gluing two pieces together gives me square pieces. I bought an extra plank for the blades. I got eight 16" blade sides from this with the last two inches cut on the diagonal.

Titebond now has a waterproof formula. Most people advise epoxy for boats and oars but Lowes only had small tubes and it would have been a lot more trouble. We will see how strong the glue is. I got everything cut out and glued in one evening. I will use a draw knife and a spokeshave to shape the oars then paint them the same color I will use for the inside of the boat. I should be able to finish the oars over the weekend.

Bateau Black Sheep - Second Impressions

2010-04-28T01:53:00.000-04:00

I spent some time cleaning the Black Sheep. The flooring is badly in need of paint. The hull underneath is in fairly good shape. The topcoat of paint is chipping in a few places. In the center water as soaked through the paint and caused the very top layer of the plywood to delaminate. So far this is only a minor problem but it could easily get worse if not painted soon.

It's just as well that I bought it. Another year sitting without attention and it would need serious attention instead of a paint job.

Bateau Black Sheep - First Impressions

2010-04-27T01:48:00.003-04:00

I picked up the Black Sheep yesterday. It is a reproduction 18th century bateau made from fiberglassed marine plywood with oak frames.

It is 23 feet long - noticeably longer than my Whitehall. It is only around six inches wider.

The Black Sheep is lighter than the Whitehall. I can lift one end - it's heavy but I can lift it. The Whitehall is too heavy to lift.

It needs a paint job and there is a bit of rot at the base of the sternpost. Otherwise it is in good condition. I may change the color when I repaint it. Right now the outside is dark brown and the interior is tan. The flooring is white and really needs paint.

The oars and mast rotted out so I have to make new ones. It did come with a yard and sail.

It has a loggerhead for mounting a swivel gun. I will need to drill out the hole to make it big enough for my swivel gun's yoke.

It seemed easier to tow - probably because it is lighter. Also, I paid a lot less than I paid for the Whitehall and I got a great deal on the Whitehall - a comparable boat would cost quite a bit more than I paid.

The Black Sheep came with a rudder and two tillers - the normal one and a shorter one to use with a large crew. It also has a steering oar which it pretty heavy.

It did not come with a cover and we drove through a lot of rain on the way back. I now know that it is water-tight. I had to pump out several gallons of rainwater.

A New Boat

2010-04-14T12:59:00.001-04:00

I'm planning on driving to New Hampshire in a couple of weekends and picking up a new (to me) boat. This one is the Batteau Black Sheep. It can be seen here and here.

It is a little late for the GAoP but otherwise is a good fit. I will be able to mount my larger swivel gun in the loggerhead. The small one I've been using in the Firefly is more of a cannon-shaped pistol than a real swivel gun. My larger swivel gun is the real thing.

Being able to accommodate a crew of 4 (including a gunner) to 8 is a plus. It has higher sides - we got some water over the sides if Firefly at Paynetown last year when the wind was causing waves and we were launching from the beach. We have a couple of events planned for the Great Lakes this year and I was a little concerned about waves there in Firefly if we get very far from land.

The flat bottom should be friendlier to being pulled up and should make a more stable boat (my wife is looking forward to that).

Downsides - right now it needs a new mast and I have been told that it "sails like a pig". I don't know if this is because it is a Batteau or because of the sail. It only had a square sail. I've checked and the Mackinaw Boat was similar to the Batteau but was usually sailed. A quick search of Google Images shows that these were gaff-rigged with a sprit sail so I might be able to work something out.

It is also a larger boat and needs at least three people to move - one at the tiller and two rowing. Right now I can handle Firefly by myself or with one other person. Also, I doubt that the Black Sheep is as fast as Firefly.

If I can get someone else to haul one of them, I probably will take both to Paynetown. I liked sailing Firefly in the lake there - it is much larger than the lake I usually sail and offered new scenery.

Weapons Handling

2010-04-09T16:23:00.001-04:00

A thread on the Pyracy Pub got me to thinking about the differences between the 17th century colonial and English Civil War reenactors I have been doing things with for decades and pirate reenactors. Specifically, I've been thinking about why so many pirates seem unsafe with weapons.

Part of it is experience. I doubt that most of the 17th century people I fall in with could count how many events they have been at. They have fired their weapons hundreds or thousands of times. Many of them have also drilled at historic sites where safe gun handling is stressed.

That does not mean that everyone doing the earlier periods is safe. I have had someone fire his gun right in my face at close range. He was worrying too much about getting his piece to fire and not enough about where the muzzle was pointed. I have seen other people do unsafe things but this is rare.

I do not get the same level of confidence at pirate events (Paynetown is an exception but most people there have crossed over from other periods). At the 2008 PiP I had someone load her pistol then turn to talk to me which pointed her pistol at my face - twice.

Some of this comes from the weapons used. Most people doing the earlier periods are using matchlocks. There is a whole drill for learning to use these and a lot of safety is built into the drill. If you load and handle your piece then the muzzle is always pointed up and away from anyone else. I have seen matchlocks go off unexpectedly. If the piece is being held correctly then it is an example. ("Look at where his muzzle was pointed. That's right where it should be.')

On the other hand, pirates are using newer, simpler locks. Some of them use caplocks. Too many of these pirates think that figuring out which end of the piece they should pour the powder down makes them an expert. Without the drill they are more likely to forget muzzle control.

Another factor is the different in the type of pieces used. Musketeers always carried muskets or calivers - both are long weapons. Pirates often use pistols or blunderbusses. It is much easier to forget muzzle control with a shorter piece.

We probably need to work some gun safety classes into big pirate events. PiP had a chance for people to practice their weapons. This could be expanded into a general mass-fire with people assigned to watch for unsafe behavior. Anyone who looked unsafe could be taken aside for some private instruction.

What is the proper way to fire a Blunderbuss?

2010-04-07T15:53:00.001-04:00

SPIKE TV reran their Pirate vs Armored Knight episode of Deadliest Warrior. I've written about this before and I agree with the outcome (the pirate won). This time I'm going to take examine how the blunderbuss is used.

In the episode, they went to test the blunderbuss against a ballistic gel target but it misfired. Later someone explained that this was caused by the way the expert tried to fire it. He was shooting with it braced against the hip and he tilted it a bit to the right so that the curve of the butt would fit better against his hip. The explanation was that tipping the pan let the prime to spill out, causing the misfire.

Since I got a blunderbuss, I've been trying to figure out the best way of holding it. I have heard that it is fired from the hip since the blast will spread out, anyway. When you hold it against your hip then you you either have to tilt it a bit or have the top edge of the butt jammed into your hip.

I will have to check this out when I'm somewhere that I can actually fire but I don't think that it is tilted enough to spill the prime. In addition, the frizzen holds the powder in the pan. There is less than a second between the pan being opened and the spark falling on the prime. Given the shallow angle, I don't see how this could cause a misfire. The exception would be if the flint was too long and the pan was not closed tightly while at half-cock.

But this still leaves the question - should it be shot from the hip? I don't think so for several reasons:

First, the stock is the same as on a musket or rifle - pieces that are fired from the shoulder. If it was meant to be fired from the hip then the butt would be flat enough to sit comfortably against the hip. A flat butt works fine against the shoulder so there is no reason to have a convex stock unless it was meant exclusively for the shoulder.

Second, these guns were used by sailors, coachmen, and dragoons. Sailors are likely to have a rail in the way. Coachmen are sitting and could not easily rest it against his hip. Dragoons fought either mounted or on foot. When mounted, the horse would be in the way. I can't imagine the blunderbuss being used from the hip by any of these people.

Third, even shotguns need to be aimed. When firing from the hip you can fire in the general direction of our opponent; from the shoulder you can aim it right at him. Granted, the shot will spread out, but probably not as much as you think. Friends who fire shotguns say that you have to be aiming pretty close to your target. A blunderbuss has a shorter barrel and a wider bore so it will spread faster but you still have to aim within a foot or two or your target. To be fair, I will admit that Gunny hit his targets while shooting a blunderbuss from the hip on Lock and Load. I will point out that he hit them at hip level which might not be as effective as higher up.

So where did the firing from the hip idea come from? I suspect that it is a movie myth by way of the shotgun. There are lots of things that cowboys do that do not work in real life. They fan their gun. This is rapid-firing by holding down the trigger while pulling the hammer back multiple times with the flat of the hand. You can empty your gun quickly but you can't aim at all. For years, gangsters have been holding their guns sideways with the barrel to the left of the hand. This looks mean but you cannot aim this way and it can cause the gun to jam. A few months ago someone opened fire on some police with a machine pistol. He only got off three shots before it jammed because he was holding it sideways.

I can see why someone would prefer holding a blunderbuss or shotgun against the hip. These weapons have a good kick and will bruise the shoulder more than the hip. Also, it looks cooler to fire from the hip. It gives the impression that you are so good that you don't have to aim. In a real battle, I would always shoot from the shoulder.

One last point - during the footage of pirates taking a ship I noticed people firing their blunderbusses one-handed like an overgrown pistol. This is possible when firing blanks but I would never try this with it actually loaded. The recoil is likely to pull the gun out of your hand and hurt you. (I have fired my carbine this way from my boat but even loaded, it would have a fraction of the kick of a blunderbuss.)

Military Through the Ages

2010-03-23T12:19:00.000-04:00

Groups representing pirates/privateers were well represented at Jamestown's annual Military Through the Ages. The SEA Rats Atlantic, the Crew of the Archangel, and the York Privateers were all present and each won a ribbon in some category.

I have to admit, I wasn't among any of the groups. I was volunteering with the James Fort Militia. That did mean that I got to crew the largest piece of artillery on the field - Jamestown's saker which was fired this weekend for the first time in 11 years. It is a monster with a ten foot barrel. It was also the loudest piece, even after the Civil War group doubled the charge in their piece to try to match us.

Even though I was not there as a pirate, I could have been one of the Elizabethan Sea Dogs. They were at their peak in the 1580s and 1590s. When Elizabeth died in 1602, James established peace with Spain and forbid further attacks on Spanish shipping. The investors who had been financing the Sea Dogs looked for someplace else to put their money. Some of them invested in colonization in the hope that English colonies could provide the sort of profits that Spain was getting. Unfortunately for them, Virginia failed to make any profit until John Rolf bred a variety of tobacco that would grow in Virginia but tasted like the Spanish variety. By that point, the Virginia Company had failed and the King had seized the charter.

My New Blunderbuss

2010-03-08T17:13:00.002-05:00

I bought a blunderbuss over the weekend. I wasn't really looking for one but it was a good price and it is not one of the India-made ones that most places are selling.

It has a steel rammer so it is probably meant as a circa 1800 coach gun rather than a circa 1700 ship's weapon. Outside of that, the details aren't far off. The barrel has been japaned or blued which was done to protect steel barrels at sea (the other option was to use a brass barrel). The barrel has a nice shape. It has been fired but not often. I can see a tiny bit of powder cake at the breech but outside of that, it's spotless. The fittings match the pistol kit I'm working on. The lock is unremarkable. It is small - more like a pistol lock - but it has a great spark.

This may end up being a loaner piece for crew on my boat. I still have my carbine and my new pistol. Still, a big-barreled gun gets people's attention. I will also probably use it at the Grand Encampement.

An episode of Lock and Load with R. Lee Ermey looked at shotguns. You can see the first part here. He gets to the blunderbuss at three minutes. The slow-motion footage of him firing a musket and the blunderbuss is great. It also shows the relative superiority of the blunderbuss at 20-feet which would be typical for fighting on board a ship.

UPDATE: The third time I tried the lock the frizzen broke. Fortunately I was able to buy a rifle frizzen over the Internet that was the same size and shape. That means that the original lock is probably a rifle lock.

What Happened to Pyratecon?

2010-03-05T15:08:00.000-05:00

Pyratcon is just over a month away and the web site is still mostly blank. Is this event even going to happen this year?

I have to admit that I'm only wondering out of curiosity. I wasn't planning to go this year. Last year was too badly run and turning it over to a new team of people didn't inspire confidence - especially since last year was the first time some of them had been to the event.

Rum

2010-02-17T17:06:00.001-05:00

Rum is making a comeback.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35443423/ns/business-consumer_news/

Personally I think it is related to the popularity of pirates.

Pirates Four to be Filmed in Hawaii

2010-01-20T12:22:00.001-05:00

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20100120/D9DBEHO81.html

The fourth installment of Disney's popular "Pirates of the Caribbean" series will be filmed in Hawaii, according an announcement Monday by Gov. Linda Lingle.
Johnny Depp will return to his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," which will begin shooting this summer on Oahu and Kauai and be released in 2011. The film is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Rob Marshall.
"We've always sought out the most extraordinary and exotic locations ... Hawaii provides an amazing range of both land and seascapes, and we're delighted to return for 'On Stranger Tides,'" Bruckheimer said in a statement.
Small portions of "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," were shot on Maui and Molokai.

I doubt that they will rename the franchise "Pirates of the Pacific".

Of course, portions of Pirates Three took place in and around Asia. I was never clear how much of that movie took place where. They returned from the Locker at an unnamed location that happened to be near where both Sao Feng and Becket were waiting. Shipwreck Island was not far away. Becket commanded the East India Company which controlled trade with China.

It is surprising that any of the original movies were shot in the Caribbean. Hollywood has a long history of substituting locations. For example, Cutthroat Island took place in the Caribbean but was shot in Malta and Thailand.

A New Pistol

2010-01-18T02:08:00.000-05:00

I got a new pistol kit yesterday - a nice early-18th century one. It is similar to the Sun King pistol found on the Whydah. The shape is generally the same as are the brass butt-piece and the trigger guard. The biggest difference is the side plate. Instead of the fancy one on the Sun King pistol, mine has a large, plain one. Plus there is the engraving. Mine came with a lion head instead of a Sun King insignia.

Today I fitted the barrel, butt cap, and side plate. More as I progress.

Cannons and Gorns

2009-12-29T12:13:00.001-05:00

This isn't strictly pirate-related but pirates are always interested in cannons. Mythbusters just showed an segment based on the "Gorn" episode of Star Trek. In this the Enterprise pursues a ship manned by the alien race the Gorn into an unknown system. Powerful aliens in that system transport Kirk and the Gorn captain to a planet to finish their fight one on one. They promised that a weapon would be available. Kirk eventually realizes that the weapon is the raw materials for a gun - sulfur, charcoal, saltpeter, hollow piece of a bamboo-like tree, and diamonds. He gathers the ingredients, mixes the gunpowder by hand, stuffs it all down a piece of bamboo with diamonds as projectiles, and sets it off. The result is enough to knock the Gorn off his feet long enough for Kirk to hold a knife to his throat and win the contest.

So, could this work? The Mythbusters found that bamboo makes a poor cannon and would injure Kirk more than the Gorn. Assuming that the alien bamboo is sturdier than the earthly variety, what about the gunpowder? The Mythbusters used the best of 30 trials. When they tried this in a modern cannon it barely pushed the ball out of the barrel so they gave up and switched to commercial powder.

Obviously, they did something wrong. In the GAoP, gunpowder came two ways, serpentine and corned. Serpentine powder was used for cannons. It is exactly what the Mythbusters used - the three ingredients mixed together by hand. Over time these would settle out so gunners had wooden paddles or scoops that they would use to remix the powder before use.

Corned powder was used in small arms and is what is sold today. This is serpentine powder that has been wetted and baked into cakes then ground up into grains (corns). In period, urine was often used for wetting the powder.

So what happened on Mythbusters? Serpentine powder burns slower so they would have needed wadding in their cannon to assure a good seal. They did not use this which is probably their problem. A longer barrel would have helped, also. Period cannons were quite long. That gives the powder longer to burn. It is also possible that they got the proportions of the powder wrong or didn't mix it properly. The best powder is 75% saltpeter, 15% charcoal, and 10% sulfur. That comes out to 15 parts, 3 parts and 2 parts. If they measured like Kirk did, then they just estimated by eye.

How does this relate to the Star Trek episode? Kirk measured his powder by eye while the Gorn was approaching. We didn't see Kirk use wadding in his cannon. Chances are pretty good that, in real life, his results would have been worse than the Mythbusters. On the other hand, if he remembered the right proportions and used a measure and wadding (and his bamboo barrel didn't explode in his face) then it would have worked.

Pirates in Paradise 2009

2009-12-10T14:44:00.001-05:00

PiP 2009 is over. Here's the wrap-up.

First the weather
Wednesday and Thursday were hot and humid. It rained Thursday night/Friday morning and got even more humid. A front moved in Saturday which cooled things off. We had heavy rain for something under an hour followed by high winds. It was a little too cool. Sunday was really nice.

The battles
We were supposed to have daily battles on Friday, Saturday,and Sunday. The Saturday battle was canceled because of weather so we only had two battles. Last year the attackers were on the field between the fort and the ocean with the Wolf joining in. All of the artillery was on the fort. When the pirates won on Saturday, we rushed around the fort to the open back, climbed the walls, and took the Viceroy. It was a little clumsy.

This year everyone was on the field. The artillery was divided up with the Royalists having two 6-pounders and 1-2 big mortars and the attackers having a half dozen or more small pieces. The cannon crews sucked up a lot of manpower and we ended up with more people manning the cannons than attacking with small arms.

They were short on experienced gunners so I volunteered for a gun crew.

On Friday we had the two cannons and one mortar on the far end of the field. The Viceroy shouted orders from the fort walls. We fired our four shots then abandoned our guns. After that, they reworked the battle plan and things worked much better.

On Sunday we were on the close end of the field with the pirates on the far end. We also had a second mortar. Our soldiers (both of them) were on our side and the Viceroy was behind the cannons. After we fired our four rounds, we took up cannon tools and made a stand against the pirates' advance. As soon as we realized that we had brought hand tools to a gun fight, we retreated. Several royalists threw off their coats. People on both sides stripped the dead of their shoes and hats. The Sunday format worked very well and was a lot of fun.

Other items
Most people skipped the parade in favor of the auction. Last year the auction was slow and boring. It was interrupted part way through by a slide show. This year it was very entertaining. I could say more but I am sworn to secrecy.

The Sunday dinner was a disaster. It was announced that people should come up to the fort around 6 for a Piracy Pub photo and dinner. Around 7:30 it was announced that dinner would be served within fifteen minutes. A few minutes before eight, and well after it was pitch black, the had us line up for the picture. Dinner was brought in while the picture was being taken. Dinner consisted of chips, one of several types of salad (bean salad, pasta salad, etc.) buns, and a small portion of pork.

Authenticity was up this year although there were two or three Jack Sparrow-types. There was some question about what to do with some people who had a large purple booth-like tent with an aluminum frame. They started setting up in the historic camp but were stopped and sent to the modern camp. They were not happy there and sneaked back under cover of darkness. Last year there were several camps decorated with Ren Fair gear but this year there was no sign of that.

Attacking Forts and Camps

2009-11-28T00:07:00.000-05:00

One thing that bothers me about pirate reenactors, even the good ones, is that they tend to use close-in weapons for battles. You see a lot of pistols and blunderbusses being used beyond their effective range. I've said before that there should be more long guns.

Pirate Radio

2009-11-16T11:16:00.001-05:00

My wife and I saw Pirate Radio (aka The Boat the Rocked) over the weekend. There are no actual pirates involved although there is a ship and a couple of guys climb a (transmitter) mast. Also, two actors from the PotC series are in it (Bill Nighy/Davy Jones and jack Davenport/Norrington).

The movie is a period piece about 1966 when half of England listened to Rock and Roll transmitted from ships anchored just beyond the three mile limit. This was the height of British Rock but the BBC only played it for around an hour a day.

Pirate Radio is great fun. Most of it takes place on the ship operated by Radio Rock. The DJs and crew lived on the ship, pumping out Rock, amusing themselves between shifts, and looking forward to alternate Saturdays when women were allowed to visit.

The movie is an ensemble piece. There isn't much plot except for the British government's efforts to shut down the pirate radio stations. There are plot threads, mainly around the rivalry between DJ Gavin and the Count and Young Carl's efforts to lose his virginity.

I do have one quibble. 1960s Rock was a young man's game but several of the DJs are in their late 30s or early 40s.

Regardless, it's all good fun with a killer soundtrack.

Swords and Candles

2009-11-04T13:08:00.001-05:00

This is really about Hollywood swordsmen but movie pirates are always champion fencers so it sort of applies.

How often has this scene been shot - two swordsmen are about to fight. The villain turns and cuts through a candlestick. The hero makes a swish and appears to miss. He stomps his foot and the candle falls.

So, can this be done? I experimented with this years ago. I discovered two things. First, you cannot cut through a regular candle. The sword is stopped by the wick. There just isn't any way around this. It is difficult to cut a string with a sword. If it is under a load and you have the right stroke then you can do it but it takes a slicing stroke. You can't do this with a candle because of the wax. You have to cut the wax with a straight cut. If you try slicing it, the wax will stick and the candle will go flying.

So, you have to have a special candle with no wick. If you make one of these then it is possible to cut through the candle with one stroke. Thinner blades work better. A machete worked better than a sword.

So that's the first part. The second part is - can you slice through a candle so well that it will not show the cut? This part is impossible.

Think about the physics involved. No matter how sharp your edge is, the rest of the blade takes up space - up to a quarter of an inch. Two solids cannot occupy the same space at once so the candle has to move enough to let the blade pass through. If you could do this very slowly then gravity might pull the top half of the candle back in place but then the sword would not have enough energy to slice the candle in the first place. Instead you have to make a very fast strike. That is going to send the top half flying. There just isn't any other possibility.

This is also true when cutting people (although I have not tried this). The movies Equilibrium and Underworld both have sword fights where someone's head is cut but he doesn't realize it until his face slides off. It can't happen.

Sea Shanties

2009-10-13T01:37:00.002-04:00

If you are reenacting pirates then some sea music seems appropriate. Sea Shanties seems like a good place to start. These were working songs. When many men had to work together hauling lines or working the capstan, they had to synchronize their efforts. The shanties had a strong beat timed for specific jobs.

Unfortunately, finding period shanties is not as easy as it seems. There are lots of sea shanties but most of them are from the 19th century. You don't even have to research them. The subject matter is a either about whaling or shipping. Sometimes historic events or people that post-date the GAoP are mentioned.

For example, any song that mentions Australia is too late. It wasn't settled until 1788. South Australia was founded in 1836. This eliminates the song South Australia, also known as the Rolling Kings.

Haul Away Joe starts with a verse about King Louis XVI who was executed in 1793.

Donkey Riding refers to a steam winch used to load timber onto ships.

The Bonnie Ship the Diamond is a whaler.

It goes on like this.

I've heard but can't confirm that the sea shanty as we know it wasn't really common until the 19th century. Prior to that musicians, especially fiddlers, kept time.

We've eliminated sea shanties as period music. What's left for pirates? There are some songs with sea themes. Also, there are two that I know of the specifically mention pirates. The first one was written by a young Ben Franklin about Blackbeard's death. It is called the Downfall of Piracy. Unfortunately only the words survive.

The other one is My Name is Captain Kidd. This one includes music and you can find versions of it on YouTube.

Talk Like a Pirate Day 2009

2009-09-21T02:15:00.002-04:00

How to really live up Talk Like a Pirate Day...

First, we had a pirate weekend on the Santa Maria. We had around 30 pirates including kids. Saturday (the official TLaPD) had perfect weather. We had two attacks on the ship from boats. This time we had a ladder hung so that the attackers could actually climb aboard. I also provided a couple of foam swords so that the first pirate on deck could fight with one of the attackers. We decided that we would base the success or failure of the attack on this. We had two boats to use - my Whitehall, Firefly, and a smaller canoe that belongs to the ship. Since the canoe could maneuver around the ship better we had the attackers on it.

The first time the defender won. The boarders surrendered and Firefly called off our attack. The second time the boarders won.

There was a pirate-themed wedding that evening. The "real" pirates left the ship so that the wedding pirates could have it. The bride had a white gown with a small white tricorn pinned at an angle. The bridesmaids were in red corsets and black skirts. The men had piratish outfits and cutlasses.

A few of us were included in the ceremony. The minister asked if anyone objected. One pirate did and a second shot him. No one else objected. I fire my swivel gun when the ceremony ended and a howitzer on land also fired.

After that we went to the "R Bar" which became the "Arrh Bar" for the night where we had a fundraiser for the Santa Maria. The bar was quite happy with the pirate turn-out and added $500 to the money raised.

In all, it was a great day for the ship's finances. Attendance was the second higest of the year, right after the Spring pirate event plus the fundraiser. We will follow up with an auction on Ebay.

Most of us spent the night on the ship. A few of us had slept there on Friday night as well.

Sunday started cloudy and started raining in early afternoon. We skipped the battle and just let people fire small weapons, instead.

There was an arts festival going on across the river. A few people went over in the canoe and some others walked across. I got together a crew for Firefly with the idea of stealing it and towing it back but they got back to it too soon. We had to console ourselves with racing past it. We had two people rowing and the canoe only had Micky.

In all it was a good weekend for pirating.

PotC 4

2009-09-15T17:24:00.001-04:00

Pirates of the Caribbean 4, On Stranger Tides has been announced with a summer of 2011 release date.

The title may come from Tim Power's novel by the same name. I don't see much of the plot being usable for a new Disney movie. The novel follows a puppeteer named Jack Chandagnac as his ship is taken and he falls in with pirates. Jack rises in the ranks to become Captain Jack Shandy and win the girl. Along the way he witnesses Blackbeard immersing himself in a mystic fountain and gaining supernatural powers.

I've read several of Tim Powers' novels. His cosmology is consistent between this book and the Anubis Gate which is set in the England of Dickens. The Anubis Gate is a sprawling novel and possibly Powers' best although On Stranger Tides has its own following. Many people consider it to be the pirate novel.

According to Ron Gilbert, On Stranger Tides was one of his inspirations for the Monkey Island games along with the Disney ride. This could bring the creative cycle full circle.

The Lost Coconut

2009-09-03T02:57:00.003-04:00

This is a neat ship. It has a foam base covered with lumber salvaged from a back porch. It is 30 feet long and looks like a real ship.

More pictures here and a video here.

The Last Sail

2009-09-01T11:02:00.001-04:00

I went sailing Saturday for probably the last time of the season. It went well. I finally found the secret to tacking a Whitehall - cheat. If I give a few strokes with a paddle then it tacks nicely. I've noted before that Whitehalls are meant to go straight so making a quick turn before it loses momentum doesn't work very well.

I didn't drop the centerboard. It didn't seem to need it. We were racing back and forth across the lake pretty well without it.

It had been out of the water for three weeks so the seams had opened up. I recently bought a battery-powered pump and this took care of the water nicely. It isn't as fast as the hand pump I've been using but it's a lot easier to use. I just push the start button and keep an eye on it.

We started in late afternoon then had a family picnic. I was worried about getting the boat back to the boat ramp before dark so I took down the mast and rowed back. I had two family members rowing, two others riding, and I took the tiller. It works nicely with five people (especially when the front bench isn't blocked by a swivel gun).

Probably the Santa Maria Pirate Event will be its last time in the water this year. After that I expect the water to be too cold to launch.

Pirates of Paynetown 2009

2009-08-10T11:35:00.002-04:00

The 2009 Pirates of Paynetown was a major success. Around 150 pirates gathered making a decent-sized town for the pirates to attack. There were around ten boats, some of them stored in camp. I think that five or six participated in the pirate attack and these held more people than last year. New events included an improvised naval battle and night cannon firing, both on Friday. There was dancing after dark on Saturday and a pirate funeral on Sunday when the skeleton pirate hanging as a warning was finally laid to rest.

This was the 4th PoP and the third that I have attended. Attendance has jumped each year and may be nearing the limits of what the site can support. There are good and bad points about this. The good points are that more people means more going on and it is growing in a good way - accuracy is not being sacrificed and the new people are adding new displays. The Saturday night Pirate Pitch-in dinner has improved a great deal with nearly everything being cooked on-site and not a single bucket of KFC to be seen.

There are a few drawbacks to the increase. With 25-50 people, most people congregate at the tavern after dark. With over 100 people, a smaller precentage went to the tavern. Groups were big enough to support their own gatherings. Also, fewer groups include pirate or nautical items in their camps. It is really a canvas village that happens to have some pirates in it.

The beach has become a problem. In 2007, the water level in the lake was down and there was plenty of beach available. That Winter the lake flooded and the beach eroded making it smaller. This year the water level was much higher and rising while we were there, covering a lot of the beach. That doesn't leave much room for the boats. There are plans to add a floating dock for next year.

The wind was a problem on Saturday. The boats had a lot of trouble being in the right position and the waves were pretty high for a lake. I didn't measure the wind until it had died down a bit. Even then it was in the 9-10 MPH range. On Sunday it was in the 6-8 MPH range and things were much easier. In fact, the Sunday battle went about perfectly. The pirates attacked, the shore batteries opened up, the pirates landed and were opposed by British regulars and militia but a band of "land pirates" appeared at their flank and routed them (which gave the "boat pirates" a chance to land safely), and the camp was taken.

This event is becoming one of the best events of the year for pirates who are serious about history.

Hook - What Went Wrong?

2009-08-04T01:30:00.002-04:00

Hook just showed up on cable. This seemed like a great idea when it was first announced. Speilburg was still highly acclaimed and he said that Robin Williams was the only actor who could pull off the role. The result was poor. What happened?

One basic problem was that it mixed two worlds. A corporate lawyer with no time for his kids had to travel to a place where people can fly and someone can lose his shadow. The two were too dissimilar.

A big problem is that the movie was just too long. Every part of it goes on and on, especially the beginning and end. The movie could easily have had a half hour or more cut from it and it would have been better.

Robin Williams' child-like act has been over-rated. The same thing happened with Popeye, another Williams movie with high expectations that flopped at the box office.

The script assumes that the viewer is totally familiar with the original book.

The end has several problems. Hook kills Rufio, one of the Lost Boys. So what does Peter do? Gathers his kids and prepares to leave. It is only after Hook threatens his children that he fights. Even then, he humiliates Hook then leaves. Hook is finally killed by the crocodile from the book. Despite being dead and stuffed, the crocodile still falls on Hook in slow motion and devours him. Hook has een stopped but Rufio is unavenged.

A more interesting version would have been to show Neverland from the pirate's viewpoint. Why are they hanging around Neverland? Why don't they leave? Have they become as ageless as the Lost Boys?

This just in - Cannonballs can sink a ship!

2009-07-16T01:38:00.002-04:00

A cannonball was found wedged into the keel of a ship that was sunk during the Napoleonic wars. The big question was if the cannonball could actually pierce the ship's extra thick oak hull? The University of Haifa in Israel answered that question using scale models. The answer is yes, even at low velocities a cannonball can pierce a thick oak hull.

This part is interesting:

The lower the velocity, the more energy was absorbed in causing damage to the hull, and the more the wood splintered, which would have caused more harm to the ship's personnel. The results of this experiment, Kahanov said, are of much significance to the study of the vessel and to the study of naval battles in this period.

Remember the Mythbusters Pirate Special (they just reran it last weekend)? One myth they investigated was the danger of splinters. They decided that splinters were not all that dangerous. This experiment shows the flaw in the Mythbusters' experiment. They used a real cannon but they had it at close range. The ball cleanly pierced the hull, doing even less damage than their air cannon. If they had moved the cannon back a few hundred yards they would have gotten a different result.

Sailing the Whitehall

2009-07-13T02:10:00.002-04:00

We took the boat (now named "Firefly") out sailing today. This was our second time sailing (plus a third time at Saint Mary's City with the boat overloaded). The wind was from the West and the lake runs North and South so we sailed up and down it a few times. Combining this with our experiences the first time we took it out on that lake I can say a few things about sailing the Whitehall.

First - when the wind is right it goes like a bat out of hell. We were overtaking the modern sailboats. At one point I was hoping to literally sail rings around one (or at least pass it, tack and pass it again) but the wind died and out boats separated.

It tacks poorly. Whitehalls are designed to go in a straight line. It overcomes this while under sail but during a tack you are sort of coasting, using forward momentum to carry you through the turn (for landlubbers, tacking is making a turn while sailing into the wind so that the wind is on the other side of the boat).

The alternative is to jibe. This is the same as tacking except the wind is coming from behind. This works fairly well although the boom swings rather sharply and I have to be ready with the tiller for when the wind catches it. We did this several times and it worked fine. I was just reading up on jibing and I see that it is recommended that the centerboard be raised for this maneuver. The boat tips as the wind catches it from the other side and that would help since the boat could be pushed sideways instead of tipping.

Firefly had been out of the water for three weeks in dry weather and it showed. A lot of water leaked through the seams. Pumping it out let me more tired than rowing would have.

Eyepatches

2009-07-01T23:34:00.005-04:00

After arguing with someone last Saturday about pirates wearing eyepatches to see in dark holds, I did some more research. I cannot find any period references to pirates wearing eyepatches. The earliest picture I could find with a pirate with an eyepatch and/or pegleg is this one from Howard Pyle from 1892.

Pyle is not the best source. He is known to have made up details such as walking the plank. A few years later this detail was included in Peter Pan and forever associated with pirates.

This is the biggest flaw in the eyepatch myth - first you have to prove that eyepatches were associated with pirates before the late-19th century and it has to come from a reputable source.

Put-In-Bay Pirate Festival

2009-06-29T01:25:00.003-04:00

Micky and I checked out the Put-in-Bay Pirate Festival on Saturday. Put-in-Bay is an island in Lake Erie. It is near the site of a major naval engagement during the War of 1812 when Admiral Perry, aboard the Brig Niagara, defeated a British fleet. Today the island is a party town.

We got conflicting information about the pirate festival. I think that this is the 4th year that something piratish has happened but that this was the first year that it was an island-wide festival.

The festival consisted of a small living history encampment of "pirates" who normally do French and Indian War period, a short parade, and a costume contest. Also the modern reconstruction of the Niagara visited.

Micky took second place in the men's class. A Jack Sparrow won. You can't beat Captain Jack.

A large percentage of the island's population was dressed for the festival. Several businesses had pirate flags out.

One complaint about the reenactors who were there - one of them insisted on bringing up the "pirates wore eye patches to see in the dark" myth.

The festival could use more (and better) pirates. We may try to set up an encampment next year.

Maryland's 375th

2009-06-26T17:14:00.001-04:00

On June 20th, Maryland celebrated the 375 anniversary of its founding. As part of the celebration, they invited in the 17th century reenactors who normally come to the Grande Muster in October (which has been canceled this year). While not actually a pirate event, there were pirates there. The Sea Rats and the Pirate Brethren were present. We were there as colonists. That weekend usually has a nautical festival and a number of people brought their boats. My Whitehall fit right in with these. There were some full-sized ships and a couple of larger boats - the John Smith Shallop and the Explorer.

I had been worrying about the heat. They held the Grande Muster that weekend a few times in the 1980s and it was extremely hot. This year wasn't too bad, mainly bacause of a couple of thunderstorms which cooled things down.

Military manuvers for the event were minor. We lined up, turned and fired a single shot, retired behind the pikes while charged by a single horseman, then returned to our original position.

I did get to go sailing a couple of times. The first time Michael and I took the Whitehall out but the wind died and we had to row back. The second time there were three of us. There was a good wind but we didn't make very good time and it didn't want to answer the rudder. I think that having a third person in the bow changed the weight around too much. Also, the wind was not with us.

At one point the wind changed direction and the boom swung around unexpectedly, knocking Michael's hat into the bay. Undetered, the Sea Rats went out and found it. They claimed that a sea monster spit it back up.

Monkey Island is back!

2009-06-25T13:41:00.001-04:00

HIVER ME TIMBERS! MONKEY ISLAND® IS BACK THIS SUMMER!

LucasArts and Telltale Reveal Series of New Monkey Island Adventures Coming Soon!

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif – June 1, 2009 – LucasArts today announced that the original hilarious pirate adventure is back, with two new projects underway based on the classic Monkey Island franchise. First, Telltale will premiere the Tales of Monkey Island™ game series, delivering a completely new epic storyline and swashbuckling flair that will unfold across five monthly episodes on PC and WiiWare™ beginning with the season premiere episode on July 7. The Monkey Island celebration continues later in the summer when LucasArts publishes The Secret of Monkey Island™: Special Edition, a completely re-imagined version of the first game in the series that adds updated high definition graphics, a re-mastered musical score, and full voiceover to the classic adventure game originally launched in 1990. The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition will be made available on Xbox LIVE® Arcade for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, and PC.

Today's announcement represents a new partnership between LucasArts and digital entertainment pioneers Telltale who are crafting new experiences for today's audiences with engaging stories delivered through regular monthly episodes. Tales of Monkey Island is developed by Telltale, whose team includes designers and artists who worked on all of the previous Monkey Island games. The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition is being developed internally by LucasArts, the company that started it all with the original Monkey Island games.

"We couldn't be any more excited about bringing Monkey Island to today's gamers -- both in our special edition of the original classic, and through our collaboration with Telltale on the episodic series," said LucasArts' President Darrell Rodriguez. "We can't wait for Guybrush Threepwood and LeChuck to return to gamers' screens."

About Tales of Monkey Island

Telltale's Tales of Monkey Island brings the adventures of pirate Guybrush Threepwood into a new era with an explosive storyline that becomes deeper and more entangled during the course of the five-episode saga. While battling his nemesis, the evil pirate LeChuck, Guybrush accidentally unleashes an insidious voodoo pox that threatens to transform the buccaneers of the Caribbean into unruly pirate monsters. Players will experience the humor, romance, and swashbuckling action the Monkey Island games are famous for and unravel an insidious plot which is revealed across the course of the series. Tales of Monkey Island is set to premiere on PC and WiiWare in the coming weeks.

"The Monkey Island series set the standard for storytelling and character development in games," said Telltale CEO Dan Connors. "The next several months should be filled with all kinds of surprises as we continue the dramatic stories of Guybrush, Elaine and LeChuck. We are happy to be working with LucasArts to make this happen."

Telltale has posted a video preview and screenshots today at http://www.telltalegames.com/monkeyisland, and has opened up pre-orders at this site.

About The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition

This summer, LucasArts will release The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition via Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360 and for PCs.

Back by popular demand, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition faithfully re-imagines the internationally-acclaimed classic game (originally released in 1990) for original and new audiences alike. The development team at LucasArts is bringing the game into the modern era with all-new HD graphics, a re-mastered musical score, full voiceover, and an in-depth hint system has been added to help players through the game's side-splitting puzzles. Purists will also delight in the ability to seamlessly switch between the updated HD graphics and the original's classic look.

The game's twisty plot leads hero, Guybrush Threepwood, on a hilarious quest throughout the fabled Monkey Island. Tales of pirate wealth attract Guybrush, who lands at the port of Mêlée with high hopes, no money and an insatiable desire to become a pirate. If the player is clever enough, Guybrush will win the confidence of Mêlée's established pirates and soon find himself blown by the winds of fate toward Monkey Island -- a storied isle whose name alone chills the bones of even the most bloodthirsty buccaneers.

More information about The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition can be found at the official website, www.MonkeyIslandSpecialEdition.com.

These efforts are just the start of LucasArts' new mission to revitalize its deep portfolio of beloved gaming franchises. In addition to these new Monkey Island projects, LucasArts recently revealed that the classic adventure game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (originally released in 1992) is included as an unlockable bonus in the Wii™ version of Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, set to be released on June 9. Additional announcements are forthcoming.

Pirate Weapons vs. Conventional

2009-06-12T12:10:00.001-04:00

In general, pirates did not create any new weapons. They simply used weapons that were in common use at the time. Still, there are differences between what pirates used and how they used them and how weapons were used in general in the GAoP (Golden age of Piracy).

A pirate's favorite weapon was the pistol. This is the biggest difference between them and the rest of the population. Pistols were normally used by civilians and officers. Regular soldiers were not issued pistols.

A pistol is generally a short-range weapon. Black powder expands slowly and a long barrel is needed in order to give the powder enough time to accelerate a ball to maximum speed. The shorter barrel means that the ball will be traveling substantially slower. In addition, pistols usually shot smaller balls than a musket. This means that a pistol ball will fall short before a musket ball does and that a pistol ball does not have the penetrating power of a musket ball.

There are other problems with pistols. Firing one-handed is not as accurate as firing a gun resting on the shoulder and steadied with both hands. A musket is carried muzzle-up while a pistol is usually carried muzzle-down. This means that a musket ball does not need to be tight-fitting which, in turn, speeds up loading. If a pistol is loaded with a loose-fitting ball and stuffed in a sash, the ball will fall out. A tight-fitting ball takes longer to load since it has to be forced down the barrel.

So why would pirates prefer a pistol? It has to do with the types of fights they had.

Ships are small. Even the largest ship of the time measured from stem to stern was barely as long as standard battlefield distances. If you are fighting on a ship you are going to be close enough that the problems with range and penetrating power do not matter. The same is true with aiming. You shoot at someone who is directly in front of you. The chance that you will actually hit him is higher than the odds of hitting someone at standard musket distances.

Pirates had a simple solution for the slow reloading time. They carried multiple pistols.

Muskets on the other hand, are difficult to use in close-quarter combat; you cannot carry more than one at a time; and loading them in a melee or on a small boat is difficult. Which doesn't mean that muskets were not used, just that they were confined to ship-to-ship fighting or land-invasion.

The infamous blunderbuss is another weapon that was mainly used by civilians and pirates. It is basically a sawed-off shotgun and is most effective against a group at close range.

The carbine is probably under-represented among pirate reenactors. This is a shortened musket. It was mainly used by cavalry and could be carried on a shoulder sling. There was also a naval version. The carbine had a greater range and penetrating power than a pistol and could be loaded faster than a pistol or musket but the short barrel made it easier to use in a crowd or on a small boat. If it was carried on a sling then it would need a tight-fitting ball.

Cannons are another example of a weapon being used differently. Unlike most naval battles, pirates seldom wanted to sink the ship that they were attacking nor did they want to cause too much damage if it was a ship that they might want to take as a prize. That limited their choices in ammunition. The best choices for pirates would be canister shot or grape shot. This was a load of musket balls which turned a cannon into a huge, powerful shotgun capable of decimating a crew but sparing the ship. Bar shot and chain shot might also be used. These were effective anti-personnel loads but they could also be used to disable a ship's sails, rigging, and masts.

Swords are a special case. Through the middle of the 17th century, some troops were issued swords and some were not. Officers and cavalry always had them. Pikemen (pikes are 16-20 foot-long spears) often had them. Musketeers usually did not carry swords. It is difficult to use a sword while carrying a musket so musketeers depended on the pikemen for protection from hand-to-hand combat or used their muskets as clubs.

At sea, hand to hand combat is the norm rather than the exception so most people had a sword or alternate cutting implement such as a boarding ax.

Finally, grenades were known but seldom used on the battlefield for the simple reason that it was hard to pitch one into the right place at the right time. Again, given the closer quarters of a fight on a ship, a grenade could be more easily used.

Hampton Blackbeard Festival

2009-06-09T15:39:00.001-04:00

We were at the Hampton Blackbeard Festival over the weekend. This is an impressive festival. Unlike most pirate festivals, the Blackbeard Festival actually has some ties to pirates and Blackbeard. He raided the eastern coast until the Governor of Virginia decided to put a stop to it. Two sloops were sent out to capture or kill Blackbeard and his crew. They were successful and returned with Blackbeard's head and several members of his crew who were tried in near-by Williamsburg. Blackbeard's head was placed on a pike int he James River as a warning to other pirates. According to legend, this was at or near Hampton.

The modern-day festival is in its 8th year. There were no attendance figures but thousands attended and estimates based on food sales put the crowd at an all-time high.

At the heart of the festival is Pirate's Cove, an encampment of accurate pirate reenactors along with some sutlers and performers. Further out were the non-period vendors and performers. Four ships and three boats participated. Three of the ships played the parts of the sloops, reenacting Blackbeard's last stand. After that, the three smaller boats did a tactical.

Unfortunately the number of reenactors has outgrown the Pirate's Cove so a small, grassy area along the waterfront was also used for reenactors. This was assigned to the Crew of the archangle which we fell in with. This kept us somewhat away from the main event.

I provided one of the small boats - the smallest one. My Whitehall fit in nicely with the two larger boats. All had similar lines. They just differed in size. The tactical involved pirates stealing the largest boat, the Explorer, then fighting the middle-sized boat over who could take our boat. This meant that both boats were chasing us much of the time.

The Whitehall was up to the challenge. With two people rowing, one streering, and one at the swivel gun, we easily outmanuvered and outsped the larger boats. On Sunday the three small craft exchanged fire with one of the sloops before going to the boat ramp. Again, with five people aboard and two rowing, we easily passed the middle boat which had four or five people and three rowing.

Many of the local boats were decorated. Most simply had pirate flags but some had elaborate decorations including treasure chests and pirate figures. Many of the locals had pirate costumes.

The most bizzare thing was how many of the women on boats were calling out invitations to us as we rowed past - things like, "I want to be plundered!" One woman was dressed as a parrot and wanted a pirate to adopt her. I wonder what these women's husbands and boyfriends thought?

The weather could have been better and it could have been worse. It poured rain on Friday afternoon and evening and the camp sites were a soggy mess for the rest of the weekend. The rain gave way to simply being overcaston Saturday and sunny on Sunday. The temperatures were lower than normal for Virginia in June which was a blessing when rowing a boat.

Ebay Pirate Ship

2009-06-01T16:35:00.001-04:00

I've liked to ebay auctions before. This is a nice little boat. The owner calls it a ship but it is really a 12 foot rowable sailboat with a sprit for the jib (that's the pole sticking out the front for the leading sail for landlubbers). I'd be interested myself if I didn't already have a bigger boat.

Sailing the Whitehall

2009-05-31T16:01:00.003-04:00

We've taken the Whitehall out the last couple of Saturdays. Last week there was no wind at all so I tried the rowing seat. It worked quite well with my legs doing most of the work. I rowed a mile and a half to two miles and I never had to breath hard.

This week there was some wind so I finally got to try the sails.

Technically it was what is know as light wind. I think the wind was in the 5-10 mph range. This is a good windspeed for trying sailing since there is enough wind to get you moving but not enough to cause problems.

The Whitehall sails really well. I was pretty much able to go anywhere I wanted. There were a couple of times that the wind died and we did one tack as the wind was dying. I was able to use the job to get us out of that.

When the wind was blowing from the side or slightly ahead of us the boat really sped along. A few times I was overtaking modern sailboats going the same direction.

I was cautious. I could have gotten more speed out of her but I didn't want to get the side too close to the water so I slacked off sail a bit. We still had to lean into the wind.

I was especially proud that I was able to pull right up to the dock and grab a cleat with my boathook.

I tried it with the centerboard up and down. I couldn't tell the difference. The Whitehall is designed to move in a straight line so the centerboard may be superfluous.

I ordered a couple of new cleats for the rail. I had been using a pair of cleats meant for controlling the job when single-handing. These are rather small and are forward of where I wanted them. I found some reasonably-priced bronze cleats on-line and got them in time to install them Friday. They helped a lot in controlling the boat at a dock. I really wonder why no one ever installed a pair before?

A couple of improvements I need to make before we go to the Hampton Blackbeard Festival next week - I improvised a brail line for taking in the sail in a hurry. I'm going to replace it with one that is longer and a different type of rope. I want to be able to identify it easily since this is what we will use if we need to take in the sail in an emergency. Along the same lines, I am going to use a small carabiner to attach the boom to traveler. I want to be able to detach this quickly in an emergency. Taking the traveler line free takes too long. Yesterday I had to use a marlinspike to get the stopper knot out. With the carabiner I can leave the line permanently attached.

I need some way to be able to tie off the tiller. I used the long one and it kept swinging wide. At dock it kept getting caught on the dock. When sailing it would swing out of reach if I took my hand off of it to pump out the boat. Maybe I can rig up something with the new cleats.

Pirates on the Santa Maria - 2009

2009-05-12T10:53:00.001-04:00

We had our pirate event on the Santa Maria. Turnout was good - we had around 30 pirates. Visitor attendance was also good. This was the best weekend to date (unfortunately it has been a bad year).

The attack on the ship wasn't as well planned as I would have liked but it worked. We had scratch crews manning guns on the Santa Maria. A new unit brought a small mortar so some experienced gunners fired that while the new people fired a howitzer from the shore. I quickly trained someone on using my swivel gun and she did a great job with some assist from someone who had helped me last year.

I was on my boat attacking the ship with a small swivel gun and hand-arms. We also had a couple of people on the jetty and defenders firing from the quarter deck.

After the ship closed on Saturday there was a lot of posing for pictures. Most pirates reenactors don't get to take over a ship long enough to do extended photo ops.

Around 15 people spent the night on the ship. There were some complaints about how hard the deck is to sleep on and how cold it was (the low was in the upper 40s). One thing I like about pirate events is that people sleep late. Usually I'm one of the last up at reenactments but I am usually one of the first at pirate events.

Sunday's battle was slightly scaled down. Several people could only be there for Saturday and we were out of powder for my swivel gun. We still managed a credible battle.

People started packing in earnest after the battle and were pretty much gone by 4:00. This was a shame since the ship still had visitors but it is a fact of life for reenactments where people come from out of town.

Getting the Whitehall in the Water

2009-05-11T14:39:00.001-04:00

In the last few weeks I managed to finish sanding and painting the Whitehall and get it ready to put in the water. I spent the last two weeks before launching it pouring water into it to swell the planks. I saw this recommended as a way of avoiding the "Oh my God, my boat's sinking!" feeling when a wood planked boat is put in the water after a long haul-out. I'm glad I did this. When I first started soaking the hull, water poured out. Later it still dribbled out.

We got it in the water down a nasty boat ramp. The car got stuck in some wet mud (silt) and we had to get some help to get it loose. While we waited for a tow chain, I rowed the Whitehall around a bit. It handled fine.

The occasion was a pirate event at the Santa Maria which is 1/2 mile from the boat launch. After we got the car free, I set off with a volunteer crew. I didn't have the rudder on yet so we steered with the oars and a paddle that I used from the bow. The boat took a on a bit of water but not too much.

I checked it regularly. By nightfall it had stopped taking in water. It still leaks when people are in it. The extra weight forces the boat lower in the water and water seeps in past planks that have not swollen shut yet. If I could just have three or four people sit in the boat for 6-8 hours then this leak would swell shut, also.

We used it for the battle both days. We had three people the first day and four the second. Michael and I also went out with the wives. The boat is fine with four people - not crowded at all. We could fit in a fifth person. Any more than that would be crowded.

It rows well. It has three rowing stations but only two sets of oars. I decided that this is so that one person can row from the middle station (the sliding rowing seat and the foot pedals for the tiller are both set up for here. If you have two people rowing then it is better to have them in the first and third rowing stations. That way the oars don't have to be in perfect unison.

The swivel gun mount I rigged up on the bow worked perfectly. The small gun I have is quite loud, especially with a double charge.

We had three people on the way back to the boat ramp - two rowing and one at the tiller. I could tell the difference when I was rowing by myself but it wasn't a lot harder. A half-hour row upstream wasn't enough to make me breath hard. My hands where the main thing that got tired although I could feel it later.

We did have some trouble with the oars and the oarlocks, especially with the "sweeps" - the traditionally shaped oars. I used those on the row to the boat ramp and the collars that are supposed to keep the oar from going too far up the oarlock are too small. I need to do something to make these bigger.

Other that that, everything worked fine. Now I want to try sailing it but that will have to wait a couple of weeks.

Pet Peeves

2009-05-05T17:24:00.001-04:00

There are a lot of things that show up at historic festivals that shouldn't. Many of these have jumped from celtic and Renaissance festivals.

Bodhrons - Those flat drums that are played on-handed. I don't object to them as instruments. I know several talented bodhron players. Unfortunately, none of them come to historic events. The people who pull these out at historic events seldom have any idea how to play them properly. You are supposed to press your left hand against the skin from the back, changing the tone as you play. You hold the beater like a pencil and only use one end with a sort of brushing motion. When played properly, it is a rather soft instrument and one of the few drums that isn't a monotone.

Even if played correctly, these instruments are inappropriate. Some people trace them back hundreds of years. Others say that they were an agricultural tool that was occasionally used for rhythm in very poor, agricultural areas of Ireland and not a part of mainstream Irish music until the 1970s. Either way, they were obscure before the late 20th century.

Utilikilts - A proper kilt is a long piece of wool, folded into pleats and belted into a garment. Later (we're talking Victorian period) the pleats were sewn into the kilt to make it easier to put on. In the 1990s, some Americans started making kilts out of heavy cotton with wide pleats sewn in and snap closures. These are fine for celtic fesitvals but out of place at historic events. I have one but I am selective where I wear it.

Irish Music - It used to be that you heard lots of old folk music at historic events. These days it is pretty much limited to 19th and 20th century Irish music. Don't get me wrong - I love Irish music and play in Irish sessions a few times a month, but most of it is out of period for anything earlier than the Civil War.

Deadliest Warrior - Pirate vs Knight

2009-04-29T14:33:00.002-04:00

Some thoughts on Spike TV's Deadliest Warrior series Pirate vs Knight episode.

Before it started my opinion was that if the pirate didn't win then there was either something wrong with the show's format or with history. The knight wore armor and was armed with a crossbow and hand weapons. The pirate didn't wear armor but had three gunpowder-based weapons (blunderbuss, pistol, and grenado).

The results were what I expected. The pirate's pistol could not penetrate the knight's armor but his blunderbuss and grenado could. Armor at the time was tested by shooting it with a pistol. If it couldn't stop a pistol ball then it was sent back to be strengthened. I was impressed that the blunderbuss and grenado penetrated the armor.

The knight's hand weapons were equal to or better than the pirate's. The knight was fighting other people in armor so he needed extra cutting power. The pirate didn't have to deal with armored enemies so his hand weapons could not pierce armor.

The introduction of the heavy musket in the early 17th century made armor obsolete. For a while, armies tried making the armor thicker and eliminating lower leg pieces in order to lighten it but this was impractical. By the mid-17th century armies had pretty much given up on armor.

So, by the late 17th century, pirates did not wear armor but they carried the weapons that had made armor obsolete.

But what about ninjas? Last week they had a ninja face off against a Greek warrior. The warrior's armor and shield gave him the advantage against the ninja. Based on the weapons that the pirate and ninja used, the pirate would still win. His blunderbuss, grenado, and pistol were all either deadlier or had longer range than the ninja weapons. The ninja might have a small advantage in close-in fighting but it would be small.

Whitehall Progress

2009-04-13T11:55:00.001-04:00

I'm making progress on getting the boat ready for sailing. While the boat is in good condition, there were still a lot of steps:

I had to put a tongue hinge on the trailer so that I could get it further into the garage, under the stronger joists.
Once there, I hung two chain hoists from the ceiling.
With those, I could properly sand the bottom.
I started with the centerboard. The part that I could see when it was on the trailer looked pretty corroded. It turned out that this was the worst part. Since the leading edge is always in the water when the centerboard is pulled back, that is the part that looked the worst. It was mainly paint bubbling off with some minor surface rust. I sanded this down to bare metal as much as I could. I primed it with a Rustolium for rusty surfaces. This is supposed to be stickier and should take care of any place I missed when sanding. I used two coats then put two coats of finish paint on.

I have the hull sanded down, ready for priming but I need warmer weather. In the meantime, I used some new line that I bought to redo the rigging.

The boat came with 1/4" line for rigging. This was too big for many of the gromets and the cleats. I repalced it with 3/16". This seems to be the right size.

I think that I have all of the thumb cleats figured out. I'm still wondering about a pair of blocks and cleats. They seem to be placed for the jib but there are also a pair of thimbles on the side that are more typical for the jib.

I have one piece of line with an attached bronze block left over. Possibly it is for dowsing the sail by raising the boom up to the mast. I will have to experiment with that.

I still have to get the boat turned around so that I can hoist it off of the trailer so that I can get the trailer weighed. Then I have to get the trailer licensed so that I can take the boat to the DNR to get a hull number so that I can get it licensed. I'd like to have it painted before going to the DNR but that depends on the weather.

Pirates vs Ninjas

2009-04-10T17:07:00.001-04:00

I was watching an episode on Ultimate Warrior on Spike TV and got inspired.

Ultimate Warrior is one of several shows that tries to use computer simulations to answer questions about who would win unlikely fights. Other variations have matched animals (lion vs tiger) and dinosaurs. This one takes different warriors, evaluates them, and predicts most likely winners. The episode that I watched matched a Roman gladiator against an Apache warrior. The Apache won.

So, pirate vs ninja - who would win?

This really depends on how you define the match up. Each has very different strengths and weaknesses.

In straight, hand-to-hand fighting between individuals, the ninja would win. Pirates were self-taught fighters. Ninjas were trained assassins. Also, the main time the two fought would probably be at a time and place of the ninja's choosing (probably at night when the pirate was drunk) giving him an advantage.

On the other hand, put them 100 yards apart in broad daylight with a sober pirate and things change. Many pirates started out as buccaneers, hunting wild cattle. They were very good shots. A pirate could get off a couple of well-aimed shots at a ninja before the ninja could get within reach. There are things that the ninja could do to avoid being shot but they would slow him down, giving the pirate time for more shots. A ninja with a bow would have a chance but arrows are not as disabling as gunshot wounds.

What about a ship full of pirates vs a ship full of ninjas. Again, the pirates have the advantage. European ships and cannons were the best in the world. Pirates boarding a ship full of ninjas would still have an advantage. Ninjas had a variety of weapons but few of them worked against a large organized force. Those that did were as likely to hinder the ninjas as pirates. The weapons favored by pirates worked well against a massed enemy in cramped spaces. The two-handed sword that ninjas used needed space to swing or you would hit a comrade. Cutlasses were short and heavy to overcome that problem. The ninjas would still be better trained but a pistol or blunderbuss goes a log way in nullifying that advantage. That's after a swivel gun or two decimated the ninjas before the pirates boarded.

Just to be fair, there is also the possibility of a group of ninjas boarding a ship at night. The ninjas would have the advantage here since the pirates would be disorganized and probably drunk.

In general, though, cultures with guns tended to triumph over cultures with hand weapons.

Slops

2009-04-07T01:39:00.003-04:00

While attending PyrateCon, I had a conversation with the guys from Flying Canoe Traders about period-correct pirate clothing. I think that he and I were the only ones at the event wearing slops and he commented that I wasn't wearing them correctly - i.e. over breeches (neither was he). Here is their position on wearing slops:

The slops were made to be worn over your regular pants and protect them.
This is why it is made longer and much baggier then the French Fly or the Drop Front. Most slop did not have pockets, they were just opening so you could access to your real pocket: just like a women shirt giving access to her pocket. On the original pair, the waistband had only one pewter button. When we initially copied that, I found out that wearing it was uncomfortable because the waist was folding itself in two at the button and caused some pressure and it was uncomfortable at the waist.

Doing this hobby, we often cheat and I am the first one to admit that I do sometimes. The slops were design to be worn over a pair of pants that gives you a waist support and comfort so even if the original slops would have folded in two, it would not have pinched my belly, because my breaches would have protected me…our ancestors were so clever.
But when I wear my slops, I wear them alone, I've decided to put a button at the waist level and provided them whit a functional pockets. Beside that, only there was still one difference between my pair and the museum one: the museum one had 4 hand made round buttons holes on the back for adjustment, mine is machine made and plate.

I have a lot of respect for Flying Canoe and wear one on their sleeved waistcoats as part of my pirate clothing but I am going to respectfully disagree with their interpretation of slops.

Note - Sometime in the mid-17th century, navy ships began carrying sets of clothing that sailors could buy as they needed new clothes. These were also called slops. I am only referring to the wide, open breeches.

Before I start, I will agree that some land-based trades did wear overbreeches to keep their good clothing clean. I part company with them when they carry this practice on to the water. Sailors and fishermen get wet and I no one has suggested that slops were waterproof. This eliminates the advantage of wearing something over your clothes.

Flying Canoe gives the next argument against wearing slops over breeches - it isn't comfortable. It also is not practical. I discovered the reason for slops years ago when involved in filming a National Geographic special on John Smith mapping the Chesapeake. I waded ashore in my regular 17th century breeches and ended up with a gallon or two caught in each leg. Canvas breeches that are open at the bottom will not hold water and will dry faster than wool. The tighter breeches of the late-17th and 18th centuries would not capture as much water but neither would they be as practical as slops. Also, breeches worn under slops would take hours to dry. On a ship, they probably would never dry.

All of this is is just speculation. Fashion sometimes has people wearing strange things (I saw a lot of women in stiletto-heeled sandals in the French Quarter). What does the historic record say?

Cindy Vallar examines pirate clothing from Chaucer into the 18th century. She refers to slops protecting the sailor's underclothes.

This detail is new to me:

Canvas clothes were made from old sails and were usually greased and tarred prior to wearing them to make them waterproof.

She also quotes

Edward Barlow, a mariner of the 1600s, wrote, "…half awake and half asleep, with one shoe on and the other off, not having time to put it on: always sleeping in our clothes for readiness."

This is in conflict with the idea of sailors having overclothes that they would take off when off-duty.

Gentlemen of Fortune has a 1720s woodcut of a Dutch sailor who is wearing slops with no indication that there is anything underneath.

On the way home from PyrateCon, I happened to find an article in X Marks the Spot, the Archaeology of Pirates. It mentioned a 1740s fan in the possession of Colonial Williamsburg which shows sailors and soldiers. It mentions that sailors were very conservative and slow to change clothing styles. They were still wearing short coats and loose breeches at a time that the soldiers were wearing the more stylish long coats and tight breeches. It also has a woodcut of a 1780s ship's cook who is wearing slops with nothing else showing beneath.

The web site for the HMS Richmond also says that slops were worn over clothing but does not cite a source.

The US Navy's history of naval uniforms says this about what sailors wore during the Revolutionary War.

The American Revolutionary sailor fared little better. He participated in a Navy that was built from scratch. Meager funds and the scarcity of a manufacturing complex concentrated attention on procuring ships and ammunition. There was no money for uniforms. The peak strength of the Continental Navy during these times consisted of about 30 ships and 3,000 men. (Most sailors, on the other hand, preferred the life of the privateer. It was lucrative and appealing enough to attract over 2,000 ships.) Thus, naval uniforms under these parsimonious conditions were non-descript, consisting of pantaloons often tied at the knee or knee breeches, a jumper or shirt, neckerchief, short waisted jacket and low crowned hats. The short trousers were practical so as not to interfere with a man's work in the rigging of his ship. Most sailors went barefoot. A kerchief or bandana was worn either as a sweat band or as a simple closure for the collar.

PyrateCon 2009

2009-04-06T11:50:00.002-04:00

PyrateCon 2009 has come and gone. Here's my wrap up:

First, any excuse to run around the French Quarter of New Orleans in costume is a good one. The weather was very good which was fortunate since most of the convention was moved outside.

We rode the shuttle from the airport with some people from the TCN (Theatrical Combat Network). They were a lot of fun.

As for the convention itself... we left the event wondering exactly what we got for our admission. The vendors were either set up on Bourbon Street or in a courtyard. No one was checking wristbands for the ones in the courtyard. The lectures were also in the courtyard. As far as we could tell, there were no events that required a wristband. The main thing that your admission got you was a discount on drinks at the local bars. Admission also allowed you to book a room in the hotel but even with the discount this was an expensive hotel. We got a better rate elsewhere.

We only saw two lectures, both by the TCN. The first was on historic pirates. The time of the lecture was changed at the last minute and the person who was supposed to speak didn't get the message. The TCN members who tried to give the lecture in her place didn't really know much about the subject (but they were good-natured about it). Even at that, they were late in starting and were taking up someone else's slot. I have no idea what happened to this speaker.

There may have been other lectures but we went through the courtyard area several times and we didn't see any signs of them.

TCN's specialty is on stage combat and their lecture on this was really good.

The schedule said that there would be lectures on all three days. We later heard that the Sunday lectures were cancelled.

The schedule also indicated that performances would be going on continuously on the stage. We saw a few performances but most of the time the stage was empty and the PA system was playing.

No celebrities. Last year they had people from Pirates of the Caribbean and the TV show, Pirate Master.

One of the big events was the wench auction but there was very little space around the stage to see what was going on.

On the other hand, the other big event was the parade and this was run much better than last year.

If we go again we will be looking very closely at the schedule to see if it is worth paying admission. I realize that the event was probably costly and that someone has to pay for it but I also object to paying for what amounts to a free street fair.

Apple Pirates

2009-04-01T16:47:00.001-04:00

This story is about pirated iPhone applications but the graphic is so good I had to link to it.

Knights of the Black Flag

2009-03-29T16:13:00.002-04:00

A new exhibition just opened at the North Carolina Museum of History - Knights of the Black Flag covers piracy through the ages, from Egypt to Somalia with an emphasis on Queen Anne's Revenge.

Marauders. Plunderers. Bloodthirsty sea-thieves. Whatever their name, pirates have wreaked havoc on the high seas since waterway travel began. These seafaring scoundrels command attention in a major exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh. Knights of the Black Flag explores the legacy of pirates, from ancient times to the present, through intriguing artifacts, legends and history that bring their ruthless adventures to life. The interactive exhibit is an exciting experience for all ages.

Showcasing many objects related to pirates, Knights of the Black Flag includes the largest collection of artifacts ever exhibited from the shipwreck believed to be Blackbeard’s flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge. Legends surround another compelling artifact on loan from the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts: the alleged skull of Blackbeard. The exhibit will be on view through January 3, 2010.

Knights of the Black Flag traces the history of piracy from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome through today’s pirates in Somalia. Artifacts, some dating to the early centuries A.D., represent tangible links to a violent past. For example, a Roman amphora (storage jar) from southern Jordan may have been seized by ancient pirates on a ship in the Red Sea. Other artifacts speak to the Golden Age of Piracy, from 1689 to the 1720s. These include Queen Anne-style pistols and items discovered in the ruins of Blackbeard’s purported house in Bath. Objects related to modern-day piracy in Somalia include an AK-47, gas masks and knapsacks.

Six ways to Stop Piracy

2009-03-18T16:49:00.001-04:00

Wired has a quick list of ways to stop piracy. This shows how much piracy has changed in the last 300 years. One of the ways is to move evasively (zig-zag) in the hopes of creating enough wake to swamp a pursuer. Just try that in a galleon. In fact, the only suggestion that would have worked in the Golden Age of Piracy is to hire some extra guards. They suggest Gurkhas who would make great guards in any century.