Awash in Rum

Mythbusters replayed one of their pirate specials last night (again). I've poked holes in these before but I've never commented on the one about washing with rum. The myth is that pirates used rum to remove stains.

The connection between pirates and rum is strong in popular culture. Treasure Island has the song fragment Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum plus lots of rum drinking. The major brand of rum is named for a pirate, Captain Morgan (technically a privateer). Pirates of the Caribbean had lots of rum references.

The connection goes beyond popular culture. Rum is made from sugar cane which is grown in the Caribbean and it continues to be very popular there. A large portion of Port Royal sunk in an earthquake at the end of the Golden Age of Piracy. Underwater excavations of this show that every house had a room set aside for drinking rum in addition to a huge number of taverns that served it.

Since Port Royal was supported by piracy when it sank, this is a strong association between the two. There are many associations between pirates and drinking and, since rum was most easily available, this would have been the logical spirit. Some articles specified that drinking after dark could only be done on the open deck. Calico Jack Rackham was drunk on punch when he was captured.

Also, the real Captain Morgan, Sir Henry Morgan, probably drank himself to death on rum.

So, pirates drank rum. Did they do anything else with it?

This is where the myth runs into trouble. Everyone in the Caribbean had access to rum and most drank it. Everyone of these people also had to deal with stains. Even bloodstains were not unique to pirates. If pirates used rum as a cleaning agent then so would everyone else.

So did they? If it works then you would expect it to still be used today as a folk-cleaner like soda water is.

Funny thing - if you Google "rum stain remover" then you come up with references to the Mythbusters episode and ways of removing rum stains. In fact, the only reference I can find to rum as a satin remover is:

Apply mixture of 1/2 rum and 1/2 Coke to self until you no longer care about some little stain.

This joke may be were the "myth" came from.

I think that, like the one about eye patches, this needs a special classification. Not only is the "myth" busted, but it is busted as being a myth. It is more like something that someone invented just for the show.

What Would Jack Sparrow Do?

Around fifteen minutes before the pirates were to attack the encampment at Paynetown, Tom Grooms and I were wondering what Jack Sparrow would do in this situation?

On Saturday we had attacked the encampment with three boats and six pirates against a battery of cannons, two boats with troops, and a militia. Since the script called for us to win, we won, but it was an unlikely victory.

Jump ahead to Sunday. As of 12:45 the pirate fleet consisted of two boats. Tom and I were in one. The other had a couple of jugglers who were armed with a non-firing wooden cannon, one pistol, and some belaying pins. At 12:50 we were joined by a third boat with a woman and an unarmed child.

So what would Jack do?

Probably row away, land in an inconspicuous place, and sneak into camp. Once there he would distract the lookouts by pointing into the distance and ask, "What's that?" while picking their pockets, then leave.

If he felt the need for a quick exit, he might even commandeer the coffin set aside for the pirate funeral later in the day and use this as a makeshift boat.

Instead, we followed the script. By our 1:00 attack we had been joined by two more boats with four more pirates. In addition, the pirate captain lead an overland force and attacked the militia from behind. It turned out to be a credible victory, after all.

Billy Bones's Fancy

I've been reading an electronic version of Treasure Island and I wanted to look up the famous map. I found that Google has a scanned abridged version (missing the map) on-line. One thing that I found interesting is that this version has notes in the back which include what the editor alleges to be the full version of the song that the captain (Billy Bones) constantly sings. I'm skeptical but I thought that it was worth repeating. The part about Davy Jones and his big black key may have inspired PotC 2 & 3.

Billy Bones's Fancy
(to the tune of "Blow the Man Down")

Fifteen men on a dead man's chest;
Yo-'ea'(heave-ho), and a bottle o' rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest;
Yo-'ea'-ho, and a bottle o' rum!

They drank and they drank and they got so drunk,
Yo-'ea'(heave-ho), and a bottle o' rum!
Each from the dead man bit a chunk;
Yo-'ea'(heave-ho), and a bottle o' rum!

They sucked his blood and they crunched his bones;
Yo-'ea'(heave-ho), and a bottle o' rum!
When suddenly up came Davy Jones;
Yo-'ea'(heave-ho), and a bottle o' rum!

And Davy Jones had a big black key;
Yo-'ea'(heave-ho), and a bottle o' rum!
The key to his locker beneath the sea;
Yo-'ea'(heave-ho), and a bottle o' rum!

He winked and he blinked like an owl in a tree;
Yo-'ea'(heave-ho), and a bottle o' rum!
And grinned with a horrible kind o' glee;
Yo-'ea'(heave-ho), and a bottle o' rum!

'My men,' says he, 'you must come wi' me-'
Yo-'ea'(heave-ho), and a bottle o' rum!
'Must come wi' me to the depths o' the sea;
Yo-'ea'(heave-ho), and a bottle o' rum!

So he claped them into his locker in the sea,
Yo-'ea'(heave-ho), and a bottle o' rum!
And he locked them in with his big black key;
Yo-'ea'(heave-ho), and a bottle o' rum!

For good measure, here's the map I started out looking for.

Paynetown 2008

The Pirates of Paynetown event of 2008 is over. It was a huge success with a capacity number of participants.

The site is well-suited to a pirate event. It overlooks Lake Monroe so that there are no obvious anachronisms on three sides. When filled with tents it seems like a temporary encampment of pirates.

The weather was perfect - more like September than August with enough wind to do a little sailing.

Last year there was only one attack on the camp. This year there were two.

The attack on Saturday was short on pirates. The largest ship from last year couldn't make it so we ended up attacking the camp with six pirates in three small boats. My 10' rowboat was not the smallest craft. Opposing us were two larger ships, a bank of cannons, and a militia.

Things were better on Sunday. We had nine pirates spread over five boats. In addition, a party of pirates attacked from the land.

Last year had a hanging. This year there was a pirate wedding on Saturday and a funeral on Sunday. There was also jugglers and craftsmen demonstrating rope-making, blacksmithing, and other trades.

After hours there was a pirate pot-luck dinner and lots of music.

See here for pictures.

Admiral George Anson

I didn't know anything about Captain (later Admiral) George Anson (1697-1762) until I saw this article on a study of historic global temperatures based on old ship's logs. It mentions Anson. His Wikipedia entry is rather interesting. He was a British officer and his most famous exploits were after the Golden Age of Piracy but he took a Spanish treasure galleon, taking 1,313,843 pieces of eight.

Spain and England were at war with each other at the time so Anson had a free hand to attack Spanish shipping and ports in search of treasure.

He also circumnavigated the globe in an age when that was still a difficult achievement. In fact, of eight ships, only the flagship completed the entire voyage.

Microsoft and the Flat Earth

This is more about ships in general than piracy but I don't want this blog to goo too long without updates.

Microsoft has a new ad campaign for Windows Vista. It starts out with a sailing ship and the tagline, "At one point the world thought that the world was flat." There are some problems with this campaign.

First, no educated person in 1492 thought that the world was flat. Sailors also knew that the world was round since they had first-hand experience with objects vanishing over the curve of the planet.

The ad also shows a ship. It's a nice ship - a bark with lots of sails. It also looks suspiciously like the Charles W. Morgan, which was built in 1840. They might have had Old Ironsides in mind instead. This was built in the 1790s. I guarantee that no one thought that the world was flat when either ship was built.

A lot of our idea of what a sailing ship should look like comes from the very end of the sailing period. These were large, graceful ships with lots of complicated sails. Obviously someone from Microsoft wanted a good-looking ship for their ad so they chose one from the wrong century. Ironic since the only advantage that most people see from Vista is the new graphics engine. In order to convince us that there is more to it than a pretty interface, they used a pretty but inaccurate image.

Pirates on the Santa Maria

We had our first pirate event on the Santa Maria. It went very well. We had ten pirates. Everyone got along. This was the first time I can remember getting thank you notes from participants.

The ship was fairly busy. The way we worked it was for me to stop the tour for a few minutes while I jumped forward from the 1490s to the 1690s and tried to recruit some new pirates. Once I finished explaining the tools of the trade they resumed the regular tour.

We had at least one family that came just for us and put a Jack Sparrow shirt and pirate head scarf on their son. I let him fire my small swivel gun.

Here are a few pictures: