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PirateKing

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About PirateKing

  • Birthday 01/01/1973

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  • Website URL
    http://www.ThePirateKing.com
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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    +30° 26' 18.00", -97° 55' 18.00"
  • Interests
    Sailing, SCUBA, Nautical Archaeology, Nautical History, and Pirates (obviously)
  1. Hi POD, Not a bad guess. I'll look into that angle a little and see where it leads. Any thoughts from anyone as to the markings on the second one?
  2. Hi Foxe, Actually, both are bronze breech-loading cannon Thanks, Rob
  3. Anyone have any thoughts on the markings of either cannon below? First cannon: http://thepirateking...marks-close.jpg Second cannon: http://thepirateking...marks-close.jpg Thanks, TPK
  4. I'll kick it off with one of my Faves: The Island (1980) Written by Peter Benchley (author of 'Jaws') Michael Cain stars Blair Maynard, an inquisitive British reporter who sets out to investigate a series of mysterious ocean disappearances in the Caribbean. While flying over the questionable area with his young son in tow, Maynard's airplane crashes and the two are subsequently stranded on an isolated island, uncharted by the modern world. In time they are captured by descendants of a band of seventeenth-century pirates who, from their base on a remote island, raid and destroy any boat that enters their "territorial waters." After enduring torture, Caine and his young boy attempt to destroy the anachronistic buccaneers and escape their island purgatory. Sadly, the pirates lose in this one :-) What's your favorite 'scariest' Pirate film?
  5. A visitor to my site recently emailed me the 5 attached photos in the hope that I might be able to assist them in identifying the object, but so far I have not been able to produce anything concrete. They report that they came across the object while in a remote area of China. Although they were not sure of the object's specific purpose when they bought it, they were told by the seller that it was a hand held weapon that was "several hundred years of age and was used by Chinese pirates", possibly as a firearm. There appear to be 9 barrels, each has a touch-hole to light the fuse or powder. There is a handle on one end where a pole could be attached. Of course, given the data at hand this object may have been nothing more than a trinket designed for tourist consumption, a contraption for launching fireworks or maybe just a decorative planter. :-) However, I would like to see if anyone here had any ideas or resources that may help identify it. Thanks, Rob Ossian Rob@ThePirateKing.com www.ThePirateKing.com
  6. Ahoy! I just wanted to wish all of my fellow Pirates a happy and healthy International Scurvy Awareness Day (May 2nd). Fill your mug to the brim with your preferred vitamin C laden beverages and hoist them high in the name of bleeding gums and corkscrew hairs. For more info about International Scurvy Awareness Day, check out their official website at http://www.LimeStrong.com Arr, The Pirate King www.ThePirateKing.com
  7. Just a heads up that May 2nd is the Official date for International Scurvy Awareness Day, so dust off your limes and prepare yourselves accordingly. Official Scurvy Day Website of the Cause: http://www.limestrong.com/ Arr, Rob Ossian www.ThePirateKing.com
  8. Ahoy Smoolie, Are you by chance thinking of a Polacre rigged Xebec? The foremasts of a Xebec are typically raked forward, while the main and mizzen were either straight or raked slightly back. The massive lateen yards were so large that they were frequently composed of two spars lashed together -- more like masts than typical yards. Most xebecs did not have a bowsprit, but their beakheads frequently featured a long prow. A few of the western nations tried square sails on the xebec's mainmast and sometimes even the mizzenmast. The square-rigged mainmast would have topsails and even topgallants, and the mizzen would have a square topsail (while still maintaining the lateen lower-sail). A xebec rigged this way was known as a Polacre-Xebec. Commonly, though, the standard lateen rig for xebecs had a single triangular sail on each mast, and had none of a square rig's topsails or topgallants. The lateen rig offered many advantages over the square rig, the most significant of which was the ability to pinch far closer to the wind than square sails could. This meant they could both quickly catch up to and quickly flee from square-rigged vessels when sailing close to the wind. Check here and you may be able to find the ship type you are looking for: http://www.thepirateking.com/ships/ship_types.htm Hope this Helps! The Pirate King www.ThePirateKing.com
  9. I freely admit that I have been fascinated by Pirates and Nautical Lore since I was six years old, and although I still love the topic dearly I have from time to time found it very useful to take a break or two from these topics every now and again. You have a great website GoF, and some great work invested in it. Why not just leave it up static the way it is, and take some time to refresh? That is the best thing about studying history: It already happened, so it will still be there waiting for you when you come back to it. REMEMBER: Even the hardest worked crews were granted shore leave every once in a while! Good Luck, The Pirate King www.ThePirateKing.com
  10. This is a list of famous pirates (about 180+) on my site, with links to their bios, etc. Maybe it'll help you to find enough randomized names for your project? http://www.thepirateking.com/bios/index.htm Good luck with your project - It sounds like a fun one! Arr, The Pirate King www.ThePirateking.com
  11. Classic Movie "Captain Ron", 1992: Captain Ron: [telling how he lost his eye] Yeah, it happened when I went down off the coast of Australia. Katherine Harvey: Your boat sank? Captain Ron: No, no, no, no. Not my boat. My boss's boat. Yeah, we hit this reef. Huge son-of-a-bitch. Ran the whole coast. Katherine Harvey: Wait. The Great Barrier Reef? Captain Ron: You've heard of it, huh? Smart lady. Also... Captain Ron: [to kid] Hey swab. C'mere. Listen up. Now, the way it works shipboard is, you do your job. You do it good, you get a better job. Maybe you get promoted from swab to mate. [kid nods] Captain Ron: Alright. Get on it. Martin to Captain Ron: Sort of an incentive kind of a deal, huh? Captain Ron: Yeah, incentives are important. I learned that in rehab.
  12. Meet the crew of the HMS Seahawks! The greatest Pirate ship to have (technically) never existed, as well as my own Pirate Alma Mater: Arr, The Pirate King www.ThePirateKing.com
  13. If you are looking for an accoutrement to carry while walking around a Renn Fair, I would strongly advise against looking at any sort of cannon! At its most basic, even something as small as a swivel gun is essentially a chuck of iron/steel nearly three feet long and four to 3 inches in diameter. That kind of weight (no matter how cool it looks) gets old after awhile. A full size cannon is even heavier, and naval carriages were never meant to be drug through the muddy streets of a RennFest. If you are looking for something to “look” piratical, I would strongly encourage you to think about what a Pirate would in fact carry… They would carry chests, muskets, pistols, etc, but NEVER lug a cannon around. From personal experience, I have never had a Captain express any concern about taking my gun aboard for special events. In the past I've used it for a variety of occasions (4 times to mark the start of regattas on lake Texoma, once at a concert in the park for a performance of the 1812 overture, etc). I hate to dump a post this long on the forum, but if you are looking for a cannon to arm up a boat for a parade or similar purpose, have you looked at resin or fiberglass replicas? Many of these have become highly realistic and built with steel reinforce barrels capable of firing small charges and they are much cheaper than an actual piece. Hope this helps, and Good Luck with your search! Arr, The Pirate King, www.ThePirateKing.com
  14. Ahoy Wages! You bring up an issue that is a common misconception with ships of any age, namely the consistency of their armaments. When a ship (commissioned, commercial, or "other") were to take on arms like cannons, rifles, etc they almost never had the luxury of ordering their munitions from a single manufacturing source. Even Royally funded ships of the line often inherited cannons from a variety captured or scrapped vessels. This meant that if a ship had ten guns aboard her, the chances were good that at least a few would be slightly different, even if their poundages and general dimensions were still roughly consistent. In Hollywood (and to a certain degree model making), the cannons are typically replicas crafted from resin, fiberglass, plastic and the like. With this, once a good cast has been made it is much easier and cost effective to simply pump out ten of them than it would to create 2 or 3 variations and intermix them. Lastly, to your question of aging... Most bronze cannons, even the ones well cared for, quickly changed color when exposed to the elements of life at sea. Take an old penny that has been in circulation for at least a decade and you'll see what these weapons would have looked like. Hope this helps, The Pirate King www.ThePirateKing.com
  15. Not sure about the legality, but the occasional powder charge sure seems to help keep the rabbits out of the yard.
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