Desert Pyrate

And the town o' Bath, NC, doesn't have enough water to dock RR!

It makes sense... I'm just not sure it's *true*. Some more exploration thereabout would be worthwhile, I just don't have time to do it for the next few months.

Yeah, I saw that Guardian thing. I'm talking about real, honest, historical evidence. Primary sources. There are plenty of "common knowledge" items that aren't so accurate...

Shanties aren't a *whole* lot of good on most traditional ships sailing around these days. Most sail training vessels carry a large (for the period) crew on a ship that's not all that large, historically speaking. The shanties are most useful for the larger vessels with small crews, as the loads per person are heavier and require greater coordination. Below a couple hundred tons (the vast majority of working sail vessels today), the hauls just aren't large and long enough to require an actual shanty. That said, there are a couple exceptions. The largest hauls aboard a ship are the halyards and the anchor. Frequently, the anchor pull is too irregular to really lend itself to a shanty aboard the newer ships (and they don't anchor that much anyway). Halyards might lend themselves to singing, but again, they're frequently pretty short. Busting a sail up onto a yard is a task in which some "shanties" might be used (and in fact, *are* used in the modern sail training fleet), but you'd be hard pressed to identify them as songs most of the time. Busting songs are very short, and usually involve some yelling (Dan Dan's an example, though not the atrocious version on the Rogues Gallery CD). As for shanties being in period for the 18th century, they were just starting to come around at the end of the century, so far as I can tell. Again, before that, the ships just weren't large enough. One 18th century example is "Spanish Ladies," which, among other things is an example of a navigation song. The lines give sailing directions, a useful sort of rhyme when charts might not be available to every craft. Dating songs is difficult, but many give Spanish Ladies a date somewhere in the 1780s. I've rarely seen any claims that a shanty is older than that, though there's a shortage of scholarship thereabout. To sum it all up: shanties are a nineteenth century response to increased workloads aboard sailing vessels. The eighteenth century certainly would have had sea *songs*, but they probably weren't working shanties. About 2-6 Heave: I'm unconvinced of its historical veracity. Many say that it's a naval gun crew command, but I've never seen any actual documentation supporting the statement that it's even as old as the eighteenth century. If anyone has any, I'd love to see it. As for "why not 1,2, heave?"... absolutely no reason at all. There's no reason for 2-6 heave above 1-2-3, "pull-it-now", or anything else giving a rhythm. Hope this was helpful.

I'll be in Bermuda working on some shipwrecks, too bad! (did I actually just say "too bad" about being in Bermuda?!) Best of luck, I'll try to put the word out 'round these parts, but most people I know that fit the criteria are going to be gone.

Those Vasa carriages are the real thing, early 17th century. The guns were recovered in a 1630s salvage, but not all the carriages could be saved. The shiny look on them is characteristic of the polyethylene glycol treatment. The iron on them is (most likely) a repro. I can't remember off hand, but almost no iron survived. I'm about 97% sure on that.

Wow, I can't believe I hadn't heard of this either. And I'm surprised on a number of fronts that it's a version of Black Pearl. As neat as it looked on screen, it's not a very... stable... design. Pieces from here and there throughout the historical record, and I can't imagine a real-life Black Pearl sailing very well, if at all. That high stern castle was taken right off Vasa, and we all know what happened to her! Also, take note of the obscene freeboard. Doesn't seem practical, and if you change those diagnostic features, it's not "Black Pearl" at all, eh? And if it's in name only, is Disney on board? Metal? Seems like it'd have to be.

Why is a burned wreck associated with Kidd more significant than a wreck associated with anyone else from the period? Parrot bones? What is the archaeology of pirates as opposed to any other ship?

We'll see what the actual published report says.

More frequently, it's the whole money aspect. There are lots of archaeological sites that are just waiting to be done, but for lack of funding. So then a salvor comes along, takes it, and sells it off, because they can afford to. Sucks. And while Clifford's exhibit on Whydah is neat in that it lets people see the artifacts, a nice term for the excavation thereof is "indelicate". Whydah is sort of an interesting case in that the conservation exhibit is very cool and the actual recovery/site plan was so uncool. (disclaimer here, I haven't actually seen the Whydah exhibit. I'm going by Capelotti's review in Public Historian about the Boston version. I know nothing about the Tampa version. That said, the recovery of the artifacts was still... "indelicate".)

The "Finders Keepers" rule causes big problems for archaeologists. When someone plunders a wreck - and almost certainly this is what Odyssey is doing - they do not record the provenience of the material. In that case, there is *much* less archaeological value to the artifacts than there could have been. Even salvors who say they do archaeological work very very rarely publish their findings in a journal. Archaeological sites are a non-renewable resource. We don't say that "finders keepers" should be the rule with air, water, or trees... why should it be the case with cultural resources? Don't buy from salvors. Don't buy archaeological artifacts period.

Yep, emails were from me, mate. Feel free to ask any questions you've got!

Hate to rehash the old "shoes thing", but Foxe, Gary, et al are completely right. I've spent a lot of time aloft... never without shoes. I do have a couple mates that have, but it's more to say that they've done it. A waister whilst the ship is becalmed or moored might very well go barefoot for part of the day, however. I've done that many a time, for scrubbing, painting, etc. But shoes really are the order of the day. The one time I've been barefoot in any kind of weather was a mistake. I'd rowed ashore, and a storm came up. My shoes were off because I didn't want them waterlogged. After getting back aboard, I was trying to head below to get shoes whilst waves were breaking over the ship and she was pitching. Slipped, and my feet slipped crack into a gun carriage. Still got the scar from that, and I was sort of useless with a banged up foot. It's just not likely that 18th century deckhands took poorer care of their feet than 21st century deckhands on similar vessels. FWIW.

Royaliste will be there. Lookin' forward to it...

Because I didn't feel like resizing it. It's an albatross and a petrel.