MarkG

The CIty of Columbus is going to take out a dam and reroute the river where it flows through downtown. We have received word that the ship will not be open in 2014 or 2015. If you always planned on coming to one of our pirate events then you had better come to the May or September events.

If need be, we can have our own island of authenticity.

Reminder - the event will be September 15-16, 2012. This is one of the ship's biggest events so we can use all the help we can get. Participants get the run of a working tall ship for the weekend.

I just posted several pictures from MTA.

I looked into the Black Tot (the last tot served) a couple of years ago. At that time I think that the tot was drunk straight in those little cups. But that was a more civilized rum. Wikipedia claims that the rum allowance was served watered down to prevent hoarding but is vague on exactly when it began replacing beer rations - it only says "after the British conquest of Jamaica". This was before Admiral Vernon (1740). BTW, my father was in a WWII bomber crew. One of the crew members was too scared to get into the plane. They were each given a shot of whiskey before a mission so they all gave their shots to the one crew member and let him get drunk enough to get over his fear.

It's nice to go to a growing event. Thanks to Iron John for sharing his fly and table all weekend.

Time to watch Pirates of Penzance (and try to figure out why the Major General's daughters go swimming in February?

Some of the coins recovered from the Whydah are drilled so that they can be worn. Christopher Columbus wore a coin which he gave away to a native.

Correct. Also, a lot of pirates carried pistols (and vice-versa) and matchlock pistols just don't work.

Another consideration is the amount of rope (in the form of match) that a matchlock goes through. Figure a foot per hour (two feet if ou light both ends which was recomended) for any time that you might need to fire. Multiply that times the number of musketeers and you burn up a lot of rope. If you were on watch then you had to have your match burning the entire time or your gun was useless. In the military, battles were infrequent and you only needed enough match to last the battle. Garrisons in the outlands where active cobat was infrequent could also make their match last. Matchlocks are a poor weapon for hunting. If you have the match cocked then you have to keep adjusting it constantly as it burns down. If it isn't cocked then you have a few seconds delay before you can fire. Also, the smell frightens the wildlife. Accordingly, colonists swapped out their matchlocks for flint pieces as soon as they could. Different countries made the switch at different times. Because of match shortages, the Swedes changed to an ungainly type of snaphaunce in 1620. This has a cock in the form of a long "z" and a pan that has to be opened manually. Other countries changed later. The invention of the French Lock (what we think of as the modern flintlock) spend the process up quite a bit. I have counted pieces. My snaphaunce has twice as many pieces as most flintlocks. My Swedish Snaplock is comparable to a flintlock but, like I said, you have to open the pan manually. The lock is huge and most of the pieces are exposed to the weather. A matchlock is less reliable in the rain. The same would be true for sea spray. Wet rope does not burn, even when soaked in saltpeter. One final point - matchlocks can be a fire hazard. When they go off, the burning end of the match it sprayed out. I know of someone whose piece went off because of sparks from the person beside him. When I am firing a matchlock I make sure that my sleeve is thick enough that a spark will not burn through it. Even so, you can see dozens of tiny burns.