MarkG

The picture is of Art, he and his wife Janet run the sutlery (the smaller of the two present at Searle's). As much as I see them (about a handfull of times a year) I don't remember the name of their sutlery... And I am fairly certain they do not have a web site. Jeff's wife is Melissa. Arthur and Janet Malstein - the sutlery is "Lady Amie" (or maybe "Amee") Mark

When they published this, 50 years ago, they still assumed that the fort had eroded into the river. Since then they found it. It is so close to the existing church that the church bell tower is in the middle of one wall. Still, that doesn't invalidate any of the artifacts shown. Mark

It looks like they did a Search and Replace changing 2010 to 2011 and adding "Grande Bahamas" in a few places. Does this mean that the 2010 con is canceled? Mark

I think that straw is under represented. It is a lot cooler in the Summer sun than felt. I know that sailors wore leather caps but I don't think that tricorns were ever made from leather. Modern ones usually have a wire added to the brim to stiffen it. The good tricorns were made with felt - preferably beaver felt. Rabbit fur will make good felt if it is treated with mercury but that drives hatters mad. Wool felt was for the people who couldn't afford the better stuff. Mark

There are a few outlets scattered around. The one in the cabin is under the bunk along with with extension cords. I think that there are some more heavy duty extension cords in one of the chests on the main deck. The main electrical panel is in the store room in the back (stern) of the hold. There are more outlets there and one at the very front (bow) of the hold. BTW, uprigging is the weekend of March 20-21 in anyone wants to help. I always miss it because it conflicts with MTA. Mark

How about a flying sailboat? It's solar-powered instead of steam-powered but this concept still seems appropriate. These airships are meant to compete in the World Sky Race. Come to think of it, the World Sky Race seems like a good place for some airship pirates. Mark

I talked with Linda Ketcham a little about the event. She confirmed that we can put people up in the visitor center if we run out of room on the ship. It would be silly to say that people can't sleep in the park since several homeless people sleep there nightly but I would not recommend it. Mark

I've got a couple more for you: Spanish Ladies - the link says 1796 but I've seen it listed as earlier elsewhere. We Be Three Poor Mariners Mark

Well, they still didn't say "No", but they did say it would be very unlikely that they will make it for May... But on the bright side, they said that they were planning on coming back for the September "Talk Like a Pirate" weekend event. I also made a few updates on the "Just the Facts" topic here on the thread... I'll be adding more to that and the web site in the coming weeks. I need to be able to update that thread. Mark

Down Among the Dead Men is attribute to John Dyer - 1700-1758. The tune is even earlier - to around 1700. The Downfall of Piracy was written around 1719 about Blackbeard's last stand. It is rumored that Ben Franklin wrote it. Mark

It was too big so Blackbeard ran it aground and abandoned it along with a good part of his crew (at least that's one theory). Regardless, he was on a much smaller sloop when he was killed. There were only a few pirate ships this big. The majority of pirates used smaller ships. I've seen a number of sources say that the sloop was the preferred type of ship. They were fast an maneuverable. Larger ships were often slower and needed larger crews which meant that they had to capture larger prizes. Mark

There are some campgrounds in Columbus but none of them are anywhere near downtown. A quick search on Google came up with one at 6552 W. Broad. The ship is around 100 W Broad which should give you an idea of how far out this is. You might be able to park at Veteran's Memorial which is right across the river. They let RVs stay overnight for special events. Mark

You are right. I was thinking of scoundrels from this verse: We're rascals, scoundrels, villains, and knaves, Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho. We're devils and black sheep, really bad eggs, Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho. Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me. We're beggars and blighters, ne'er-do-well cads, Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho. Aye, but we're loved by our mommies and dads, I guess that PoTC 1 was the first linking.

Not quite a replacement event - at least not in December. Mark

I think that the movies use it because it is in the song from the ride. I'm sure that the songwriters just strung a bunch of terms for disreputable persons to fill out the lyrics. Similarly, I don't thing that "really bad eggs" was ever used to describe pirates. Mark

Surprisingly, chain shot was used in pieces as small as a musket. In this case a musket ball was split in half, hollowed out a bit, then a wire run between the two halves. The pieces were forced back together with the wire fitting in the hollowed out part. I don't know how effective this was but I saw several originals in an old copy of the Company of Military Historians' magazine. Mark

Pork Barrel (as in politics) probably came from the same source as slush fund. See http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2197/whats-the-origin-of-slush-fund Mark

I remember seeing the trailer but the producers made it to try to attract an American distributor. They did not have one. If all else fails, it will eventually show up on Syfy (SciFi). Mark

If you have a charred end then you can light it with flint and steel. If not then you can light a bit of tinder and light it from that. You can sort of see someone lighting a slowmatch in the movie Black Robe. It is actually a bit of movie trickery. The soldier picks up match, flint, and steel then puts his hands below the camera and comes up with lit match. I'm sure that someone switched matches when his hands were out if sight. Regardless, that inspired me and other musketeers to prove that we could light match with flint and steel. Mark

I saw the Mythbusters live once. Someone asked them when they first started thinking about safety. They said it was when pieces of the wooden cannon went sailing over their heads. That was after they proved that a wooden cannon could fire a stone ball and moved on to causing it to fail. Mark

The picture is a modern reworking of a painting done from life. It was the first version I could find on-line and the details are all the same. On tattered clothing, the one exception to the rule that all loot goes into the common pool was clothing. Anyone with worn clothing got first pick from the loot. Mark

The thread got sidetracked on slops but stocking caps were also mentioned. I'd like to point out that stocking caps on sailors go back hundreds of years. The owner of the Santa Maria was painted wearing one. He drew the first map of Columbus's discoveries and put stocking caps on the winds. They go forward all the way to modern watch caps. Mark

Most of the songs have been uploaded to YouTube. Just do a search on them. It looks like someone also broke up the entire movie and uploaded it but I expect that that will be taken down. There is a site that you can post the URL for a video and it will covert it into an MP3. See www.FLVtoMP3.com Mark

John Buck (the gunmaker) told me about an old wooden boat that he used to have. It was so old that it mainly held together from habit and the pressure of the water against the planks. He used the sawdust trick to stop up leaks. Mark