Capn_Enigma

Here are a few facts: Exquemelin's "De Americaensche Zee- Rovers" was first published in Dutch in 1678 by Jan ten Hoorn, Amsterdam. After being a huge success, various translations appeared in different languages, among them German ("Americanische Seeräuber") in 1679, Spanish ("Piratas De La America") in 1681, English (1684) and French (1686). Due to the book's controversial nature, depending on the reader's standpoint, the respective translators added or omitted passages with chauvinistic content. The Spanish version in particular omitted entire paragraphs, wherein Exquemelin's original text poked fun at indecisive or otherwise incompetent Spanish officers or actions taken by them. The translator did add, however, fictional dastardly behavior alledgedly perpetrated by Morgan against Spaniards. After all, the Spaniards had a good many bones to pick with Morgan. It was this version that Morgan sued for libel, as the first English editions were a translation of the Spanish translation, and not of the Dutch original. As an aside, it is a well established fact that Morgan used priests, monks and nuns as human shield when he scaled the fortress of Santiago at Porto Bello. Pray thee, tell us your sources to back up your disputing this. Please bear also in mind that the outcome of the libel case was a political decision rather than a judicial one. Morgan had just "redeemed" himself from the (entirely justified) charges of piracy in peacetime by buying patrons in very high places who held a protective hand over him. Those people could certainly not afford a piratical Morgan becoming the centerpiece of a political scandal, dragging them eventually into it as well. All these incidents, however, do not reduce the historical value of Exquemelin's first hand eyewitness account.

Those are post 1830 Faro cards. They are too modern. This would be the correct design:

OK, so your persona has managed to obtain a kukri . From Nepal. In the 17th century. And, obviously, it has also made first contact with the Klingons? At least that is the Klingon seal on the sheath of your cutlass. - nuqneH tera'ngan? - 'etlh vIneHbej. - What do you want, earthling? - I definitely want the sword.

Matey, you are either clearly overarmed (as in "carrying too many weapons") or under- armed (as in "lacking additional limbs")

Better don't tell that Johnny Depp!

Plus one through the nose, just to be on the safe side!

Yikes! Pushbutton for securing the upside down knife!

Noooot quite. This stunt was originally displayed in the technicolor silent movie "The Black Pirate" with Douglas Fairbanks in 1926. It has since been used in numerous swashbuckling movies, for example "The Goonies" (1985). It is always meant as a tribute to one of the first pirate movies and its great lead actor.

Well, they do! Remember "Treasure Planet" or "The Incredibles"? Cadavers galore!

You need to get yourself a real computer, mate.

Firstly, the movie is not softcore but hardcore, and it's already been released over a year ago in the wake of POTC1, so this is a bit of old news. The special effect shots (amongst other shots ) are nice, though. Here is the movie's site.

Errol Flynn or no Errol Flynn - would you let a doctor by the name of "Peter Blood" medicate you?

Touché!

Then you'd better not look at their $199 non- working compass.

The short version is, the charts were terrible, yet stylish to the extreme!

Chip logs and traverse boards are definitely period. A kamal is not of much use because each is made for a specific latitude. It only tells you whether you are on certain latitude, but cannot measure it. This is only practical if sailing to the latitude of the desired port and thereafter tuning east or west and follow that latitude. However, by the 17the century, navigation had evolved beyond that. With the rhumb line and the "paradoxall" sailing, the kamal was obsolete. The Polaris shooting had already become obsolete, too. Because the backstaff attains a much higher precision than the quadrant and astrolabe (see also my quote of Davis a few posts earlier), Polaris shooting was only used to ascertain the rough latitude. Also, it is very difficult to shoot a 2nd magnitude star (like Polaris) from the deck of a swaying ship with an astrolabe. I have tried this myself and had errors in the magnitude of degrees (= 60 nautical miles off for each degree). "Navigation" like this is just advanced guesswork.

ad 1: Captain or mate. ad 2: same as 1. ad 3: Apart from the instruments mentioned, a seaman would also have used the Davis quadrant, also called backstaff, invented by John Davis, and the chip log for measuring speed. ad 4: From instrument makers or by stealing them from prize ships. ad 5: Daily at noon time, if shooting the sun was possible. Else, dead reckoning was used, the uncertainty of a fix increasing in proportion with the time that passed since last shooting the sun. The Davis quadrant is the same as a backstaff, as already mentioned above. A traverse board makes dead reckoning a bit easier, cause you don't have to take notes while being on watch but intead plug the pegs according to your course and speed at each hourglasses 30- minutes interval and read it off later after your watch and enter the readings into your log. A traverse board is not vital for navigation.

Jacob de Gheyn "The Exercise of Armes" Not quite your period (1607), but the use of the charges remains much the same for the entire century.

That's the guy who cures the foodstuff. "Hey Peter, come over here, we need to salt down more meat!" Seriously, if you are a citizen of the US of A, you'd be wise to reconsider buying saltpeter. It may result in a visit by the FBI.

That's perfectly OK. If you switch to "satellite" and look closely, you will see the deck of the "Neptune" in the middle of the picture.

Well, it isn't exactly scaled down, but here goes anyway: Meet the galleon "Neptune" of "Pirates!" fame.

Compared to the Loyalist gun, the first one looks - forgive the pun - butt ugly.

Wikipedia is your friend.

... or, as Mr. Arrow would have said: "I say! This looks terribly unsafe to me!"

Eerrrmmm Jim, "totally sea-worthy" is something else....