Capn_Enigma

Alexander Exquemelin does not mention "red cannonballs", but, as Patrick suggested, the great- grandfather of the anti- personnel hand grenade, consisting of a metal sphere, a bottle or some other sort of container, filled with gunpowder. Add nails etc. ad lib. This is the quote:

Why bother using the ramrod twice ? I realize that I have expressed it mistakably. It should have read: The top with the ball was bitten off, the gunpowder in the container was poured down the barrel, the empty paper container was crumpled and thrown into the barrel, ramming it all down with the rod together with the ball and top wadding. I wrote that post some five minutes before I had an urgent appointment. My apologies for the confusion it may have caused.

Please let us stick to the acgreed nomenclature so as to keep things clear: - Wadding is placed behind the ball to maximize its speed within the barrel and it is placed before it to keep it from rolling out of the barrel. - A patch is wedged between the ball and a rifle's grooves to give the ball rotation, thus stabilizing its trajectory. Paper in the 17th century was much thicker than a newspaper sheet. Perhaps you have held an older book of today (let's say from the Fifties or Sixties) in your hands (not the coffee table books with many pictures, but a novel or something like that). That is the paper thickness we are talking about. If you use this kind of paper to "patch" a ball, it will rip, especially, when you ram it down the barrel with a ramrod. This will nullify the value of "patching" the ball at all. Plus there is no need to patch a smoothbore. Paper cartridges were used thus for wadding: The top with the ball was bitten off, the gunpowder in the container was poured down the barrel, the empty paper container was crumpled and thrown into the barrel, ramming it all down with the rod. Then the ball plus the remaining paper was spat into the barrel, also ramming it down. (I have omitted priming etc here) The remaining paper in front of the ball was barely enough to keep it from rolling out the barrel. Mission accomplished!

What amazes me is that no one objects to all those "patches" that everone here talks about. Why would anyone want to "patch" a Queen Anne bullet? I mean, it's not like it this pistol is rifled or something, is it? With a smoothbore, you use wadding before and behind the bullet, not patches. Problem with the barrel windage solved.

As "Lady Washington" has only two masts, it must've been at VERY first glance.

It's a frigate alright, but not "Constitution". Or they have her repainted with yellow gunports. Looks more like an Englishman to me.

Glad that I could help!

As the ship's log was in daily use, it would rest in a chest when aboard. When it had to be transported for some reason, it would be wrapped into an oilcloth within a satchel or a small chest. Also of interest could be that a journal did not necessarily have to be in book form. William Dampier, for example, transported the journal of his world's cirsumnavigation as single paper sheets rolled in a watertight sealed tube of bamboo and thus prevented them from rotting during the 8 years of his voyage.

Aye, and if I ate sugar for my entire life, it would give me a tolerance against cavities. C'mon now, that's an old wive's tale. Alcohol will damage your system (liver, brains) all the same. What makes you think that it had a lesser alcoholic content? Impurer, perhaps, due to unrefined filtering methods, but why less alcohol?

That legend is a load of... Bravo Sierra. Daniel Defoe mentions grog in his book "The Family Instructor" in 1718, some two decades before Vernon's exploits. In that book, he has a slave boy, Toby, state that "black mans" from the West Indies "make the sugar, make the grog, much great work, much weary work all day long."

From looking at their own galleries, I can say as a model builder of some experience: "Pretty awful quality, both of them."

From the various links and images that have been posted, it is obvious that some confusion exists on the nomenclature of the various types of boats that a ship had on board. They were (in descending order as to size): Longboat Biggest boat on board. 14 m or less, facilities for a sail , 8 to 14 pairs of sculls. Used for goods transport. Cutter Also called pinnace. 5 to 8 pairs of sculls and sailing facilities. In the 17th c., there was only one cutter on board. Used for transporting light goods. Skiff Or jolly- boat. 3 to 4 pairs of sculls, mostly no sail. Used for transporting personnel.Smallest boat on board until the second half of the 18th c. Gig Narrow, but fast boat for personnel transport. 3 pairs of oars, no sail. The gig was exclusively used to transport the ship's master, or, at the most, his officers. When introduced in the late 18th c., the gig assumed the duties of the skiff. Only one on board. Dinghy Smallest boat, 3.5 to 4 m long, 2 to 3 sculls or oars. Also introduced in the late 18th c. A vessel carrying a dinghy did mostly not carry a skiff and vice- versa.

A longboat was up to 14 m long, had 8 to 14 pairs of swivels and a mast with a fore- and- aft rigged sail. It was mainly used to transport heavy loads, and also to haul the ship's anchor when kedging.

There were chain shots and also bar shots. The latter looked like a dumb bell, and sometimes was extendable so as to widen the destructive radius. Purpose of both was to destroy rigging parts such as masts, yardarms, sails or shrouds. The name "angel" for both of these devices originated from the banshee howling they made when whirling trough the air.

Well, your friendly optometrist does!

Thank you for posting that, Jim. The "invincible katana myth" is one of the most persistant and annoying urban legends that exist, particularly since movies like "Kill Bill" et al. People just don't seem to realize that even Japanese steel has to obey certain laws of physics.

As this is the Plunder and not the Twill sextion, I won't go into the probability of a Japanee blade in the possession of a Christian (=European), but some folks here have funny ideas about Japanese cosmopolitanism in the 17th century.

You mean, as in providing CIA training and funding for Osama Bin Laden during the war in Afghanistan and see his henchmen flatten the Twin Towers some twenty years later?

That was a good one! I am not saying that it could not be true, but have you ever seen an LNG vessel? Hundreds of pipes on deck, and about as maeuvrable as a drunken pig.

Savvy and a deboner! My sentiments exactly!

LOL! FYI: You find the hammocks in the ABOK from # 3813 onwards. The stitches to sew the grommets are # 3523 and the canvas stitches are # 3536 ff.

I have made my hammock on my second sea voyage in the late 1980s. It is a replica of the hammocks used by the Royal Navy. I was lucky to find a generous length of sailcloth in my first ship's store and diverted some of it for my purposes. On my second ship, I welded 24 steel rings out of long nails for the grommets, took a sail maker's needle and glove and sewed the whole thing together. For starters, you should have a look at the Ashley Book Of Knots. There you'll find a very good description of how to do it. Although my hammock is 20+ years old and very often used, it is still as good as new.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A U.S. Navy warship fired shots at pirates who had hijacked a Danish-flagged cargo ship off the coast of Somalia but was unsuccessful in blocking the piracy, according to Navy officials. Saturday's incident underscores growing U.S. military involvement in the Horn of Africa, not just against suspected al Qaeda targets but also against an increasingly violent pirate trade waters off Somalia's coast. Read more.

Captain Thomas Bartholomew Red!

Yah... but it's a classic bit from the early days of porn...... pluss it's more titillating that way..... Well "titillating"wouldn't have been the word I had used in this special case, but I do get your point!