Mission

You know, it must have been the style to make men look fey at this time. I just can't see a bunch of honest-to-john sailors wandering about the countryside actually looking and acting like this, even for a lady:

Annnnnnd the material is indeed going to produce a ten page article. Just what you all wanted, I know - 10 pages on diarrhea. (Or maybe ten pages of diarrhea.) Anyhow, because it's so long and I decided to go and read a whole book and enter the relevant info in between that last posting of mine and this one, this article is going to be in two parts - you will find the first four pages by following this link. This month we'll look at the various types of fluxes identified by surgeons and physicians during the golden age of piracy and what they thought caused those illnesses. Next month, we'll look in depth at the multiple (and I do mean multiple) cures that were proposed during the period. Enjoy!

If I weren't so attached to my current quote, I'd put that one in my sig.

This it totally do able. I will put it on my list. I have a Santa Maria and a Satisfaction to finish first. If you were to make one, you should probably give it to the ship's creator. (Now if you were to make two...)

It would be cool to have a Mercury in a bottle with the Gulluh hoisted on the davits and the Dart trailing behind the way they did with the Owl at FTPI.

The small boats are new to me. Nice.

Welcome to the Mercury crew, Daniel.You should definitely try a re-enactment if it piques your interest. I hung around here for almost four years before diving in and it has turned out to be well worth the diving. Based on your blog, your cool little scratch-built ships and your being a shipwright, I would think the perfect character for you would be a carpenter or a carpenter's mate. Acquiring tools (or even making them with your skills) for that position probably wouldn't be all that difficult. (If you wanted to have a specific character, that is. The Mercury has more able seamen than most crews of which I know. The nice thing about starting in that role is that all you need to do is assemble a basic kit.) Thank you for detailing how you got here. I have been on the fence about doing something for about a week and your comments have helped me to reach a decision. I hope to see you at an event some day! IMHO, you can't beat either the Key West Fort Taylor Pyrate Invasion or the Put-in-Bay Pirate Festival for your first exposure. It's a bit of a haul from Denver, but madPete makes the journey from Arizona every year to Key West and QM William Red Wake often comes from Utah, so it is worth the trip.

Red Ensign - Blue Ensign - White Ensign

He was a French buccaneer and pirate. The Franco-Spanish War ended in 1659 but l'Olonnais was still taking Spanish possessions after that. He was at times particularly nasty - Spanish heart for dinner, anyone?

The authority around here would have to be Foxe, but he's up to ears in his doctoral thesis these days and hasn't been around as much as he has in the past. (He used to have a website devoted to debunking the myths surrounding things such as pirate flags, but it seems to have gone the way of all things.) I know he would tell you most of the pirate flags we identify today are probably not their actual flags, they are modern representations based on some vague period descriptions or tradition or sometimes nothing at all. If you can't find a flag for l'Olonnais, it's probably because no one made one up. If you want to get a whole story on flags, you really should spend some time digging around in the Captain Twill forum. For example, some threads of interest to you might include: The Jolly Roger Flags and the Death's Head "Memento mori" FLAGS FOR POTC Flags: Black vs. RED There are more in there, but that exercise is left to the reader.

Just have the contest. Isn't being at the head of the bestest Pyrate Reenacting forum reward enough? You should probably create some guidelines, though. Otherwise...

...but somewhat harder to use for finding on-line images of Claes Oldenberg's famous abstract series of mice artwork.

I really think he should change it each day to honor every random thing that pops up on the calendar. (You know, like Google.) And it should be amusing and interactive and make us money and maybe cure cancer. Maybe.

You always have to be careful with fictional books, though. Especially humorous ones. There is truth underlying humor, but it's often exaggerated for comic effect meaning you probably want to have a confirming source for it. (The stuff you posted sounds pretty banal, though, so it may be pretty safe. May be...)

FYI, the Put-in-Bay website is http://pyratefest.co/ It's not up-to-date, but that's where it is. (They haven't even begun planning it yet AFAIK.) Also, I will be representing the Mercury at both the Conwy Pirate Festival in Wales and the Eastport Pirate Festival in Maine. They're not Mercury events per se, but I'll still be there writing Journals as if. (You actually can find links to the websites of the events I plan to attend this year at the top of my Events Links page if it interests you.)

"Ah whist," he said wistfully.

You know, I brought up the first post once upon a time... I wonder if it survived the great thread purge of '07? (It was either in Beyond or in Twill.)

I don't think we'd get anywhere arguing that point. Ditto for using buckets to swab ship decks. It just doesn't seem to get mentioned often (if at all) because it's not of note. (And there, in a nutshell, is the problem of reenacting this time period. As well as many other time periods. :) )

Indeed. It would be quite strange to be carrying a broom and a knife (at the ready), while what appears to be your opponent is begging and cowering at your feet. "Well, that's handled. I think I'll go and sweep the deck now." In other news, those are some awesome battle images seen over his shoulder.

There's something very post-actual-painting-looking about those frames... Although here's another, very similar one (possibly the same one with the removal of the arm and book) of Luis de Velasco y Castilla wearing the same general design, so I'm probably wrong. That downward loop on the ear-piece is very curious looking. It's just about the same in both images, too.

My point was that the presence of a bucket doesn't prove anything. It just means that there was a bucket there. It's reason for being there cannot be inferred. Each cannon has a swab which is occasionally wet down to clean and cool the cannon between firings. (I know. I have done this while on cannon duty at reenactments.) So there would likely be buckets where ever there were guns to wet the cannon swabs. Remember pirates put cannons on the main deck. They sometimes drilled holes in the sides of the lower decks and put them there. They put cannons whereever they could if they get them and had enough people to man them. It could have been there because he was cleaning the deck. It could just as like have been at hand because it was there for the cannon swabs. It could have been a piss bucket (they had them, you know.) It could have been used to haul dust as was stated in those regulations I earlier cited. It could have been there for a dozen different reasons. Point being, without context in this case, you can't conclude the purpose of that bucket.

The presence of a bucket doesn't really prove anything. There would be buckets for all sorts of purposes, particularly near the gunner. (Guess where they put the water for the cannon swabs?)

Well, I have sifted through my master document and come up with 20 pages of notes on fluxes. Hopefully I can distill that down - that amount would typically produce a 7-10 page article. (I mean, how much can I say about diarrhea? I guess I could just keep running on and on... )

You should definitely work on themed holiday banners. Make them interactive like Google, too. But first you might want to think about fixing the emoticons.

I don't have the 1730 version. As I noted in my comment, they were first put out in 1730. Why? I wasn't trying to mislead anyone, I was just using the date that Wakely mentioned. I doubt they changed a whole lot, but I guess you never know. They mention keeping weapons clean in those Regulations as well. I didn't read that part, but I happened to notice that there was something about it in there. Since you seem to have found them, you might take a look there.