Swashbuckler 1700

Fine, to be going on with:

Fancy, Henry Every,

Adventure Galley, Kidd,

Speaker, John Bowen

Mocha, Robert Culliford

Golden Fleece, Joseph Bannister

Rising Sun, Thomas Cocklyn

Bird/Wyndham Galley, Thomas Cocklyn

Whydah, Sam Bellamy

Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard

King James, Howell Davis

Ormonde, Howell Davis

New King James, Howell Davis

Royal Fortune (several of), Bart Roberts

Fancy, Edward England

King James, Edward England

Flying King, Edward England

Victory, John Taylor

Cassandra, John Taylor

Nuestra Senora del Cabo, Oliver la Buse

Eagle Galley, Richard Worley

Merry Christmas, Ned Low

Bonetta, Major Penner

I think the question of preponderance is related to the pirates' location. Pirates in the Caribbean and on the American seaboard sometimes chose sloops because of their sailing qualities and shallow draft which was useful in the various keys and inlets. However, I think it was more to do with the fact that sloops were pretty common in that area anyway. If you cross the Atlantic to the African coast, or go further and into the Indian Ocean, there were fewer sloops operating in general and more large ships such as slavers and Indiamen. The pirates in these regions followed the general trend and chose ships over sloops.

I think there are two reasons for this. Firstly, it's a simple matter of what was available: in the Americas there were some ships and loads of sloops, elsewhere there were more ships than sloops. Secondly, if the merchant ships you (as a pirate) are hunting are likely to be small sloops with a couple of guns then using a large sloop with eight guns puts you at an advantage, but once you cross the Atlantic and start trying to capture large square riggers with 20 guns, your sloop starts to look a bit small and vulnerable...

I believe that many of those bahama pirates in 1715-1718 used often sloops since they were good in shallow waters (and were easily available and easy to get) that there in the bahamas were but in longer voyage I would chose brigantine or frigate or slaver.

In sloops cannon ports are low and in real Atlantic storm they are not in good....sloops were small so i would not dare cross oceans whith so puny vessel

One of the characters in my stories is a female pirate. Went to sea disguised as a man, got found out, still dresses as a man. Classic cheesy background.

What would being disguised as a man with anything resembling success entail back then? How could they hide some of the more noticeable female activities (once-a-month issues, why "Bob" doesn't use the head the same way the other guys do, etc.)? If it helps, she's tall for a woman, somewhat small-chested, and has an alto voice (think Toni Braxton).

Also, what did society think of a known woman who dressed as a man? Crazy weirdo? Loose woman? Lesbian? What would they think of any alleged boyfriend of hers? Anything else I should know?

Thanks!

Well obviously in those days women dressed as man would be real scandal like in case of Anne bonny and Mary read.

Women disguised as a man would even be hard to believe to people back then.

In his book (general history of pirates) C.Johnson writes: "NOW we are to begin a History full of surprizing Turns and Adventures; I mean, that of Mary Read and Anne Bonny, alias Bonn, which were the true Names of these two Pyrates; the odd Incidents of their rambling Lives are such, that some may be tempted to think the whole Story no better than a Novel or Romance; but since it is supported by many thousand Witnesses, I mean the People of Jamaica, who were present at their Tryals, and heard the Story of their Lives, upon the first discovery of their Sex; the Truth of it can be no more contested, than that there were such Men in the World, as Roberts and Black-beard, who were Pyrates".

And with this kind of clothing hiding sex would not be impossible http://www.clipart.d...e_pirate001.jpg

There is typical sailors clothing (None sash is not very accurate).

In Toilet.... well in ships you can go gunwale and do what you must do in the cover of the night...

- Foxe. Has the Golden Hind replica a wheel and if it does have one (like I have seen in some photos), Why? During 16^th century there were not ship’s wheels (not until c.1700-1715 when they started to be common in larger ships). Is the reason so simple that it is easier to steer ship with wheel and authenticity was less important than functionality?

Btw the ships wheel is often error in movies like Cutthroat Island (which is sets in 1668)...

Source of this information: There is plenty so this is definately truth. Here is one source but there is more...

http://blog.handcraf...the-ship-wheel/

If some did not know that during even in Gaop wheels were rare..... but many probably know this fact...

In any case why GH replica has wheel?

BtW what do you like of my signature quote?

Pinnaces were used by pirates too, because they could enter shallow channels to hide and they were easier,more flexible to manoeuver.

Yep there were allkind of vessels from fishing boats to Frigates or Man-of wars...

I haven't done any real analysis, but the proportion of large ships was much bigger than is generally reckoned. Cordingly has done an analysis of ships used in pirate attacks which shows just over half sloops, but only just under half square rigged ships. The method used by Cordingly meant that a lot of pirate vessels were omitted from the analysis, probably including some sloops or similar, but certainly missing the big ships commanded by Kidd, Every, and John Bowen, who were too early to fit his criteria; Roberts' later ships, three of Edward England's ships, two of Thomas Cocklyn's, John Taylor's Victory and the three-decker commanded by la Buse were omitted because they sailed on the wrong side of the Atlantic (or indeed, not in the Atlantic at all), and Major Penner's 36-gun Bonetta because it was not recorded in an attack.

The interesting thing (for me) about Cordingly's analysis is that it concentrated specifically on the area where sloops were the most common vessels afloat in general, and still failed to show an overwhelming preponderance of sloops.

What! three-decker pirate ship...Wait was that the very same ship that had plenty of jewels and other valuables and was there some Portuguese Viseroy aboard.... or was that other vessel?

About firearm:

I am satisfied that it is just poorly drawn musket. Some pirate book said also so about this pic.

Bear in mind that the figures relate to the number of attacks in which gold was taken, not the amount of gold. For example several of those cases involved the theft of a few ounces of gold dust - valuable in itself, but not as valuable as, say, the slaves that were taken at the same time.

Were there BTW gold dust in La concorde when it was taken by (you know who the history's most overvalued pirate)...

did captain Dosset had gold dust in addition to slaves (I have heard rumors)?

Aha! The artist is Reinier Vinkeles, who lived 1741-1816.

While using Google Image search, I also found this engraving by the ever-popular artist 'Anonymous' which was done in 1701, which I think should be posted somewhere and here is as good a place as any. (Someone should let Ratbeard aka. Redbeard know that we have period evidence that putting small animals in one's mouth is accurate.)

Yeeeech ....Well history often is...

Matchlocks were used during the GAOP. It was this time period that the flintlock finally overtook the matchlock, though you would still find them. For instance, in 1707, the British made a large purchase of matchlocks from the Dutch. But, that was due to arms shortages from the War of Spanish Succession. While matchlocks were used in this war, this war was by far the war that put a end to the use of matchlocks in major wars.

The Spanish colonials had plenty of matchlocks. St. Augustine's Castillo de San Marcos struggled to keep what few flintlocks they could get, but for the longest time they had more matchlocks than flintlocks (the Spanish colonists were the farthest behind in the 'arms race' so to speak in the New World).

During the 80s and 90s, the Dutch even sold a transition piece between the Matchlock and flintlock. The gun had both the ability to fire as a flintlock and had a matchlock arm as well, on the same lockplate. Strange thing is, while the Dutch army never had these guns made for themselves, the Dutch did sell them to other countries like the Danish.

For sea service, the GAOP would have witnessed its share of matchlocks, but based on surviving evidence and surviving originals, it seems the maritimers had a pretty big preference for flintlocks, even more than land (at least that is what William Gilkerson concluded in Boarders Away II).

Thanks . So there were matchlocks but flintlocks started to be overbearing by this time....I think that you ment 1680s and 1690s when you said "During the 80s and 90s, the Dutch even sold a transition piece between the Matchlock and flintlock"?

Hey Swashbuckler, check out this thread.

Oh! I was rigth about Ed Low's schooner

See: "Edward Low-

Fancy, Scooner 10 Guns 80 tons

....(sorry if i should have put this with same reply with other stuff)....

You have a point Foxe that there were indeed many bigger ships...but number of sloops is still prominent.

Yup, the only way for a ship to disappear without trace is for everyone on board to be killed and the ship sunk, AND for all the pirates (including forced men etc) to keep their mouths shut.

There may well have been incidents of that happening, but in general it was just not the way pirates operated. Mostly ships were taken, rifled for anything worth keeping, and then set free. Sometimes the crew were set free in a different ship if the pirates decided to keep theirs.

At the very least, survivors from a pirate attack would have known to report it to the ship's owners or whoever employed them, and there are lots of examples of seamen just going to the first 'authorities' they find to report pirate attacks.

I'm very tempted to spend an hour this evening enumerating the different sources of information on pirates, partly for my own amusement and partly to show how 'spotty' the information isn't. It used to be quite a common argument round here that "we don't really know what pirates did so we might as well make it up"...

If i remember Right Stede Bonnet in his early career burned some ships because he did not wanted spread information about his activities. But Bonnet was far away of typical pirate since he was a gentleman, he bought his sloop and crew was paid like in merchant vessels. So I am not arguing with Foxe since I am always know that only few pirates were very gruel like Francis Spriggs or Ed Low ...Buccaneers however were more gruel and occasionally migth kill whole Spanish crew since often buccaneer leaders (privateers) despised spaniards more than anything....but when examining buccaneers national probacanda must be noted.

And about schooners:

If we believe Swedish BJörn Landström's ship book first real schooner was build in North-America (did i spelled that right?) in 1713 (note similar ships has been around (in Dutch usage) in 17th century onwards.) So schooner is bit more USA's revolution privateers vessel than Gaop ship, but if my memory serves me right Ed Low had someting to do with schooners and i believe that many fishing vessels or turtlers (sea turtle fishing boats) had quite similar rigging than schooners.

Nice photo of a carpenter working on a ship there! (Be he Peter the Great or not.) Thanks! Do you happen to know the source of that?

The portrait has been many books and various wedsites....I would dare to say it is from circa early 18th century....

There is source of other picture http://www.dbnl.org/...601_01_0048.php

Fascinating that the W Rogers maybe had his hand also in this issue....

Hi has anybody made calculations of pirates ship types? (like 45% gaop vessels were sloops, 15 slavers....etc.) my investigation leads me to point that there were most of small sloops, plenty of brigantines and some early schooner in gaop but few bigger slavers like the "Whydah" or QAR. Some pirates in gaop used even warships like Black Bart.

Bear in mind that the figures relate to the number of attacks in which gold was taken, not the amount of gold. For example several of those cases involved the theft of a few ounces of gold dust - valuable in itself, but not as valuable as, say, the slaves that were taken at the same time.

Yes I know but I am still surprised. Apparently I have under estimated pirate loots (so there was more than just some sugar, slaves, rum and cocoa)

I can't find it right now, but somewhere I have a picture of a matchlock from about 1720(ish)....

The flintlock mostly replaced the matchlock, but there were some people that hung onto older stuff because they were more comfortable with it....

Isn't there always some who don't want use new stuff. there is still people who don't use modern electronics etc.

Btw Where weapons to ships come from? were they army surplus equipment?

This is perfect example that history is often more exciting or odder than fiction and everything is always unclear.

Fashinating stuff

Does anybody know were the Matchlock muskets/other firearms popular or even commonly used during Gaop (1690-1730)? Many sources say that they were replaced by the flintlocks in early 17th century onwards and practically disappeared by early 18th century? I know that many buccaneer musket even as early as the 1650s had flintlocks but was the matchlocks still used with flintlocks as late as Gaop at least they were around in large extent 1400-1680s or so..... but what about Gaop were there much Matchlocks around? I believe that only few were used.

Well there is some pictures about Peter the great representing him as carpenter working in Dutch- and English shipyard. That are this paintings and engravings entirely truthfull is case of debate but there is some 18th century pics.

here

. So how old were dirk daggers in naval use?

16th century or 17th century or 18th century?

I am amazed of that someone (Foxe) had done so specific calculations .

In the list the number of gold and other valuables is much greater than I estimated (I used to believe that only Elizabethan privateers and buccaneers of 17th c got that much gold but that much in Gaop I am surprised) . Same with clothes. The numder of stolen booze is (i think) surprisingly small.

Thank you!

I would still know is there any period or even bit out of the period mention of that.

Hi I am new guy here and sorry if my english is not perfect because it is not my mother language...

My first post is rumor that I have often heard:

Does anybody know is the claim true that Blackbeard was killed by Scottish RN Sailor and with highlander sword (like this) http://www.edgeimpor...23133641740.jpg during battle of Ocaroke inlet? Or is that just rumor like “Blackbeard swim around his ship 2, 3 or 7 times after his head had cut off.”