DSiemens

Just thought I'd throw this out there and see if there were any thoughts. I have been doing some research on the Queen Annes Revenge and decided to look at similar ships in the time period. I have a book called "Story of Sail" by Veres Laszlo and Richard Woodman. It has over a thousand plans and information about ships through out history. As I looked at frigates within the time period a particular ship got my attention. The Sweepstakes was a frigate built by the British in 1708. It had 22 guns on the upper deck and 14 bigger guns on the lower gun deck. According to the book the ship was fast but the lower guns were to few to be effective and the ship was captured by the French. Sound familiar says I. So I thought if QAR were a very similar ship to the sweepstakes what would have happened after her capture by the French. Likely they would have sailed her home and some one would say, "thats a fast ship to bad it's a frigate lets re plank her into something more useful." So they would re plank the ship covering up the gun deck leaving only the vents and make her a merchant ship and slaver. Later it would be captured by Benjamin Hornigold and given to Edward Teach. Teach seeing the gun deck would think, "this would make a great pirate ship given it had use of this gun deck." Twenty or so portholes would be cut out, which would no longer be to few to be effective, and the QAR would become a fast 40 gun frigate. Just a shot in the dark and chances are we'll never know but thought I'd see if there were any thoughts.

I find the part where they're talking about Morgan's moral compass interesting. They kind of say there were only a few accounts of torture so were they real or made up? I could see a pirate spreading rumors to increase their intimidation. Morgan certainly had an intimidating reputation. As always the question is were the rumors true? I think it was princess bride that brought up an interesting idea with that if they left no survivors where do you suppose the rumors came from? Interesting to think about.

Thats a very good point. Most people have this greedy bit o' quality of following the money wher'er it takes em. Pirates just be honest about it. I find it fascinating that so many pirate ships have been found.

Thank you William. Aye that we are. Tis hard to find another pirate in these parts as well. Found me a few ship wrights but ne'r a pirate among em. Good to know I'm alone on the high elevation sea's.

thank ye Coastie. I will look into those and start building a collection. I didn't realize there was contemporary and traditional but it makes sense. I've seen the same with bluegrass which I do have a fair collection of. Thank you again, Daniel

I've been wanting to get into sea shanties but am not sure what's good or not. Forgive me I'm a total newbie. If you were to name the top 3 to 5 CD's or groups for sea shanties and where to get them what would they be?

Hilarious! Well done!

I agree with James. I think the key here is that every one on board is using the same language. You don't want to confuse the crew by calling a sheet a rope one time and a line another. There needs to be consistency to keep the crew efficient. Other wise yes a rope is a rope whether it's used as a bolt rope to keep the sails from tearing or stay line or a jib sheet.

People pay a good amount of money or plain steal things like ship wheels because they make great home decor and souvenirs It's stupid really there's easier ways to get them then stealing them but people are crazy. Speaking of ships wheels I heard a funny story regarding the ships wheel of the Constitution. In the battle against the Guerriere the steering mechanism was destroyed and the tiller was used for the rest of the fight. After words the Constitution took the wheel and mechanism from the Guerriere and sailed home with it. Years later a ship yard was selling off old wheels to make a few bucks. A guy bought an old wheel for a few bucks and decided to look into the markings on it to find what ship it belonged to. Turns out it was the original wheel from the Constitution. They had thrown it in a pile at the docks and forgot about it. Suddenly this souvenir ship wheel was worth a ton of money. I don't have a refference for this story except the word of an old salt in my ship modeling club. He's built more then a dozen constitutions and has done his research. I trust his word.

Before the copper a mixture whale oil, pine resin, and sulphur. This gave ships the white coloring below the water line. This mixture would last three years before needing to be replaced. Trouble with the white stuff is it was uneven and could slow the ship down. The copper made the ship faster but was more expensive. It wasn't really tried a lot until the 18th century.

Ahoy, The names Daniel I just signed on after seeing an article in the Mutiny Magazine. I'm a pirate enthusiast and ship in bottle builder. I live in Denver Colorado and while the sea is a thousand some odd miles away I find it is also as close as the inside of a bottle. My hopes is to learn more about the fascinating way of pirate life and contribute what I can as well. Thanks for having me aboard.