Captain Jim

Aye, and if ye put a dragoon pistol in that dainty right hand, ye'd put most any rougue to flight. It's a good look for you.

William, you are the ma...I mean Pyrate.

Absolutely. And the sound will travel to Mallory where the uninformed will go: What was that? Whereupon some of us pyrates will be there to inform them, yes?

Pirates exist, but they are easily discouraged. A few precautions and you will have no problems. A few tricks: Tacks or roofing nails strewn about the deck. Most boarders are barefoot. Don't you step on them. A dog. Small and yappy will do, large and toothy is better. Shock treatment. Use electric fence tape or rope on your lifelines. Turn off when on deck yourself. A simple switch next to the companionway. Subtrifuge. Change clothes (or just your hat) and pop up in various hatches to make the bad guys think that there are more of you than there are. Post an anchor watch. One of you will have to be awake all night. Take turns (watches). More subtrifuge. Put a dummy (no, not your husband) in the cockpit to do anchor watch duty with you. Or by himself. Leave lights on on deck, and recorded conversation piped to a deck-mounted speaker. Just record some usual activity, like dinner or singing to a Buffett album and then set your player to loop it over and over. The longer the loop the better. Guns. Last defense, huge headaches with the locals. Makes a mess of the boat, too. The whole idea is not to be boarded at all. If you look strong and active onboard, that is usually enough to make the bad guys look elsewhere. Lastly, someone will be assulted by real-life pirates. It just doesn't have to be you if you look stronger than the next guy. But by all means, go. You cannot let fear rob you of life.

Spot on, Rumba! It's hard enough to come up with new ideas. I also try to support my local (or not so local thanks to the internet) craftsman, and only swipe ideas if I can execute them much better or if the price is totally unreasonable.

What a clever idea. One of those "Now why didn't i think of that" sort of things. I need to spend more time thinking and less time working.

Fish slapping dance on You-Tube. The live-action shot. You can't launch a ship this way but you can launch one o' yer mates.

Well I, for one, am sorry you don't have the time to waste on us. I was patiently waiting in the background for you to reveal to us the sources of your knowledge. I suppose I will have to wait for your book to come out so I can check your bibliography at that time.

It's never too late, not with all of these here pyrates standin' in ta help ye. Read all of the threads in this topic and ye will be well on yer way.

PA sucks, move to Florida. Jesting, just jesting. But FL laws allow a lot of BP fun to happen. Now to change these foolish fireworks laws....

So he returned to England for his health? And while it is true that he never was technically a buccaneer, he lead them on their raids on land and sea so I suppose he could be called a buccaneer leader. And you can’t call him a pirate unless your definition of pirate includes: (n) pirate, Someone who robs at sea or plunders the land from the sea without having a commission from any sovereign nation (Princeton University web dictionary) which pretty much sums up his activities after Spain and England signed a very short-lived peace agreement. To England and Jamaica a war hero, to Spain and the Dutch, a pirate.

Now, now, let’s not go spreading heresy about the Pub! The Flying Spaghetti Monster (praise be to the sauce!) created all things and, therefore, the kraken. It was the calamitous fall in the world population of Pyrates that only recently caused the FSM to reveal himself and stem global warming. See for yourself: As to the tentacle suckers in the movie, must be just a mistake on the part of the artists.

I'll agree with that to a certain extent, only the fighting on the ground in the colonies wasn't done by the disenfranchised wealthy ruling class but by farmers, coopers, blacksmiths and shopkeepers: the common man. These folks had to have a reason for fighting. Were they fighting to overthrow a cruel and tyrannical regime or because they stood a better chance at becoming wealthy if they instituted self governance? That, of course, is a thread for a forum on Revolution-era politics and motivations. I think of a ship at sea in the era of sail as a country of its own. Like kings, there were good and bad captains. The bad ones could look forward to ruling with an iron hand or dealing with mutiny. After the mutiny, the overthrow of a cruel and tyrannical captain, the sailors had only two real choices: disappear or turn pyrate. Mutiny was a hanging offence, and you were assumed guilty until you were almost invariably proven guilty, so one could not just carry on with life. One would have to create a new identity or never set foot in civilization again: I refer you to the mutiny on the Bounty as the quintessential (if OOP) example. So in one instance the traitors took land and that land became their country and in the other they took a boat and that boat became their country. Yes, yes, oversimplification, and some pirates were just thieves and cutthroats. But some were not. To brand all pyrates as the lowest form of parasitical vermin is as wrong as lauding them all as champions of truth, justice and the power of the individual over the oppression of the rich and tyrannical. Now I have simply got to get a copy of this guy’s study.

I’m havin’ a thought here. What if we divide the crimes into two broad categories: crimes against persons (rape, torture, murder) and crimes against country (raiding/disruption of shipping, forcing redeployment of naval forces, taking and holding land, other military actions that may result in personal gain.) Now we have that criminal on the $1 bill, or maybe John Paul Jones. And then you have Henry Avery. Is there a difference? And what about Henry Morgan? He was a pyrate/buccaneer, an outlaw to his own government until England went back to war with Spain. Then he was a hero, all a matter of good timing.

If the Declaration of Independence wasn't treasonous I don't know what is. And that seemed to prosper quite nicely, thank you. The truth of the matter is that no pyrate was stereotypical, and neither were the ways each ship was run. There were in fact men who turned to pyracy in desperation as an escape from oppression and there were those who were the bloodthirsty louts whose lives were indeed filled with “murder, rape, torture, robbery, and doing just about anything in order to survive.” I notice that some pyrate articles were quite specific about what happened to anyone found guilty of rape (death) or stealing from each other (marooning or disfigurement.) They also specified compensation for injuries suffered in the service of the company. So were the pyrates that formed shipboard societies based on these rather strict articles lawless? No, no more that the founding fathers of this country, the big difference being that the pyrates formed their societies aboard ship instead of on land. We defended this shore and won. If not for that Washington would have been tried and beheaded for treason and perhaps our diction would be much better. Most pyrates eventually lost basically because they did not, after having acquired a ship, turn to legitimate business. Or perhaps there were mutinous crews that took possession of a ship and cargo and turned to business instead of plundering and are now lost to history simply because they blended in, became just another ship just like the colonies became just another country.

I have the "Calico" coat (named after Jack I presume) and after beating it up sufficiently to make it look weathered and "losing" a few buttons, replacing some of them with mis-matched ones, I like it just fine. No really good pictures of it though, as its too hot in FL to wear it that often.

But how does digital rhum taste...?

If you have a tripod then you won't need a flash. Flash merely shortens your exposure time to eliminate the shakes and blurries in low-light conditions, but it also casts lots of shadows that hide a lot of detail. A tripod also cures the blurries and allows more detail. Take some cardboard or rolled-up construction-type paper to shade any glass that you have to shoot through to reduce the glare/reflection from lighting fixtures. An add-on polarizer is excellent if your camera will accept one. A small piece of cardboard covered with aluminum foil will serve to reflect light where you need it if there is a shadow obscuring an area of interest. Most digitals have some adjustment for lighting type (sun/fluorescent/incandescent/flash) so pick the one you need to give accurate color. Experiment at home before you go, trying to make up as many problems as you think you may encounter. Also, with a tripod, you can get pictures of yer happy self in with the displays.

And the moral of the story is: never wear a striped shirt, blue check is much more period correct.

So, how do you know, and did anyone get injured? And I don't mean to drag out "true confessions", turn this into a "stupid black powder tricks" thread or put you on the spot, but somone out there might learn from your misadventure and not blow his own (insert expletive here) hand off. This is one of the ways I learned safe gun and BP handling, by researching the stuff others had done. There are quite a few things to be learned from police and hospital reports, as well as news stories on the web. BTW, I use 3F, 75 grain blanks (proofed to 150 grains) and 2F, 35 grain live rounds (proofed to 75 grains) in my .69 caliber. Always remember that BP grade is crucial. 75 grains of 3F behind a lead ball might be too much for the gun to handle, as the initial pressure spike would be quite a bit higher than the 2F. Someday I'm going to buy a barrel and about 10 pressure recorders. I'm going to tap the barrel to insert the sensors in a row down the barrel and then start loading and firing, recording the pressure spike progression down the barrel for differing loads and grades. Should be enlightening.

I knew he could photoshop. Fyne job mate.

"Pardon me, madam, but are those period-correct breasts? No? Well you'll just have to cover those so that we can maintain our standards of authenticity here." Or not...

By all means use Quick's guy, as he can more likely get you exactly what you want. But...if you cannot come to an accord with him, try Dixie gun works:

Aye, but we're not tryin' ta find North, are we?

So Johnny Tarr old chap, are you the presser or the pressee?