Daniel

I think my favorite really bad movie was Burial of the Rats, putatively based on something Bram Stoker wrote. I somehow doubt that it bears any resemblance to anything Stoker ever dreamed of.

I'm assuming movie stars are the main focus here.

Maureen O'Hara was the pirate and generalyy swashbckling wench nonpareil. Against All Flags, The Black Swan, and At Sword's Point prove it. Too bad her movies were never as good as she was.

Geena Davis would be second.

Morgan the Pirate is a laughably bad movie, but Chelo Alonso with her wild dancing was certainly the most memorable part of it.

Keira Knightley, of course, is beautiful; she needs to be more piratical though.

That's about all the movie stars I can name. But I'll match the stars of The Cutlass' Daughters - Maureen MacLinden, Mary Tyrconnell, Gwendolyn Rivermere, Celeste l'Arromanchienne, Djongila, and Lily Ashton - up against any other pirate wenches from the world of film and fiction.

Yes, I see that not only was Will Adams referred to as a pilot, but apparently also William Dampier served as a pilot to Woodes Rogers during Rogers' privateering foray against the Spaniards up the west coast of the Spanish Americas. So I guess pilots indeed are not limited only to the guys who help you get in and out of a harbor.

I don't know of any use of archery in the Golden Age.

I do recall that Francis Drake's men used longbows during their raids in the area of Nombre de Dios and Puerto Bello. The longbow had apparently passed out of use in the English army by that time (the last battlefield won by the longbow was Flodden in 1513), but still saw some use amongst sea-rovers like Drake's. The longbow was a devastating weapon, but was hampered somewhat by the heavy tropical rains; wet bowstrings do not function well.

I believe that the Barbary corsairs used some archery in the 16th and 17th centuries, as did their Christian opponents the Knights of Malta. I don't recall what kind of bows these were, though.

Bows would have been logical weapons for pirates to use: they're cheaper and easier to make than guns, they require no exhaustible gunpowder or fuse, and their ammunition, unlike that of guns, is often recoverable, and at the time they had a much faster rate of fire. Their major drawbacks were that they were less effective against armor than muskets were (not usually an issue at sea), and they required much more strength and training than muskets. But perhaps the most important fact is that a weapon that goes whissss-thock is not as psychologically intimidating as a weapon that goes BOOOMMMMM! Pirates often lived by intimidation as much as by combat; most of their victims did not resist because they were cowed by the fear the pirates generated.

Westyn, that's an interesting coincidence. My novel, too, involves a crew of female pirates (the working title is The Cutlass' Daughters). It's not a romance, though; it's a pull-no-punches historical novel with a heavy strain of tragedy.

There is, of course, nothing so unfair as to ding somebody points merely because you hate their genre. That editor was an idiot, certainly. I'm told, though, that there are a few good ones out there. That's what one of my favorite authors, George R.R. Martin, says, and he certainly ought to know.

Who really flew the first known skull-and-crossbones-on-black Jolly Roger?

A lot of websites say it was Emmanuel Wynne, who flew a black flag with a white skull, crossbones behind the skull, and an hourglass below around 1700.

Something doesn't jibe though. A lot of websites (and books too!) show Henry Every's flag as black with a white skull in profile and crossbones below. Since Every's final cruise was in 1696, his flag would have had to come before Wynne's - if the flag we see in the books is accurate.

Then there's Ned Low's flag, which the books today show as a black flag with a red skeleton in full face. If I'm remembering right, Johnson's General History of the Pirates also describes Low's flag as the red skeleton on black that we all know. But when George Roberts wrote his account of being captured by Low in 1722, he doesn't say a bloody thing about any red skeleton flag!!! By Roberts' account, Low's flag was green with a yellow trumpeter on it.

In fact, I've never been able to tell what the source is for most of the commonly pictured flags (Tew, Every, Wynne, Teach, Bonnet, Condent, Moody, Worley, Rackham, England, Roberts, Kenedy, Quelch, and Low). Some of them originate in Johnson's General History, and in the case of Roberts there is an engraving in the book that actually shows him with his two famous flags. But some don't originate with Johnson, and some are even contradicted by Johnson's engravings; Johnson's picture of Bonnet shows a black flag in the background with a skull and crossbones behind it, much like the traditional representation of Worley's flag, and nothing like the skull, heart, bone, and dagger traditionally attributed to Bonnet. Where do these traditional versions of the pirate captains' flags come from?

My reading suggests that when most people talk about a "pilot" on a ship, they mean a guy who lives in a port and, for a fee, will go out to your ship in a small boat, guide you out of (or into) the harbor, avoiding all the shoals and reefs and other dangers you don't know about, and then goes back to shore again in a small boat. He does not seem to be a member of any one ship's crew at all, but just helps any ship that needs him and is ready to pay, and doesn't normally voyage far from the harbor whose safe channels he knows.

However, in James Clavell's novel Shogun, a rather different picture of the "pilot" is painted. It "was the pilot who commanded at sea; it was he who set the course and ran the ship, he who brought them from port to port. . . . At sea the pilot was leader, sole guide, and final arbiter of the ship and her crew. Alone he commanded from the quarterdeck."

Now, I know Clavell made some errors about sailing in Shogun (he equips the ship Erasmus with a wheel in the year 1600, when whipstaffs were still used, and has the crew drinking grog 140 years before Edward "Old Grog" Vernon introduced that drink to the Royal Navy). So is this just another mistake? Or were there "pilots" who were actually part of the crew and navigated the ship from port to port?

El Pirata, thank you for the offer, but I prefer not to transmit my manuscript in electronic form at this time. My e-mail is not secure and pirates (heh heh) are everywhere.

Westyn, fear not, I won't be giving up my day job. I agree, editors are notoriously unhelpful, at least when they reject you. But I am proud of my baby, and I will still be proud no matter how many editors reject it.

Thanks for the suggestion of Herman, Touring Gentleman. May I ask what you meant by a "strict historical bent"? I did take pains to be as historically faithful as I could to the setting of the 1716-1717 Atlantic world, but all my chief characters are imaginary, so maybe that disqualifies it from having a "strict historical bent"?

I have just completed my novel, The Cutlass' Daughters, 350 pages of pirates, blood, sails, cutlasses, gunpowder, sea spray, and all the grand things about the 18th century Spanish Main. I have submitted the first three chapters and a synopsis to Forge, the mainstream fiction division of Tor/St. Martin's Press.

Having no illusions about the acceptance rate of beginning novelists, I realize there's a good chance I will end up submitting this book several dozen times. I would love it if anyone can suggest any agents who might be interested in piratical historical fiction, or any other publishers who have published good books of this genre.

Congratulations to you, Raeadh'ani.

As re your question, a good deal of pirate dialect is authentic. "David Jones' Locker," for instance, was real pirate speak, as reported by George Roberts when he was captured by Ned Low's pirates in 1722. So was "dog" as an insult.

A good deal of pirate dialect comes from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, which is probably a very accurate representation of sailors' dialect in the late nineteenth century. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell if the same style of speaking was used in the Golden Age.

Nobody really knows if "yo ho" was authentic pirate speak, but something like it certainly was: "hoa hoa" was definitely a way of greeting another ship in the early 1700s, before the word "ahoy" was invented.

I'm pretty sure "avast" is authentic pirate talk also, although it is almost never used correctly in the movies. "Avast" in its proper use is a command to stop whatever you are doing immediately.

Thanks to Royaliste and Claire for their clarification on linstocks, and especially to Claire for the pictures.

I've read that the most common pirate ship guns were four-pounders, maximum range about 1,000 yards, weighing almost 1,000 lbs including the carriage.

It does not seem that heated shot was used very often shipbord. As others have pointed out, heating the shot was probably riskier to the ship firing it than the ship receiving it. However, I'm guessing it was used on very rare occasions, because I've read about pirates and privateers wetting down their battle topsails in preparation for combat to prevent them catching fire.

Loads were round shot, grape, and canister. (It seems canister came along surprisingly early; I've read about it being used in the late 1600s). Also various kinds of chain shot to destroy sails and rigging. Langrage or langrel (I believe these were the words Dorian was looking for) seems to have been used fairly often; I believe that's what Blackbeard used against Maynard's sloops.

The process apparently was to ram down powder, ram down a shot with a wad behind it and then ram down another wad to prevent the ball rolling out of the bore when the ship heeled. You would then use a pick to clear the touchhole, and prime it with powder. I've heard contradictory accounts of how you actually fired; some people have a burning linstock applied directly to the powder, while others suggest some kind of fuse or matchcord was used.

After firing it was necessary to sponge out the piece to extinguish leftover burning powder, and use a worm (a kind of roto-rooter looking thing) to clear out pieces of wadding.

Ideally there were cloth cartridges prepared in advance with the correct amount of powder to pour into the barrel, but presumably you ran out of these pretty fast in combat.

I understand guns are elevated by the use of a quoin and handspike (not clear on the exact process for this). I haven't read how windage was adjusted, but I guess one simply pulled on one gun tackle at a time to shift the gun left or right.

One strange thing about sailing-era guns is the weird names they had. Four-pounders were initially called "minions," and other guns of various size had names like saker, falconet, culverin or demi-culverin, cannon, or cannon royal. I believe the proper "cannon" was a 36-pounder, and other guns were not considered cannon. It seems that the later one gets, the more one hears guns referred to by their shot weight (i.e. four-pounder) and the less one hears these exotic names.

I have the following information from Tony and Ozigirl at Krzysztof's Piracy message board.

Ozigirl wrote:

In answer to your question, yes brute force was used to bring an anchor out of the water. Every spare hand was used to 'man the capstan' in order to weigh anchor. Captains used the momentum of the ship to get the anchor to bite when it was dropped, the same as they would 'back' sails in order to stop the ship, as they had no engines to do this. I don't know of any cases in which the anchor was so dug in that it dragged the bow into the water instead of lifting the anchor out of the water. Perhaps if the ship was anchored on a sea bed that was known to be rocky they might have difficulty and decide to 'shop' the anchor, ie cut it adrift, rather than try to raise it. Generally though anchors were only dropped when the ship was in a sheltered anchorage, and these places usually have sandy bottoms. In an unprotected anchorage, or at sea, a sea anchor would be used instead of a traditional anchor.

Hope this helps!

Tony Malesic wrote

I believe the usual method of getting under way was first to take up the slack of the anchor chain with the capstan until the ship was directly over the anchor. Then sails were laid on and the ship steered in the direction opposite of the anchor's "bite." The capstan continued to be worked, and the combination of the forces exerted on the anchor by the capstan and the momentum of the ship broke the anchor free.

BTW, thanx very much for explaining about waring. I've been wondering for ages what the difference was between "wearing" and "jibing," and it never occurred to me it was a difference in sail plans and handling rather than actual maneuvering with respect to the water.

Thank you, Royaliste!

To "ware" to the anchor is to sail until the ship is directly or almost directly above the anchor, I assume? Then if I'm following this, when the crew first turns the capstan, the hawser is slack, and when it does go taut, the hawser is almost vertical?

I assume that, while the hawser is slack, you maintain your position above the anchor by lying hove to?

And so the thing that holds the anchor is not an "anchor cable," but a "hawser" that is so many cables long?

My dictionary defines "roadstead" as a place less enclosed than a harbor where ships may ride at anchor. Maybe I wasn't using the word correctly.

Sorry about the references to forums and boards, 'tis black witchery.

I've got some questions about this.

If you were anchored in a roadstead and getting ready to get under way, was the anchor broken out of the seabed just by the brute force of the crew turning the capstan? Or was there some special trick to breaking the anchor out? Did you have to be in some special position relative to the anchor and/or the wind? Are there any cases of the anchor being so firmly dug in that putting tension on the anchor cable just pulled the ship down instead of pulling the anchor up?

Also, when dropping anchor, were there any tricks to getting it to dig in? Is a special kind of seabed ideal for this?

I ought to be able to answer this question by reading Harland, but regrettably I can't understand most of what he writes about this. Please explain this to me like I'm ten years old.

Also, are the words "hawser" and "anchor cable" interchangeable?

BTW, I am posting this question at Krzsysztof's Pirates message board also, and I will try to put copies of any answers I get on both boards.

Actually, there are three pirate/nautical books I possess that I forgot to mention above.

Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates.

John Harland, Seamanship in the Age of Sail. This is indispensable.

The Great Age of Sail.

I'm guessing Brad is the kid? He is the one I always forget.

Actually, Horst Buchholz is the kid.

My favorite pirate movies of all time are the 1950 and 1990 versions of Treasure Island. Then, oddly, comes Cutthroat Island, which most people despise, then Captain Blood and then Pirates of the Caribbean.

Actually, I like The Sea Hawk better than any of these movies, but I don't really count it as a pirate movie.

Current project: C.S. Forester, Hornblower and the Hotspur. To be followed by Captain Mary, Buccaneer and Moby Dick.

What's the difference between a piercing dagger and a slashing dagger? Don't most daggers have both a point and a cutting edge?

It was my understanding that Blackbeard boarded Maynard's vessel, not vice versa. Whereupon Maynard's men charged up from below decks and gave Blackbeard and his crew a fight they hadn't been expecting.

My pirate/seafaring library is pretty small.

David Cordingly, Under the Black Flagi, the must-have.

Joan Druett, She Captains, I found this a bit disappointing.

Richard Armstrong, The Merchantmen.

Richard Henderson, Hand, Reef, and Steer.

The New Encyclopedia of Knots.

Black Flag, the d20 gaming system guide.

And the 7th Sea gaming manuals.

Hi, I'm Daniel. I started studying piracy back in 2001 in preparation for writing a novel, which is almost done now. I started fencing in early 2002. Alas, my sea-going experience is limited to nine days as a lubber aboard the Canadian brigantine St. Lawrence II. Lately I've been visiting at the pirates forum at Krysztof's site piratesinfo.com, but I thought I'd come visit here too. Awesome site!

This is my satirical news article about pirates, in the style of, (but not copied from) The Onion.

PIRATES MAKE UNINTELLIGIBLE DEMANDS

CARTAGENA, New Spain -- Cartagena, the richest city on the Spanish Main, has been seized by a cutthroat crew of approximately 500 pirates, who are holding the community for a ransom not known at press time due to difficulty deciphering the pirates' speech.

"Arrrr," Billy Leach Bloodblade told reporters. "If'n ye be wishin' to save yer capital unburnt, ye'd best yield up a squall full o' pretties, by thunder!" Efforts to determine how much one "squall" might be, or what might constitute a "pretty" proved unsuccessful.

Upon being presented with a chest full of silver and gold coins, Captain Gorch Savage called a press conference. "Shiver me timbers," Savage stated. "Avast yon scanting swag! We'll not stand for the offing afore ye lay landside and haul up fairer purchase. Arrrrr!" Savage is then reported to have swashed his buckler; requests for a more detailed description of this behavior have not yet been answered.

Bosun Scratch Bourbon attracted great attention on the weekend when he issued a demand which Cartagena residents thought they had deciphered.

"I'll be ready to set sail," Bourbon said, immediately catching the townsmen's attention with that phrase, "when ye gi' me a fine, pretty pink wi' two long nines, white t'gans'ls and her deadeyes dark and tight." After extensive consultation, the Cartagenians interpreted this as a demand for a comely female, and they introduced Bourbon to 19-year-old Anita Suarez, who had expressed an admiration for the pirate's appearance. However, Mr. Bourbon reacted by running Miss Suarez through with his cutlass and storming off in apparent disgust, leaving Cartagenians still unsure of the actual object of his desire.

Earlier this Thursday, Mr. Bloodblade reportedly announced to the citizens, "I'll be broached to! It's befogged as younkers ye are, and scurvy swabs too!" Mr. Bloodblade was then immediately attacked by his fellow buccaneer Dirk Fathom, who inflicted minor injuries with a weapon apparently called a "marlinespike." It appears that Mr. Fathom may have misunderstood Mr. Bloodblade's meaning, as the two shortly stopped fighting, shook hands, and parted as friends.

Yesterday's reports of a final ransom demand from pirate leader Mace Hornswoggle are now discounted; current reports indicate that Mr. Hornswoggle had hawked up some phlegm, which was misinterpreted as an attempt at speech.