michaelsbagley

Let's start you off with This Topic on the Pub... From there, I can help you a whole bunch more. Look up the "Belheim Tapestries" as they have some pretty decent images of Grenadiers, in fact Grenadiers are likely the easiest type of unit to document (visually) because of the Blenheim Tapestries. Now of course those are 1700 to 1710 Grenadiers rather than the 1690 to 1700 you seem to be focused on, but it is the best start I can advise you on. On the whole, documenting soldiers of the GAoP is not an easy task (I've been at it for what, three years now?) unless you are going for a French Marine of the 1690 to 1710 era, then there are very nice clear and concise images you can draw from, but anything else, involves a lot of in depth looking, and then a lot of careful guesswork.

Stynky has asked me to help tidy up the "Events/Raids" section, and I will start working on it (eventually).... But so far the direction we have discussed the most is to go back to the events by month. So yeah, what Patrick said. If you need any help, please don't hesitate to message me.

The (more or less) final count is in, and it looks like there will be 12 of us for this one. We will be getting two ferry passes for vehicles with the trailers/boats. So both the Black Sheep and Firefly will be going up. There will be 10 additional passes for the others to cross on the ferry as pedestrians. We will aim to meet up at 7:00 PM Friday evening (some of us will try to be there at 6:30 so we can hurry up and wait to help get things organized). We can load any and all camp gear, weapons, and anything else into the two vehicles as well as load up the boats to move things over to the island at that time. If you can't make it Friday by 7:00 PM, you are likely going to have to carry your stuff in yourself, or borrow/share accommodations. I don't want to sound like a hard-a$$ about this, but because of the situation, our hands are tied. Those not bringing camping gear and day-tripping can show up Saturday morning or Friday evening as per their prefernce. Anyone else planning to bring a vehicle onto the island will have to pay their own way, and find their own parking on the island (neither of which is a good idea). Again, I don't mean to come off as harsh, but we can work with the parameters and try to work together, or not and likely have to deal with bigger frustrations . Battle plans, at this time, the possibility of a battle is still shakey, but if there is a battle, it will likely be on the two boats (Firefly and the Black Sheep). It will also likely get squeezed in Saturday afternoon, and depend on the harbour traffic, and other elements out of our control and also beyond the control of the event organizers as well.... So all we can do is be prepared, and hope for the best. We can likely do some sword fighting as a part of our display, but if any of us plan to try this, we will likely have to try and work around the POTC impersonators and try not to interrupt their scheduled shows/skirmishes (and maybe not show them up too badly ). I think I have covered as much details as I can for this one. I'll be in touch with those I know to be coming over the next week to arrange a rendezvous point. If there are any last minute folks who want to join in, I won't rule it out, but the sooner I know you want to come along, the better chance I have of getting you coverage for the ferry and food. A huge thanks to those who have pulled together to make this one happen! I was worried with the on-again, off-again roller coaster this one has gone through we wouldn't have a good showing for this one, but a dozen pirates is better than what I had hoped for at this late hour! Cheers!

A personal favourite of mine....

Actually, we will be camped in a public area, just off the main drag so period camping is preferred. And they would like us to keep a period ambiance despite our camp not being a part of the formal display. A big part of the reason for this is the previous re-enactors left an unfortunate legacy for us to try and overcome. I was leaning towards using Mark's pavillion for the display tent in the main park, as he has a fly for it, and it is the largest tent. So I would recommend saving your lean-to/wedge for your own personal sleeping quarters. To go into more detail, we are camped on a private owned small amusement parks grassy area, because the current mayor had a bad taste in his mouth from the previous re-enactors camping in the main park from last year, and wouldn't issue a permit for us to camp in the main public park. Make sense? I am not sure how much the car ferry is, but it isn't an issue as the event organizer is covering us (for one or maybe two vehicles, and those would be the vehicle<s?> towing the boat<s?>) and all pedestrian ferry users with us. Which is kind of why our hands are somewhat tied in all showing up at the same time. You could look up the ferry and price it out, but you will likely have some serious issues parking on the island as well. So if I can at all convince you to hold off until 7:00 PM, then please do so. But if you are bound and determined to show up earlier, I will see what I can arrange for you, just please let me know what you are planning and if you are willing to wait or not. I would guess this is true, but the display re-enactors (as in "us") are not a part of this. My best guess only the crew of the Niagara wold be involved in that. The organizer and I talked specifically about us showing up Friday evening at around 7:00 PM (he is flexible there, I just wanted to give everyone a chance to show up, as some are coming from further out). Host group.... To my knowledge there is none. The festival is organized by a small group of business folks from the island (mostly Bar owners). The skirmishes you read about are likely the POTC impersonators that are also a part of the festival (who do sword fighting only, no Black Powder), or perhaps a reference to us re-enactors (but re-enactors skirmishes haven't been sorted out just yet). As far as I am concerned we (the re-enactors) will be operating as "The Scioto Pirates" or "The Mercury Crew", or even just "a bunch of like-minded re-enactors from different groups working together for this event".... I have never cared much for that whole "Crew" thing. All good questions M.A.d'Dogge! Keep 'em coming! And for now, I guess I will have to get on sorting out the details of what battle arrangements we will have. Right after I count how many pirate we will have available (which is looking like about a dozen +/-).

Well M.A.d'Dogge it will be a pleasure to have you along as always! Playing to some of the strengths I know you have, bringing your rather impressive collection of weapons along and setting you up as one of the main (or the main) weapons demo guy would be an easy idea... I imagine the rest of us will bring our selection of personal weapons (within reason). But please feel free to bring whatever display stuff you think appropriate along. This event will likely be a bit more display heavy and action light than most we have done so far (comparing to the Santa Maria events here). One thing Mark is toying with is bringing both boats, using Firefly for outings, and setting up the Black Sheep in our display area to be worked on (he suggested bringing some wood and making a new mast for her). Mark will also be bringing some of his navigational devices, and he and I are both bringing what period (and periodish) tools we have along (hopefully to work on the Black Sheep). I have been toying with the notion of bringing the new rope ladder Mark and I made for the last Santa Maria event(there was some slippage concerns with it, but fortunately no accidents). So I will likely be adding some seizing to the ladders and other knot/rope work with it. So far, we are confirmed for camping a short walk from the main drag, we are confirmed for having breakfasts and lunches provided for Saturday and Sunday. We will likely be doing some brazier cooking for Saturday night supper, the ladies are working on a menu, one that includes lots of oats I might add (kidding! ). So the cooking will likely be a part of the display for later Saturday afternoon. Our display area will be in the main park, and we can have a single tent there (and a fly for extra shade), but we are strictly forbidden under any circumstances to sleep in that particular tent, we have to sleep in the camping area. There are public restrooms near both our display area and our camp area, so we are covered there. Because we may be out in the boat some, you might want to bring both working clothes (short coat etc.) and your fancier stuff as well (for the costume contest). For the record, I have put my money on you winning the damned trip! Stupid M.A.d'Dogge! The last thing is that as of now (but subject to change, and I will let you know if it does change), we will have to aim to all meet up on the mainland area for the ferry on Friday evening at 7:00 PM (Friday June 25th), that is when we will have to load all the camp gear, black powder stuff, and anything else you don't want to carry on your person into the one or two vehicles and boats. Then the one or two vehicles will drive onto the ferry, and the pedestrian passengers will have to do the same. When on the island, the pedestrians may have to take a shuttle to the downtown area. As of this moment, while our ferry will be covered, the shuttle to downtown has not been mentioned, so you may need $3 to $5 to cover that... Although now that I have thought of it, I will raise this issue and see if we can get covered for that as well. We will also all need to discuss how late on Sunday we can all stay. As we will have to coordinate bringing all the heavy camp gear back to the main land at the same time, so no one has to leave their stuff behind. Let me know if I haven't covered everything, and I will make sure I get the info to you, or get answers from the organizer.

I had almost forgotten about the "It's worse than that, he's dead Jim" thing.

Happy Birthday Jim! It was great to finally meet you this past weekend! Here's hoping to seeing you more in the future!

I just wanted to get a better feel for who is in this round... So as far as I can tell, the below should be the revised list. 1 Pew 2 Michael 3 Gunpowder Gertie 4 Cap'n Mac 5 Ransom 6 Captain McCool 7 Adam Cyphers 8 Patrick Hand 9 Nigel 10 Karadimos Which makes it seem to me we have a full compliment of ten for this round! Karadimos, Pew is organizing this round, private message him for his address when you are ready to send your cards. We generally try to avoid posting real live addresses to avoid getting additional junk mail (or that would seem like the best reason to me).

And you call yourself a Canadian? Don't you like maple syrup in your beans or is it just a Quebecois thing? Just kidding with you , but try it you"ll see it is good. No, it isn't a just Quebecois thing, Maple Syrup in brown beans is awesome... But in pea soup... Well that is another matter entirely.... But since you bring up Quebecois, do you have a good recipe for French Canadian Split Pea soup? And Karadimos, I agree fully... That Cherry soup recipe sounds delightful. A local friend of mine has a cherry tree, and if I recall correctly, the cherries on that tree come to ripeness in late June or early July, I think I will try that recipe around that time.

Those are some neat recipes. The pea soup really caught my attention.... Who would think to add maple syrup to pea soup? It sounds strange, but might be worth trying.

Sorry to keep on here... But I almost forgot, we will have access to flushing toilets, and a possibly, maybe, but not for sure yet... Showers!

Well, I have already offered the tarp shelter to Professor Death, but it does sleep two... If you are brave enough to share it with him! What kind of tent do you have M.A. d'Dogge? If I knew what you had, I could better guess at how we could fit it or make it work. I'm sure we could transport a wedge for you, but I don't rightly recall whether you own a wedge or one of those lordly pavilions (or something in between).

Please add the following to the Mercury Crew as well... Last year things came up that prevented them from coming, they are hoping similar circumstances don't repeat themselves... Trish Gallatin Shannon Gallatin (maybe David, their son) (perhaps Cody, David's friend who really LOVED the Santa Maria event) Nick Strojny will also be back from Iraq well before then and has expressed interest in coming as well.

Okay, I just got off the phone with the organizer.... And I have some answers... While Compensation is not on the table, the festival is willing to cover ferry costs for a limited number of pirate re-enactors. As of this moment, that number is not firm (which means negotiable), and is also higher than the number of folks I think will actually be able to show up... So pretty much, if you are interested, and let me know soon... I can get the ferry costs (for your person only, not cars/trucks other vehicles). They are also springing for continental style breakfast, and likely lunch as well. He is going to try and get supper covered as well, but that is still a big question mark at this time. As for the camp, and transporting gear. We will be able to get one vehicle pass for the ferry. So, we will have to meet on the mainland (Friday evening), load all tents and heavy stuff (including black powder stuff) into one vehicle (outside chance of two) and transport the stuff in that one vehicle. Why only one vehicle? Well, we have dockage for a boat, so we will be granted one vehicle with trailer/boat ferry pass. This is up to Mark, but we will likely bring either the Black Sheep or Firefly. One of the conditions for a second vehicle pass, is the bringing of a second boat. So if Mark is agreeable to bringing both the Black Sheep and Firefly, we may be able to get a second vehicle pass. Now the big news. The costume contest (which will be a mix of period and more pop-culture inspired costumes) has a grand prize of a trip for two to the Cayman Islands (Air/Hotel, and a scuba package) during the pirate festival in the Cayman islands this autumn. All re-enactors are encouraged to participate in the costume contest. We can set up a tent/fly in the park where we will be displaying throughout the day (the main park in downtown), but we can not under any circumstances have anyone sleeping in the tent. It is basically for shade, and to act as a base of operations during the day. We will be camped to sleep a short walk away from this area (I was assured the sleeping camp area was less than a 3 minute walk rather than the ten minutes I guessed at). I think that should cover all the basics, if there are any more details I need to have addressed, please let me know. Hope some more of you can make it!

Well I can answer the numbers question...100 Total = Participants + Vendor...not 100 of each. Fayma will have to answer the rest, but the goal of the Fort has always been to try and make the fort event as historically accurate as possible...I would be surprised if they did not allow us to continue to grow toward that goal. There is also the rumour that the festival will now be a timeline, and include 1800s (I've heard this from other sources as well) and other eras... So the number of GAoP/Buccaneer re-enactors may further be restricted by this. So if the rumour is true, the formula may actually look more like.... 100 Total = Vendors + other era participants + GAoP/Buccaneer participants. If memory serves me well, last year there were about 130 participants doing GAoP and/or Buccaneers, and about 90 the year before that... So I think under the new guidelines, we have already outgrown the event. Or are my numbers and information very incorrect?

Last year when Mark and I went up to check it out, if memory serves me well, we wore our swords on the ferry (I think we did anyways, it was a year ago). But the advice to not drive to the island is good. I do recall very long lineups of cars, and when we got to the island the island shuttles did have to navigate around a TON of bicycles, golf carts and other smaller obstructions, so packing light would likely be the way to go. We are working on getting dockage for one of Mark's boats... If we are able to pull that off, we may be able to take advantage of having a boat and bring more stuff (depending on Mark's permission to use his boat, finding dockage, and having sufficient rowers etc.). We may have to meet at the ferry, and load all stuff into one vehicle in order to facilitate this... But like I said, there are still some hanging questions that may affect how we best approach this. Black Powder and weapons is still a hanging question for this outing. The organizer is good about getting back to me, but he is usually a few days in doing so, so please be patient while I raise those questions. Edit: PS, the questions are helping, as this is a pretty last minute arrangement, all the questions are helping me find and hopefully head off any potential frustrations! So please keep the questions rolling whether you can make it or not!

Prof Death, pictures will be coming..... And while the Thatchers did a ton to help with this one... I think (if I heard correctly) that Capt. J and Janet were the real movers and shakers behind this one. Regardless, I think everyone did an awesome job! It was great to see distant friends again, and meet some new folks. Capt. J, please thank your darling Janet again for her hard work cooking on Saturday, specially in that heat and humidity! The food was awesome and warmed the soul! Also thanks for the HP Sauce! That little thing is going to bring me a great deal of joy! Carl and Rusty did have some rather pilfer worthy toys... And were great companions on top of that! I am sure William will have some great tales to regale us with once he gets home.

Hey everyone, This one has been a bit of a rocky road, but I am charging forth to make the best of it for this year. Over the weekend of June 25th to 27th (the last weekend of this month), pirate re-enactors have been invited to camp and display at this pirate festival. The festival is a few years old, but has mostly been focused on a pirate theme, but I checked the festival out last year, and got in touch with the organizer, and after some "on again/off-again" question marks, we have an area to camp in, and perhaps display from. I have an email out to the organizer to clear up some last minute details, but if there is anyone in Northern Ohio, or willing to travel from near or far, we could use some extra man and woman power. This will not be a strict historical encampment, but we prefer more historical influenced pirates, as the festival has a good size pirate entertainer contingent already, although all pirate are welcome and encouraged to attend and participate in most of the events of the weekend. Put-In-Bay is pretty much a resort island in Lake Erie about a mile off the coast of northern Ohio, about half way between Cleavland and Toledo. While it is a "party island", the drinking laws are pretty strict. So those considering this should come knowing that all drinking will happen in the bars (just down the street from we are camping, maybe a 10 minute walk), and there will not be any drinking in the camp. Also, they can be pretty heavy handed on "drunken disorderly" charges (going from what I have heard), so while those who enjoy a good drink or many, should do so.... A modest amount of restraint should be kept as well. On a more positive note, it is a "party island" and everyone there always has a great time, there are usually some great bar bands playing in most of the bars, and being an island, there is a strong harbour town/port city feel to the place. The docks are loaded sometimes two or three boats deep throughout most of the summer months. Last year the Niagara was there, and I think the Niagara is scheduled to be there as well. The Niagara is a reproduction early 19th century (War of 1812 era) schooner, and just a beautiful ship! I will be the main go-to guy on this one, so if you are interested, or just want more information, please post here or contact me in private.

Capn Bob, looking great! A very cool relaxed image of you sir! Eye, that is one of the best photos of you I have seen! And there are many to choose from! Mister Henry, dang! You do early period well!

I'll be leaving Ohio tomorrow at about 3:00 PM, so I will be picking Sam up at close to 4:00 PM, and then likely rolling into Fort De Chartres at around 11:00 PM... The only phone number I think I have on hand is Silas Thatchers, but I seem to recall someone else posted theirs earlier in this topic, so I will try and write that down as well. We'll likely need some guidance finding our camp area once we arrive. See you all there!

What was the final total? Final total was $569.39... this might be in Cdn funds, because my account was originally set up in Canada, even though I had the account converted to a US accoutn ages ago, it seems it might not have fully converted... But I will know soon.

The below link is to the pattern that just about everyone who does pirate era re-enacting uses (or the few available commercial patterns are based on) Link to 1715 to 1730 waistcoat pattern The shape of the pocket is pretty visible and is not to hard at all to scale up to full size.

I have a fire striker set.... I am out of char cloth at the moment, and to be perfectly honest I am uncertain as to whether I will have time over the next week to make some more char cloth. Worst case scenario, I can cut up some linen and make char cloth the night we get there in whatever fire is going on that night, at least that way the rest of the weekend we can start our cooking fires in a period fashion.