Graydog

Oh, I see, are they from Customer Support? I tried to negoitate with them, but they put me on hold and left the island when I asked to speak to their supervisor.

As I recall, Cascabel has this easy test to see if a frizzen is too soft. Run a file across the frizzen. If it digs in then its too soft, it it just scoots across its hard enough. (Please correct me if I have this wrong) Now, speaking of Cascabel looks like he will be out in Long Beach, California for Pyrate Daze, September 19 & 20, teaching Black Powder Weapons 101. Have a nice trip lad! Pyrate Daze

I shan't watch this again becuase the main Union character is carrying an out of period trapdoor rifle. The segway was spot on though. Most people don't understand that the segway was introduced in May of 1863 by the Union Army. It provided a brief moment of surprise but this moment was lost after discovery that nobody had invented a way to recharge the batteries in the field. The largest failing of the segway and its ultimate demise was during the Battle of Chancellorsville when after maneuvering to a brilliant position the heavy brush rapidly depleted the batteries. Even though that flank of the Union Army was in a position to deliver a killing blow against Stonewall Jackson's troops the segway's being out of power stopped the advanced. When American troops retired screaming "We need more Segways" there was a complete misunderstanding what they were saying as that Union Corps only spoke German. Thinking they were yelling the flank had collapsed the rest of the Union Army retired, there-by losing the battle. From that moment on segways were not used and German troops were seen as unreliable and given the nickname of the Dirty Dutch.

Oop's my bad. Misread the base post, nevermind.

If I am alone how the hell did I catch small crabs on the beach? See, I did get to take Mister Prostitute after all!

Thanks for the note back. Could you plase notify the board or PM me when you get these up on your webpage? Thanks!

Size and special equipment for moving the tube to the carriage becomes an issue on tubes that are at and over 1,000 pounds. If they are full size guns that's going to be the general low end estimated weight once you hit six pounders and from there the weight goes up. Carriage fabraction is simply beyond my groups means on guns of that size.

What size are those for firing, do you all make naval carriages, what prices, and do you have a website? Inquiring minds want to know!

If I was allowed to take one person, I'd take: Mister Prostitute

A fair question. This is exactly why I check to see who the author is before getting too far down the road in trusting books. When somebody holds a PhD in history there is a credentialing and background in research necessary to get that degree. When they make a non-documented inference they have some standing. When a book is written by a God knows who author with undocumented statements I tend to discount it. There are a lot of hobbyists’ books floating around that simply are junk. There are also cases where publishers have mucked with the work of the author during reprints of books. I found this out when I contacted an author about their work on pirates to get input on a picture of an "artifact" and the author told me exactly that. He had no idea where the picture had come from and the publisher (it was a few years out of print) had no institutional knowledge where the artifact had come from. In the first edition the author could quote the exact source of all artifacts illustrations, but in the second edition the editors had added stuff without his input. Of course even the vaunted PhD’s can be a problem. The well known historian the late Stephen Ambrose, PhD, was an alleged plagiarist to the level of generating substantial and continuous complaints by his peers for several years before his death. The point becomes when you try to get away with the simple answer or quick on stop shopping you run a very good risk of not being on firm historical grounds. Be that a book or Wikipedia. Now of those two, the book is not going to be revised by anybody that happens to dislike an entry. Not the same can be said for Wikipedia. Wiki is always a work in progress with unknown author credentials and IMO should always be viewed as suspect, while at the same time it can be an excellent place to start researching an item or perhaps answering general knowledge items. P.S. (From what I could find on line Thrower appears to be an MD and not a PhD in history. I haven't read the books mentioned. But trust your opinion on them.)

If you need help on this decision, then answer these two questions. 1. Why do you hand sew your pirate clothing when 99% of the public can’t tell the difference? 2. If you are honoring veterans by replicating their image why would your standards be lower than when portraying a pirate? Does this help with the decision? Fair winds, -Greydog

Fascinating, since the USS Constitution was launched in 1797. This is an old urban legend that sadly that website has reposted. Here's the history: USS Constitution History And here's why the legend exists, the first use is in a speech by the Secretary of the Navy as an opening joke in a speech BUT then he claimed it was true at the end of the joke! A misspeak by a politician, said it was true for comedic effect, or did he get excited and belive his own joke? The speech can be found on the US Navy Website. Sec Navy Dalton's Speech 1998 (Wow, can't trust a politician to get history right who would have guessed?) However, looking at another of his speeches one quickly sees how he uses old history jokes to open and support his speech. Here's another one that is also a current urban legend that has evolved from battleship to aircraft carrier task force: Battleship vs. Lighthouse 1998 Speech Here's the text for that link: In the 1950s, a battleship captain operating in a dense fog sent the following message to a dim light seen in the distance. “Please alter course;” to which the response was “Unable. You will need to change course.” The Captain, somewhat agitated, sent a second message: “I am the captain of a United States Navy battleship, and I demand that you change course.” The response came back: “I am a petty officer, in charge of a light house.” Guess who changed course!

1. Long Boat 2. Compass 3. Charts of the area

Wikipedia can be helpful and a starting point if there is no where else to look. However, never trust a pirate..er...no wait that's never trust wikipedia. -Greydog AP Article on Hoax Student hoaxes world's media on Wikipedia Phony quote appears in obituaries for French composer Maurice Jarre By Shawn Pogatchnik updated 7:50 a.m. PT, Tues., May 12, 2009 DUBLIN - When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he said he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news. His report card: Wikipedia passed. Journalism flunked. The sociology major's made-up quote — which he added to the Wikipedia page of Maurice Jarre hours after the French composer's death March 28 — flew straight on to dozens of U.S. blogs and newspaper Web sites in Britain, Australia and India. They used the fabricated material, Fitzgerald said, even though administrators at the free online encyclopedia quickly caught the quote's lack of attribution and removed it, but not quickly enough to keep some journalists from cutting and pasting it first. A full month went by and nobody noticed the editorial fraud. So Fitzgerald told several media outlets in an e-mail and the corrections began. "I was really shocked at the results from the experiment," Fitzgerald, 22, said Monday in an interview a week after one newspaper at fault, The Guardian of Britain, became the first to admit its obituarist lifted material straight from Wikipedia. "I am 100 percent convinced that if I hadn't come forward, that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said, instead of something I made up," he said. "It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the media without challenge, it becomes fact." So far, The Guardian is the only publication to make a public mea culpa, while others have eliminated or amended their online obituaries without any reference to the original version — or in a few cases, still are citing Fitzgerald's florid prose weeks after he pointed out its true origin. "One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack," Fitzgerald's fake Jarre quote read. "Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head that only I can hear." Fitzgerald said one of his University College Dublin classes was exploring how quickly information was transmitted around the globe. His private concern was that, under pressure to produce news instantly, media outlets were increasingly relying on Internet sources — none more ubiquitous than the publicly edited Wikipedia. When he saw British 24-hour news channels reporting the death of the triple Oscar-winning composer, Fitzgerald sensed what he called "a golden opportunity" for an experiment on media use of Wikipedia. He said it took him less than 15 minutes to fabricate and place a quote calculated to appeal to obituary writers without distorting Jarre's actual life experiences. If anything, Fitzgerald said, he expected newspapers to avoid his quote because it had no link to a source — and even might trigger alarms as "too good to be true." But many blogs and several newspapers used the quotes at the start or finish of their obituaries. Wikipedia spokesman Jay Walsh said he appreciated the Dublin student's point, and said he agreed it was "distressing so see how quickly journalists would descend on that information without double-checking it." "We always tell people: If you see that quote on Wikipedia, find it somewhere else too. He's identified a flaw," Walsh said in a telephone interview from Wikipedia's San Francisco base. But Walsh said there were more responsible ways to measure journalists' use of Wikipedia than through well-timed sabotage of one of the site's 12 million listings. "Our network of volunteer editors do thankless work trying to provide the highest-quality information. They will be rightly perturbed and irritated about this," he said. Fitzgerald stressed that Wikipedia's system requiring about 1,500 volunteer "administrators" and the wider public to spot bogus additions did its job, removing the quote three times within minutes or hours. It was journalists eager for a quick, pithy quote that was the problem. He said the Guardian was the only publication to respond to him in detail and with remorse at its own editorial failing. Others, he said, treated him as a vandal. "The moral of this story is not that journalists should avoid Wikipedia, but that they shouldn't use information they find there if it can't be traced back to a reliable primary source," said the readers' editor at the Guardian, Siobhain Butterworth, in the May 4 column that revealed Fitzgerald as the quote author. Walsh said this was the first time to his knowledge that an academic researcher had placed false information on a Wikipedia listing specifically to test how the media would handle it.

bump

Couldn't agree more. This is entertainment, plain and simple. Just sit back have a cup of rum and enjoy the show. Like already stated, by others in this thread, I am just disappointed that it wasn't Pirate vs. Ninja! P.S. Hey, maybe next season they could have caveman vs. atomic armed B-29 bomber crew? Yea, up close I give the advantage to the club, but that nuclear weapon does give the air crew a certain edge, let's see what the computer says...

Is there a website for this event? The one from last year is not working.

Tis a sad thing ye be tellin us. Those are things we be happy to do to fer ye in yer absence. Fair winds, -Greydog

Wow, sounds like they'll still be warm. Can't wait to see them.

I am not sure Sir Elton's will to resist is as high as that found in other knights. I would imagine his best defense is to confuse the enemy with his crazy sunglasses. Then drop a piano on them. On the other hand, I do believe Sir Elton is very concerned about piracy of his work, ergo, a knight vs. a pirate is more correct than one would first imagaine.

I am not sure Sir Elton's will to resist is as high as that found in other knights.

The last "real" (as in knighted by the king) knight I worked with was in Bosnia and he was commanding a Leopard Tank. I'll give the edge to the knight in that case.

Thank you for letting us know you have a link with this episode. I look forward to seeing it. Does anybody we know get any screen time? Fair winds, -Greydog

By wielding Excalibur in combat your are now qualified to rule England. I suggest you dash a note off to the queen and tell her to get her butt out of Buckingham Palace post haste.

Originally designed as a carrier-based fighter, the Corsair's difficult handling and landing characteristics caused the Navy to rely on the Grumman Hellcat instead. The Marine Corps benefited from this policy change, and its land-based units eagerly adopted the "Bent-wing Bird." The famous Jolly Rogers, the Navy's VF-17, also flew the Corsair during its tour in the Solomons. Late in the war, as the handling problems were resolved, both Marine and Navy pilots operated F4U's from carrier decks. It was the British that tamed the Corsair and made it carrier capable, all by installing a 5 cent piece of wire to hold down a vent while landing. The US soon followed and Corsairs were deployed fleet wide. The Corsair first fighter plane of the US Navy to exceed 400 mph in level flight. No wonder the pirates in the 1500's were so hard to control in the Med. Think how having an aircraft gave the pirates an advantage!