Dutchman

darn double post.

beautiful picture of salty in the background.

being onboard when this incident occurred, all i can add is to watch out for pigs- they'll squeal on you every time!

checking in... dutch, grace, pern, h.m., ben safe home.

Jib, thats an interesting point that has been brought up before and there really is no 100% clear answer. sort of like where was black beard born and what was his real name? I know that Kevin Duffus frequently haunts the pub and upon occasion will chime in on Black Beard issues. He is the author of "The Last Days of Black Beard the Pirate" and puts a completely different perspective on his history. I'll be seeing him this weekend and ask him to post a brief run down on his thoughts of it, which makes a heck of a lot more sense than a 300 year old book that raises more questions than it answers. As best I can remember from Kevin, (i'm at work and it's been a while since I read it) the short of it is a relation of Beard lived next to or worked for him or a relation and it was a sympatheic gesture. Kevin lays out a pretty compelling argument for it, but then you have people who will argue against it basing their testimony on Johnsons book and nothing more. I would suggest looking at both possibilities with open eyes. *edit* the other possibility exists that they were ship mates together durring the wars, which could also tie him in with Sam Bellamy.

hey folks, below is a message running around on the ropemakers yahoo group involving a ships cable from the war of 1812. Interesting read but I had a hard time with the math. Anyhow, a bloody cable 25 inches around! .......................................... below is a reply from Des Pawsons ................ This great rope would almost certain to have been a Great Cable Laid Rope and whilst the usual length for a piece of rope would be 720ft 240 yards 120 fathoms it is likely that the cable would be between 100 & 110 fathoms authorities do tend to vary as to what the stand length would be . The rope used to make the cable would shorten when being laid up into cable . Checking in :- Anon: Tables of weight of each sort of Cordage made in the common mode and by machine in His Majesty's Ropeyards Navy Office [London ] 1821 a cable max length in the tables for common made is 102 fathoms 22 circ gives 90 fathoms 83cwts 2 qrs 14 lb 100 fathoms 92cwt 2qrs 16 lb and 102fathoms 94cwt 2 qrs 0lbs There are no ropes listed of 22inch circ only cable So if the weight is dead right I guess you could do the maths and work out exactly how long the Great Cable/Rope would be I have a fathom piece of the Anchor cable from the Victory 25 inch circ in our collection , and 2 very fit srong people( not me) can just about carry it and I would not want them to carry it far DES -----Original Message----- Subject: [ropemaking] THE GREAT ROPE Hi Folks, In the book, "The Great Rope", by Roesmary Nesbitt, it is described how during the War of 1812, the anchor rope for the frigate "Superior" was carried from Oswego to Sackets Harbor, throught the swamps. "The Great Rope was the main anchor cable for the "Superior", a frigate launched May 1, 1814 from Sackets Harbor under the command of Issac Chauncy. When armed, she was to carry 66 guns. The rope, under guard in Oswego, was 22 inches around and weighed 9,600 pounds. Although the rope traveled by boat most of the way, due to heavy fighting on Lake Ontario, the last leg of the trip was made over land on the backs of men." It states the ropes diameter and weight, but there is no mention of the length. I read somewhere that those anchor ropes were 720' long. Can any one of you learned folks substantioate this ?

http://www.wvec.com/news/local/POSITIVELY-HAMPTON-ROADS-BLACKBEARD-PIRATES-98026304.html

i love the lines of fifes. either hard workers or graceful ladies.... i've always enjoyed any article on the working boats of different areas. the herrring drifters remind me of the deadrises here on the Chesapeake, gotta love em.

it was pretty predictable. let me give you the highlights- jack sparrow, eye liner, rum, upcoming movie, mermaids, fountain of youth. actually, it was pretty well done for the two minutes they gave us. but i agree with gross, more content info would have been good.

"Bear in mind that the director of the Whydah exhibit is one of the foremost advocates of the "black men were free on pirate ships" argument... " do you mean Barry Clifford or the National Geo rep? I wonder if he ever saw this wood carving? *edit* not that a wood carving can be taken as gospel either http://pyracy.com/index.php?app=gallery&module=images&section=viewimage&img=3155 even better, I wonder....... nevermind. http://pyracy.com/index.php?app=gallery&module=images&section=viewimage&img=3156

there CROSS, i fixed it.

and that madpete is where baggy wrinkle comes in. Ideally you want to eliminate the chafe in the first place. why make work for yourself, but there are points where it can't be helped such as sheets on a foresail against staysor the upper parts of some sails against the shrouds. The shrouds as noted earlier are stiff and coarse- they will make rags of sails in quick order.For those areas we cover this entire operation with baggywrinkle which only goes on standing rigging, or permanent, non moving, bracing lines, as opposed to running rigging which moves such as halyards and sheets.

in addition to *edit* CROSS.. some would be kept made up and ready to go with the ends sometimes already finished with an eye splice or deadeye in place or sometimes laid open ready to splice the appropriate eye or block to it, but I'm not sure just how much would be on hand. as *edit* CROSS points out, its an ongoing process on board ship and there would more than likely always be some on hand made and ready to replace or in the process of replacing, its important to remember the ship is alive and is always in need of repairs. So maybe a month or two into a year long trip would find the crew making new, ready to replace quickly worn pieces. Some pieces might last two months others six maybe, depends on their placement and use. a served line is as flexible as steel cable so there is no coiling, you just lay it round and bind it together to keep it from tangling, like you would barbed wire. if a replacement needs to be run in fowl weather you run what ever you can to do the job and make it ship shape as soon as possible.

i don't have a piece in front of me, so please use your imagination as i can't get pictures. Natural fiber line corodes and rots in the sun and after exposeure to salt water and friction on board ship. So lets start at the beginning to waterproof and protect it. Take apiece of stranded line. we must first worm the line. this is done by filling the seams with spun wool or marline. If you have a three stranded line, you will have three balls of material spinning down the line filling the seams. Next we parcel the line. we bind strips of canvas around the line before we marl it. the canvas is wound around the line in the direction of the lay. the canvas is normally soaked in pine tar and linseed oil to water proof it and protect the line. Next a length of light cord is run down the length of the line to keep the parceling in place. Now comes the serving mallot. we next service, or serve, the line. we take marline or small stuff and wrap it around the parceled piece of line against the direction of the lay. the mallot is used as a fulcrum to tighten the small stuff as it goes around the line. If you look at adams mallot, it has a round channel. this channel rests against the line and the marline or thin stuff is wrapped around that numerous times to hold both the mallot and marline in place. normally we take a wrap or two around the handle for ease of control. for displays we obviously do it at ground level. onboard ship this is done on standing rigging under way- the ship never sleeps. Nighthawk, yes we do have a couple of boats we do this with. fortunately we are able to do this ashore then rig. I'll see about adding some pictures in a day or two. I used ashleys book of knots for the references. hope this helps.

no, were looking for historical articles. The shipwright takes care of the Luna updates and i normally do the event writeups.

we're going to use pictures of the latest events. we need to show some results of our work to keep interest up. written words don't show the custom house or the work on Luna. Depending on what surfaces over the next week, we may ad a center fold sheet or hold articles for the next issue in the fall. We only do a news letter, I can only imagine a magazine. fortunately, all i have to do is make sure its being done and proof it. just email me what you might have handy and well see what fits. lots of choices are good.

good morning ashley, it was great having you out with us the other week. head to the foundations web site- www.colonialseaport.org on the left side of the home page is a menu, towards the bottom is a section with the news letters in it. you'll see that sometimes the articles cover a wide range of topics, but as long as it can relate to colonial maritime we're good to go. cookie did a bit on food last time. our biggest constraint is space. 1/2 page articles tend to work out best, but a full pager sneaks in every now and then. also think seasonal, while christmas aboard ship may be a good topic, we may have to wait an issue to make it timely.

quiet you two.

ahoy folks, CSF produces a quarterly news letter and is in need of articles. The articles need not be long- 1/2 page typed is normal. We are looking for colonial maritime historical interests, sorry no fiction. We don't have resources to pay for articles, but a heart felt thank you and seeing your article in print would be something. I'll talk with the board and see about offering a membership for a year if we print your article. for an example of what we publish please visit http://www.colonialseaport.org/HORIZON-Spring10b.pdf thanks for looking. -dutch

well, its just gonna be a grand little family reunion now that robbie is coming. huzzah for us i guess. anyhow.. hey josephine, any chance you have any pictures of your queen anne adventure? i know a lot of us would love to see some.

got to live with that manikin for five months. the murel was much nicer to stand against when dressed as the captain himself. Thanks to sterlings handywork we were able to pull off a pretty good historical interpretation rather than what Nat'l Geo had put together. Now mr. cross portraying hedrick quintor... thats a whole different immage! a complete dead ringer. you would swear Nat'l Geo used him for the model. scary, twins 300 years apart... if thats what he actually looked like. Then there was young mr. merryweather being mistaken for john king in chicago. that picture is around somewhere- then we were able to pull it off again in Norfolk. "women, can't live with 'em- pass the beer nuts will ya cliff" -norm petterson