Pauline's Pirates & Privateers

Booty: Not Just a Job

2012-01-27T06:35:00.001-09:00

Of course sailing is one of Triple P’s favorite subjects. There is truly nothing as exhilarating as being aboard a ship with fair weather above, favorable wind in the sails and a following sea. If she’s chasing a prize, so much the better. It goes without saying that you all share that passion or you wouldn’t be here now. So when I saw that the Historical Seaport in Grays Harbor, Washington is offering the chance to sail aboard not one but two tall ships as a paid crew member, I figured I had no choice but to pass the news on to the Brethren.

The beautiful Lady Washington and her sister Hawaiian Chieftain are in need of a First Mate, and a cook. The First and Slushy would sail aboard both tall ships, participating in the frequent mock battles and pirate cruises that have made the ships so popular up and down the west coast of the U.S. Full details and how to apply are available here at the Historical Seaport’s blog.

Even if you don’t plan to apply, click over and follow the blog for updates on events and fundraisers, as well as beautiful pictures of these two wonderful ships. The Historic Seaport is keeping our seafaring heritage alive with a little help, I hasten to add, from our mates Blue Lou and the lovely Zane. That is something to cheer for.

Header: Fan photo by Bob Jensen via the Historical Seaport blog

Tools of the Trade: Point Her Rudder

2012-01-26T09:16:00.001-09:00

One of my favorite reference books on the Great Age of Sail is Richard Henry Dana, Jr.’s The Seaman’s Friend: A Treatise on Practical Seamanship. Though most people are familiar with Dana’s seminal work Two Years Before the Mast which is really required reading for anyone studying sailing in the first half of the 19th century, The Seaman’s Friend is a far more instructive piece. Full of everything from use of sails to ship’s articles to ways of making and tying rope and cable, the book is invaluable to researchers and writers alike. It stands to reason that when researching the appropriate use of rudders, I reached for Dana.

The rudder of a ship is, it goes without saying to the Brethren, the piece that directs her. Sizeable ships, usually of brig size or larger, worked their rudders through the use of a series of cables connected to a wheel. The famous picture of a ship’s gleaming wooden and brass wheel is iconic, but the icon in and of itself is often mistaken. Smaller vessels such as sloops, schooners and pirogues – those favored by pirates, privateers and smugglers – controlled their rudder through the use of the more straight forward tiller.

Dana’s take on the workings of a ship’s rudder is so pure in its description and no-nonsense in its language that my paraphrasing it would be criminal. Besides which, I can wrap my head around how a rudder works and use one without going astray but the intricacies of steering a sailing ship can be difficult to put on paper. Unless you happen to be a genius at such things, as Dana surely was. Here then, from Chapter 10 “General Principles of Working a Ship” in The Seaman’s Friend, a few paragraphs on the all important rudder:

A ship is acted upon principally by the rudder and sails. When the rudder is fore-and-aft, that is, on a line with the keel, the water runs by it, and it has no effect upon the ship’s direction. When it is changed from a right line to one side or the other, the water strikes against it, and forces the stern in an opposite direction. For instance, if the helm is put to the starboard, the rudder is put off the line of the keel, to port. This sends the stern off to starboard and, of course, the ship turning on her centre of gravity, her head goes in an opposite direction, to port. If the helm is put to port, the reverse will follow, and the ship’s head will turn off her course to starboard. Therefore the helm is always put in the opposite direction from that in which the ship’s head is to be moved.

Moving the rudder from a right line has the effect of deadening a ship’s way more or less, according as it is put at a greater or less angle with the keel. A ship should therefore be so balanced by her sails that a slight change of her helm may answer the purpose.

If a vessel is going astern, and the rudder is turned off from the line of the keel, the water, striking against the back of the rudder, pushes the stern off in the same direction in which the rudder is turned. For instance, if sternway is on her, and the helm is put to the starboard, the rudder turns to port, the water forces the stern in the same direction, and the ship’s head goes off to starboard. Therefore, when sternway is on the vessel, put the helm in the same direction in which the head is to be turned.

A current or tide running astern, that is when the ship’s head is toward it, will have the same effect on the rudder as if the ship were going ahead; and when it runs forward, it will be the same as thought the ship were going astern.

Sternway is, of course, the opposite of headway; an action whereby the ship is moving backwards instead of forwards. Thus the need to change the way in which the rudder is handled.

If you’ve an interest in Dana’s comprehensive work, The Seaman’s Friend is available online at the California Digital Library and in plain old cover-to-cover book form from Dover Publications.

Header: Cover of the 1997 addition of Richard Henry Dana Jr.’s The Seaman’s Friend

People: Fly in the Ointment

2012-01-25T09:56:00.001-09:00

Today's Golden Age pirate is famous, not for plunder, seamanship, or success, but because of his actions prior to his execution. He is mentioned briefly in Captain Johnson’s History of Pyrates, dwelled on at length in Marcus Rediker’s Villains of All Nations and written about by Cotton Mather. As is so often the case, we know next to nothing about William Fly’s background, but his death made a splash that resonates into our own time.

Fly, according to Johnson, was born to “very obscure parents” probably around the turn of the 17th to the 18th century. By 1726 he was bosun aboard Captain John Green’s brig Elizabeth headed out from New England for the coast of West Africa. Many who have written about Fly assume that Elizabeth was one of those ships involved in the so called “triangle trade” carrying rum to Africa where it would be traded for slaves. There is nothing specific in the record to confirm this, but it is certainly a possibility. What we do know for sure is that Elizabeth was involved in some sort of merchant endeavor and that Green did not run a happy ship.

Before the ship left for blue water to cross the Atlantic, Fly and his captain were butting heads. At his trial, and even before, Fly complained bitterly of the “bad usage” suffered under Captain Green by him and his mates. Fly’s comments are in line with the classic argument as to why merchant seamen turned pirate. Small crews, low wages, grueling schedules, unreasonable discipline, poor food and a host of other trials sent men over the edge to desertion, mutiny and even murder.

Fed up from virtually the start of Elizabeth’s cruise, William Fly organized a mutiny. One night in the spring of 1726, he and fellow crewman Alexander Mitchell pulled Captain Green out of his cot, dragged him up on deck and subjected him to a beating. When he was half-unconscious, they and others tossed Green over the ship’s side. Still prepared to fight for his life, Green caught part of the rigging and held on tight. One of the mutineers grabbed an ax, several of which would have been kept handy to cut away rigging in foul weather, and chopped off his captain’s hand. The first mate, Thomas Jenkins, followed the captain over the side. The final target of the men’s ire, an unnamed surgeon, was spared as “they might find him useful”. He was shackled in bilboes instead.

Fly was quickly chosen as the new captain of Elizabeth. He immediately changed her name to Fame’s Revenge and he and his men set out a-pirating. They took five prizes in all and each one appears to have been a poorly laden merchant. Fly made it his signature move to torture or in other ways punish the captains he took hostage. He notoriously whipped Captain John Fulker of the John & Hannah so viciously that the man nearly died.

It seems that William Fly was no more popular as captain than Green had been. A group of his men, possibly those pressed into service from prize vessels, rose up and took Fly’s ship. They turned it over to the authorities of Boston in June of 1726. Fly and a dozen of his crew were incarcerated and set to be tried for piracy and murder on the high seas.

At this point, the notorious Puritan minister Cotton Mather enters the picture. Sent by the judge in the case to exact confessions and guide penitence in the pirates, Mather ran into a man that he himself called “a most uncommon and amazing instance of impenitence and stupidity and what spectacles of obduration the wicked will be” in William Fly. Mather writes that, when confronted with the crimes of mutiny and murder, Fly would, no pun intended, fly into an uncontrollable rage. At one point the pirate ranted that he “… would not own myself guilty of any murder, our captain and his mate used us barbarously…” While Fly does not list specific actions, he laments that “… poor men can’t have justice done us…” no matter how badly they are treated by their nominal betters.

Fly continued his obduration straight up until his conviction and execution. While others convicted with him stood on the gallows and “preached” to the crowd – as Mather had hoped – the ills of drink and rebellion, Fly did exactly the opposite. He came to face death with a “smiling aspect” and eyed the crowd “unconcerned”.

Fly even went so far as to chastise the hangman for “not understanding his trade” and stepped forward to retie the noose with which he would be killed. He then addressed the crowd as he had Reverend Mather, saying frankly that he had “wronged no man”. He went on to say that he wanted those who commanded vessels to “… take warning by the fate of [our] captain… and to pay sailors their wages when due, and to treat them better”. It was an ominous warning from a man who had taken the ultimate step in eliminating his tormenter and was facing death because of it.

Some writers and historians, notably Rediker, have used Fly as an example of the underlying reason for piracy as a life pursuit. In this scenario, William Fly and his fellows stand as anti-heroes bucking the “barbarous” establishment. As this post at Executed Today puts it “… the radical doomed sphere of resistance pirates offered to the enormous cruelty of the developing Atlantic economy…” To my mind, this is overstating the case. From Barbary to the buccaneers, through the Golden Age and into the last days of the privateers, most of the men who went out seeking prizes on the high seas were no more freedom fighters than modern day drug dealers. They were in it for the simple reward of cash. While some men may have had good intentions, it is important to note that Fly’s short career as a sea captain turned out to be no more glorious than that of the commander he killed.

Fly’s body and those of his compatriots were gibbeted on the little island in Boston Harbor known as Nix’s Mate as a “warning to other seamen”. To this day, stories of strange lights around the island – particularly on summer nights – lead some to believe that his ghost still haunts the rocky outcropping. While that, too, is probably overstating the case it is a possibility worth imagining.

Header: Engraving from The Pirate's Own Book

Ships: Tragic Queen

2012-01-23T13:09:00.001-09:00

In the epic Greek poem The Aeneid, Queen Dido of Carthage is the tragic love of the hero Aeneas’ life. Dido’s name in Greek was Elissa and today’s focus is on the ship that shares her name, as well as an equally heart wrenching tragedy.

Elissa is a 620 ton three-masted barque who currently calls the port of Galveston in Texas home. She was built in Aberdeen, Scotland and launched in October of 1877, a fact that started out with sad potential. The beautiful merchant sailer was sent to sea just as steamships were coming into their own. Elissa, despite her swift running and fine lines, would never truly rule the waves.

She sailed under Scottish, Norwegian and Swedish colors until finally docking at a salvage yard in Greece where she was set for the scrappers. Through a minor miracle, she was discovered by the Galveston Historical Foundation who saw in her the type of ship that brought goods into their port from around the world. Galveston, of course, has a long history of piracy and privateering that began with Louis Aury and grew to illicit success under the mastery of the Laffite brothers. From the 1820s, Galveston became a haven for gambling and other forms a debauch; a reputation that led her to be christened “The Little Big Easy.” And throughout, ships like Elissa came and went and came back again.

The Historical Foundation purchased her for $40,000 in1975 and did extensive refitting, particularly on her iron and steel hull. Masts of Oregon pine replaced her old timbers, sails were shipped in from Maine and her teak and fir deck and gunnels were lovingly restored. She was re-launched in 1982 and has since become a National Historic Landmark. She is the “official” tall ship of Galveston and is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

Elissa is inspected by the Coast Guard every two and a half years for seaworthiness. Her last inspection in the summer of 2011 turned up a heartbreaking surprise. Her hull was rotten and so close to rotting through that the Coast Guard declared her unseaworthy. Since Elissa is maintained on donations by volunteers, the $3 million dollars to repair her hull is a staggering expense that is not readily obtainable out of hand. As this article from the Houston Chronicle notes, the Texas Seaport Museum immediately began fundraising. The hope is to have Elissa back in sailing form this year.

Of course, tragedy is unavoidable and is part and parcel of the long history of the sea. Triple P will keep the wish for Elissa’s full recovery close to our hearts, and keep the Brethren informed as her journey continues.

Header: Elissa by Don Scafidi via her official website

Seafaring Sunday: Falkland Crisis

2012-01-22T11:44:00.000-09:00

January 22, 1771: After what would come to be known as the Falkland Crisis, a stand off between Spain and Britain over the tiny islands off the coast of Argentina, Spain cedes the islands to Britain. The Falklands, originally claimed by France, would eventually become part of the independent country of Argentina, but not without another crisis involving Britain.

Header: Edward Hawke, the First Lord of the Admiralty who sent the Royal Navy to the Falklands against Spain, via Military Photos (note: this site has some pictures that may not be suitable for all ages and/or sensibilities; go ask your parents before you click, kids)

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Furl

2012-01-21T14:50:00.001-09:00

When we use words like furl, furling or unfurl, we generally think of a flag or flags. While flags were unfurled at sea – although far less frequently than in the popular imagination – these words refer more often to controlling the bounty of a ship’s fair sails.

To furl is to roll and tie a sail evenly on its yard. This is a far more treacherous occupation in high winds than one might imagine, as more than one scene in well done movies (Captain Blood, Master and Commander etc.) has shown. In such cases, when dirty weather is current or threatening, the men are often set to what is called furling. Here, the sail is rolled close to its yard or stay by hauling on the lines. A cord is then wound over the full length of the rolled sail keeping it even more secure.

For furling, the line used was known as a furling-line from at least the 16th century. By the late 18th century, it was more commonly referred to as a gasket or en Français garcette (a word which is, curiously, feminine). This is a long, flat cord the use of which Admiral Smyth discusses in The Sailor’s Word Book thus:

In bad weather, with a weak crew, the top-sail is brought under control by passing the top-mast studding sail halliards round and round all, from the yard-arm to the bunt; then furling is less dangerous.

Obviously, the ship is dealing with very extreme weather in such a case. It is important to note that by using the word “weak”, the Admiral is indicating a ship short on able hands.

Conversely, furling in a body is a way of storing topsails used only in port. This is done by gathering the loose parts of the sails into the top of their respective masts. This is the opposite, essentially, of common furling or “furling in the bunt” done at sea. When sails have been furled in a body they can be covered with tarps and essentially stored in situ, thus keeping them free from vermin and molds.

So ends another etymological foray. May your furling be only common and in fair winds, Brethren. Happy Saturday to you and your mates!

Header: Engraving of hands furling sails via Cindy Vallar’s History of Maritime Piracy

Booty: A Curious Coastline

2012-01-20T08:11:00.001-09:00

I have a fascination for old charts and maps of coastal areas, which is probably no surprise to any of the Brethren. When long-time Triple P supporter Dwight sent me this brief article from io9, I thought it worth looking into and subsequently well worth sharing. Particularly since what you are looking at is intended to represent my home state, Alaska, and much or the Pacific Northwest.

The above map is from French philosphe Denis Diderot’s 1772 masterwork, the Encyclopedie. Diderot was one of the founding thinkers of the Enlightenment, a thorn in the Catholic Church’s side and a general Renaissance man. His Encyclopedie is available here online.

The enormous work included maps from all around the world, including this one which over at Frank Jacobs’ Strange Maps blog calls an “eclectic mix of geographic fact and fiction.” As Jacobs notes, the soft edged portions of coastline are a cartographer’s code for areas that have not yet been subjected to the arduous and in that era dangerous process of sounding. In such cases, a ship or ships had not yet been sent to the area to sail the coastlines and document each inlet, bay and islet over a course of months or even years. The mapmaker was simply giving his best guesstimate based on the rest of the known world.

This particular map differs from others of its era that were simply place keepers until further exploration could be done in that it identifies and charts a much wished for but mythological river, of sorts. If you click the picture to enlarge (or go to the hi-res link in the io9 article) you will note the strait that exits the Baye d’Hudson and flows into the Pacific with an outlet just above the word Amerique. That is what was known then as the Strait of Anian and would later be called the Northwest Passage. Clearly the mapmaker was perpetuating a fable that could never – and would never – be charted because it did not exist.

For all his genius, poor Diderot unknowingly perpetuated a scam that would lead to the unfortunate and unnecessary deaths of hundreds of men before Europeans finally gave up the search in the mid-19th century. As funny as this “half-baked Alaska” is, there is a bit of tragedy behind it as well.

Header: Pacific Coast map from Diderot’s Encyclopedie c 1772

Tools of the Trade: Barometer Basics

2012-01-18T09:13:00.000-09:00

Barometers were an important part of keeping track of weather aboard ship in the days before international GPS and other forecasters of potential trouble. When I was young, we had a barometer that as it turns out was more about looks than function. It hung nicely on the off-white walls of what ever house or apartment we happened to be occupying, three clock-like faces announcing simple weather events like “Rain”, “Sun”, “Winds” or “Change”. Little did I know how effectively useless that wood-and-brass showpiece was.

Working barometers tend to look more like thermometers than clocks, with the liquid mercury falling or rising according to the effects of wind or humidity; or both. As Peter H. Spectre wisely notes in A Mariner’s Miscellany, the words and even the number the hand on modern, decorative barometers is pointing to should be ignored all together. “What you are interested in is the rate and direction of change in the barometer readings.”

Here, then, is a by no means all inclusive list of the general changes one might see in a functional barometer and what they indicate:

When the barometer rises, keep these factors in mind: a rise with southerly winds is a sign of fine weather. If the rise comes with winds from the north, note the air and temperature; dry, cold air will portend better weather on the way, particularly in summer, while humid air with cool temperatures is a sign of windy rain. A gradual rise in the barometer usually means the weather will stay steady; a rapid rise means change – and possibly lots of it – on the way.

For a falling barometer, the same types of modifiers apply. Increased humidity and heat is a good indicator of weather coming up from the south. If in the cooler months the air is dry and cold when the barometer falls, snow is on the way. A falling barometer after a lengthy calm spells rain and possible gales, particularly if the air is warm. If the winds are from the north as the barometer falls, plan on rain or hail in the summer, and snow or sleet in the winter. A rapidly falling barometer is a sure sign of a storm.

When the barometer is steady, fair weather can usually be counted on; this in particular if the air temperature is appropriate for the latitude and season.

Keep in mind that all wind directions are for the Northern Hemisphere, and should be reversed when in the Southern.

As noted, these are simply a few points to keep in mind. For more in depth information about seafaring tools and the nautical life in general, Spectre’s book (and his annual Book of Days series) is an invaluable resource.

Header: Weymouth Bay by John Constable c 1817

Women at Sea: Whaling Wife

2012-01-17T10:10:00.000-09:00

Plundering the sea of its bounty is something humans have always been good at, and one of the high – or low depending on your perspective – points of such enterprise was the British and American whaling fleets of the 19th century. In a factory-like process that was both arduous and deadly, men harvested whales in the Great South Sea for oil and baleen. Occasionally, women were aboard these ships to. Sometimes they were disguised as men, like Georgiana Leonard aka George Weldon. Other times they were on board as the “decent” wives of officers, most usually captains.

Such was the case with Mary Brewster, who sailed aboard her husband’s whaling vessel Tiger and kept a journal of her adventures between 1845 and 1851. Her voice is resonant even these many years later as she speaks, in the most ladylike manner, of weather, food and her worries for her husband, his ship and the crew. Today, an excerpt from the page of Mrs. Brewster’s journal dated January 22, 1846:

Great excitement on board during the forenoon. Some one raised a sunfish. It being calm a boat was lowered to strike it. The succeeded in killing and after much labor got it to the ship. The shape is more round than other ways which makes hard towing, going round more than advancing. The boat got alongside with it and it being good size all hands was called to help get it over the ship sides. Such a time and noise. Had it been a whale they could not have appeared more elated. It was not all taken. Part of it was cut off and threw overboard. The part which came in I saw and it looked very little like a fish. We had some of it cooked for supper. I took a piece as I wish to know how good it was in taste. It resembled our lobsters. The meat is very white but coarse. Had I never seen the fish perhaps it would have tasted better, but seeing it was sufficient to produce contrary feelings. The oil of the liver is said to be good for Rhumatism.

The sunfish in question was probably of the type known as mola mola or ocean sunfish. It is, as you can see here, not the most attractive creature and certainly something Mrs. Brewster had not had prior contact with.

If you are curious about Mary Brewster and her fascinating journals, which we will revisit from time to time, Joan Druett’s book on the subject is available online.

Header: Daguerreotype of Mary Brewster via the Mystic Seaport Historical Society

Seafaring Sunday: Cape St. Vincent

2012-01-15T11:17:00.000-09:00

January 16, 1780: A Royal Navy fleet under Admiral George Rodney defeated a Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, Portugal.

Header: The Battle of Cape St. Vincent by Francis Holman c 1780

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Sound

2012-01-14T12:19:00.000-09:00

Today's word, as it relates to the sea and seafaring, comes from and Anglo-Saxon root: sund. This, according to Webster’s, is also the root of our word meaning healthy, as in sound mind and body. Apparently the word had two either separate or interchangeable meanings for the Anglo-Saxon. One was, as noted, healthy, and the other was swimming or – more specifically – a place to swim. Perhaps for our far northern ancestors, health and swimming were so closely linked as to be easily identified with one word.

A sound is a body of water with three sides bordered by land and the fourth fed by the sea. Another less frequent definition is a deep bay skirted by reefs or banks. For the most part, a sound will be composed of salt water and have different levels of bottom from shallow to deep. This makes the sounds around any large land mass perfect for taking soundings.

Sounding is the physical process used to determine the depth of the sea at any given point or points. This was done in routinely by use of a lead line which would be dropped overboard to the bottom of the ocean, inlet, sound and so on, if possible. Tallow would be stuck to the lead in order to determine the makeup of the sea floor, this being considered also part of the sounding. Thus these bits of bottom, whether sand, shell, ooze, etc. are sometimes referred to as soundings.

To be in soundings, a ship would be close enough to land that the lead would consistently touch the bottom. As The Sailor’s Word Book notes, deep-sea leads may touch bottom at surprising depth so being in soundings was understood colloquially to refer to sailing in water with a depth of 80 to 100 fathoms or less.

Along those lines, places in the blue ocean where the deep-sea lead could not find the bottom were referred to as soundless. These were places that our ancestors imagined to be “bottomless” as they had no knowledge of the vast canyons that lurked below the hulls of their wooden worlds. Or, for that matter, the creepy creatures that inhabit such eternal darkness; beyond be monsters, indeed.

The sounding line, along with its attached lead (pronounced “led”), is a very ancient tool. The Romans used it before the Empire; the Anglo-Saxons called it a sund-gyrd.

A similar tool, for use exclusively aboard ship, is a sounding rod. This was an iron rod with markings of feet and inches which was let down into the bilge or well of a ship via a groove in the pump. The result was a measurement of standing water in the well, from which a decision could be made about manning the pump.

In whaling, the term sounding was also used to indicate the vertical dive of a whale after it was struck. The assumption was that the whale would strike bottom – probably rarely the case in fact – and that such a dive would let out approximately four coils or 2,000 feet of the whale-line attached to the harpoon.

I hope this Saturday finds you and yours sound, Brethren. Enjoy, and a mug of grog to one and all!

Header: Moonlight by J.M.W. Turner c 1797

Booty: For Sale: One Pirate Ship

2012-01-13T08:57:00.000-09:00

If you’re like me, you have dreamed of owning, and in particular sailing, a fully-rigged, accurate-to-every-detail replica of your favorite pirate ship. Some may wish for Drake’s Golden Hinde, others might long for Black Bart Roberts’ Revenge, Sam Bellamy’s Whydah or Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge. Or is a privateer more to your liking; John Paul Jones’ Bonhomme Richard, or a handsome frigate like the dear Surprise perhaps? For me the dream will always be Renato Beluche’s brig General Bolivar, the quintessential Gulf privateer.

Dreams like this are a wonderful way to pass a quiet moment but, for most of us at least, they will remain as formless as the ether. For those of you who are in all seriousness, though, there is a ship in the style of Henry Morgan’s Oxford currently available for sale.

As this listing at Maritime Sales online indicates, the ship is a 90 foot, Santa Maria style galleon complete with kitchen, bathrooms, electricity and a diesel engine. It is outfitted as our seafaring ancestors could never have imagined. Her commission is out of Honduras and according to the listing she can comfortably float 78 hands; pirates not included.

Clearly this is the ultimate fantasy. Her lines are unfortunately wide and her below decks look more like a summer camp cabin than a proper place to hang a cot. I’d hate to be in one of those beds in a high sea; in fact, I’m sure no one would be in them for long. But that’s not the point. This is like owning a floating bed and breakfast, and it can all be yours for the reduced price of $750,000 U.S.

Something to contemplate on this, the first of three Friday 13s in 2012.

Header: Pirate ship via maritimesales.com (click the link above for more pictures)

Ships: USS Anchorage

2012-01-12T09:12:00.000-09:00

As the Brethren are aware, Triple P rarely dwells on the modern aspects of ships and shipping. There is so much rich history to be explored that it would be a maddening preoccupation to try to keep up with modern navies around the world, especially since none of the big ones are privateering anymore. Once in a while, though, a story of our times will catch my eye and I want to share it with you all. In today’s case, the story merges where I currently live, my ancestral home, and my family’s naval lineage. Now that’s worth investigating!

In May of last year the San Antonio-class amphibious transport U.S. Navy vessel Anchorage was launched at Ingall’s Shipbuilding Avondale Shipyard in New Orleans, Louisiana where she was built. Christened for the largest city in the state of Alaska, she is the second United States Ship to bare the name. The original was launched in 1966 and decommissioned in 2003 after 19 deployments including service in Operation Enduring Freedom.

The new ship, no doubt due to her name, caught the attention of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski (to whom I owe thanks for the use of the photo at the header). The Senator wisely saw an opportunity to welcome the Navy, absent in our state since the closing of the Adak Naval Air Station in the ‘90s, back to Alaska. She wrote to Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus and, as Alaska Business Monthly online puts it, “encourag[ed] him to have the Navy commission USS Anchorage… in Anchorage once it completes its sea trials." From Senator Murkowski’s letter:

Alaskan hospitality is legendary. It is well known through the Armed Forces that no people support our men and women in uniform more enthusiastically than the people of Alaska. … the commissioning ceremony presents the Navy with an important opportunity to reintroduce itself to the people of Alaska. … we remain hopeful that we will be able to welcome the Navy back to Alaska as the U.S. presence in the Arctic develops.

On January 9, Senator Murkowski and her counterpart, Senator Mark Begich, announced that USS Anchorage will be commissioned in its namesake city. The ship is set to arrived in early fall with the commissioning to take place in September or October.

For me, this event is a wonderful full circle of serendipity. From New Orleans to Anchorage comes the ship, via a very round about course no doubt, just like me. She comes all the way from a place that embraces its seafaring history and military presence to another that does the same. It’s thrilling to imagine; I can’t wait to see her in all her glory right here in her adoptive hometown. Thanks go out to the First Mate, by the way, for the ahoy on this story; and if this post seems vaguely self-indulgent, perhaps it is. Yesterday’s was Triple P’s 800th post, and that seems worth a bit of indulgence to me.

For more information on Avondale Shipyard, recently purchased by Ingall’s Shipbuilding, click here.

Header: USS Anchorage via Alaska Business Monthly

People: "A Blood-thirste Piratte"

2012-01-11T09:33:00.001-09:00

Spanish pirates are not often heard of in the record of the Golden Age. Though Spanish buccaneers were not uncommon, with most of them preying on their foreign Brethren rather than merchants of other countries, they seem to have become almost extinct after the turn of the 18th century. Of course this is probably a simple issue of record; certainly there were as many Spaniards who went a-pirating as men from any other nation. Most freebooters, it must be remembered, slipped into oblivion as far as history is concerned. We can’t all grow up to be Blackbeard.

That is why one brief entry in Philip Gosse’s The Pirate’s Who’s Who is so very tantalizing. The two paragraphs tell the story of the probable grisly demise of a Spanish “piratte” named Antonio Mendoza, and reading the purported original record can lead to some curious speculations on why and when a man might be branded a villain of the waves.

Mendoza is said to be from the island of Hispaniola. There is no reference to ships or a history of freebooting, but only a paragraph from “a very interesting document” which Gosse claims was discovered on the island of St. Kitts by Alpheus Hyatt Verrill.

Verrill was an adventurer, naturalist, explorer and author, among other things, who wrote extensively in genres from anthropology to science fiction. He was also involved in a number of archaeological digs in the Caribbean. Theodore Roosevelt once said that it was “… my friend Verrill here, who really put the West Indies on the map.” While many who came before might disagree with Teddy, Verrill’s experiences certainly make him a creditable source for the information Gosse offers.

That information is in the form of an English indictment against one Antonio Mendoza from the year 1701. It reads as follows (note that the English here is updated to the best of my ability for the convenience of the reader; should you care to read “ye olde originalle”, Gosse’s book is available online here).

An assize and general gaol delivery held at St. Christophers Colony from the nineteenth day of May to the 22nd day of the same month 1701 Captain Josias Pendringhame Magistrate etc. The jury of our Sovereign Lord the King do present Antonio Mendoza of Hispaniola and a subject of the King of Spain for that the said on or about the 11 day of April 1701 feloniously deliberately and maliciously and in contrary to the laws of Almighty God and our Sovereign Lord the King did in his cups saucily and arrogantly speak of the Governor and Lord the King and by force and arms into the tavern of John Wilkes Esq. did enter and there did horrible swear and curse and did feloniously use threatening words and did strike and cut most murderously several subjects of our Sovereign Lord the King. Of which indictment he pleads not guilty but one present Master Samuel Dunscombe mariner did swear that said Antonio Mendoza was of his knowledge a bloodthirsty pirate and guilty of diabolical practices and the Grand Inquest finding it true bill to be tried by God and the Country which brings a jury of 12 men sworn find him guilty and for the same he be adjudged to be carried to the Fort Prison to have both his ears cut close by his head and be burned through the tongue with a hot iron and to be cast chained in the dungeon to await the pleasure of God and Our Sovereign Lord the King.

It is curious, or telling, that at no point in the indictment is Mendoza himself referred to as a seaman. It is only the testimony of “Samuel Dunscombe mariner” that puts Mendoza plundering on the high seas. Aside from that, the Spaniard’s only crimes appear to be drunkenness, ill-advised language and a bar fight. The question that arises, at least for me, is how many men “in their cups” were fingered as pirates so that the law could take them in hand and subject them to what can only be called ghastly torture?

What became of Antonio Mendoza of Hispaniola is lost to history. It is not hard to imagine his possible death in the dungeon at Fort Prison, however. One hopes that it was quick given what he had to suffer beforehand.

Header: Brimstone Hill Fortress on St. Kitts via Wikipedia

Home Ports: At the Lizard

2012-01-09T09:07:00.000-09:00

The rocky coast of Cornwall in Britain is pitted with inlets and harbors tailor made for piratical activity. None, it seems, more so than the harbor known as Falmouth at whose entrance stands the rock called the Lizard.

The name “lizard” is most probably a corruption of the original Cornish name for the place Lys Ardh which may mean “high court” or “old court”. The rock now has a lighthouse upon it which is absolutely necessary given the surrounding coastline. The over a mile stretch known as the Manacles sits beyond the Lizard. Here hull-tearing rocks lurk just below the water, and horrible tidal shifts make it impossible for a ship, once caught in the jaws of the Manacles, to set itself free. Shipwrecks causing the loss of hundreds of lives have been documented in this area since before the 18th century.

Given these awkward conditions, one might imagine that the boom in smuggling that began during the reign of Henry VIII would have avoided Falmouth. Just the opposite was the case. In the last half of the 16th century the Killigrew family, led by Sir John who was hereditary governor of the county of Pendennis, began a lucrative smuggling business that included the taking of both foreign and domestic merchant ships. Sir John’s wife, Mary, got so deep into the less gentile aspects of piracy that she may have committed murder in an effort to take a prize. She spent over two years in prison on this charge before her son, the second Sir John, successfully petitioned Elizabeth I for his mother’s freedom.

The freebooting at Pendennis settled down for a while but, after Mary’s death in 1617, Sir John the Younger seems to have gotten back into the family business. In 1619, at the expense of lesser nobles in thrall to him, Sir John erected the first light at the Lizard. Ostensibly an altruistic offering to help ships avoid the rock itself and the Manacles beyond, local gossip said the governor had erected the light to lure ships into Falmouth where he could then plunder them at will. There is no documentation that such was the case, however. Unlike his mother, Sir John was never brought up on charges. Either he was on the up and up, or he was slyer than she.

The entire enterprise fell apart when King James I, always hungry for cash, informed Sir John that he would confiscate the light for Britain and begin charging vessels to pass it. Sir John, rather than turn his clearly profitable light over to the feds, demolished it instead. James reaction to this is open to speculation but another lighthouse was not erected until1751 by then governor of Pendennis Thomas Fonnereau.

This light still stands at the Lizard, virtually unchanged from the time of its erection. The Lizard’s brief brush with piracy came and went but the light initially put up by Sir John Killigrew continues to shepherd ships around and away from the heinous jaws of the Manacles off Britain’s Cornwall.

Header: Lizard Point, Cornwall via Wikipedia

Seafaring Sunday: On Battery Number 3

2012-01-08T00:19:00.000-09:00

... artillery could be decisive, and the Baratarians manning Battery Number 3 with their three cannon could speak with a voice far greater than their numbers.

Indeed they did. On January 8 the British launched their attack, and almost from the first it became apparent that everything was against them. Dense fog obscured their view of the Americans in their works behind the canal, while Jackson's artillery poured salvos into the mist and the British ranks. Mismanagement at high levels exacerbated the Redcoats' problems, as did the fall of several high-ranking officers, including the British commanding general. The enemy never even reached the American line, only a few men gaining the canal before being cut down or pushed back. Within half an hour, two-thirds of the three thousand soldiers who began the attack had been killed or injured. Though skirmishing continued for some hours afterward, the battle was over, and the Baratarian gunners had played an important role in breaking up the assault, with Dominique taking a second wound and Gambi shedding his blood as well.

~ from The Pirates Laffite by William C. Davis

Header: The Battle of New Orleans via Haysville Community Library

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Elevate

2012-01-07T15:25:00.000-09:00

Generally speaking when using today’s word, a seaman is referring to the “great guns” aboard his ship. In navies around the world during the Great Age of Sail, exercising the gun crews was habitual among captains who were obsessed with not just accuracy but even more so timing. The faster guns could fire, reload and fire again the more likely a ship was to attain victory in a firefight. The Brethren will remember that very well done scene in Master and Commander where Jack Aubrey, if nothing else a fighting captain, is working his gun crews to the limit; and how well it pays off.

According to Webster, the word comes from three Latin roots. Elevatus, meaning to raise or lift up, and levare, to make light, or levis, light. This will become an important point as we go along; bear with me.

First, a few meanings not related to artillery. The elevated pole is either the terrestrial pole north or south, depending on the perspective of the individual or ship. In all cases, the elevated pole is the one which appears above the horizon. In ship building, an elevation is the vertical and longitudinal view of a vessel. This is the same as a sheer draught; the part of the design concerning height and length.

In gunnery, the angle of elevation is elegantly explained by the dear Admiral Smyth:

… that which the axis of the bore makes with the plane of the horizon. It is attained by sinking the breech of the gun until its axis points above the object to be fired at, so that the shot may describe a curve somewhat similar to a parabola, counteracting the action of gravity during its flight, and alighting upon the mark.

This is a little bit of physics at which truly gifted artillerists, like our old friend Dominique Youx, excel. It is also the same principle that allows another truly gifted adoptive son of New Orleans to complete a pass with such accuracy and elegance.

Finally, the order “Elevate!” is an artillery call signaling the gun crew to adjust the quoin of their weapon, not just up necessarily but perhaps down depending on the need. This may speak to the Latin root word levare, to make light; repositioning the quoin is sometimes said to “lighten” it, thus the possible reference. Given tomorrow’s auspicious anniversary, I feel compelled to note that many an historian has referred to Andrew Jackson’s “malapropism” at the Battle of New Orleans when he called out: “Elevate them cannons a little lower!” This was, in fact, no goofy error on the part of the General, but an absolutely correct artillery order. Aside from grammar, which one imagines was the last of Old Hickory’s worries at the time, Jackson’s order was perfectly understandable to every gun crew within earshot.

Happy Saturday, Brethren; and Geaux Saints!

Header: The Battle of New Orleans by E. Percy Moran c 1910 via Library of Congress

Booty: Laffite's House

2012-01-06T09:25:00.002-09:00

New Orleans is alive with legends of past glory. Embelishing the truth is an old Creole talent, so why not spice things up with a few extra – if patently untrue – details? These stories are just one of the many charms of La Nouvelle Orleans. In that vein, and speaking of the Laffite brothers as we were yesterday, here is another interesting point of legend vs. reality.

Of all the places that claim a Laffite connection, from those of ancient origin (Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop) to those that have jumped on the bandwagon more recently (“Jean Lafitte’s” Old Absinthe House) only one, it seems, has a legitimate, historical claim. That is the three story Creole town house located at 1003 Bourbon Street and now known as Lafitte Guest House.

The building is mentioned briefly in the 1936 publication Walking Tours of Old New Orleans by Stanley Clisby Arthur. He states that the current building (pictured above) was built by P. J. Gleisses in 1849; a “comparatively recent construction”, Arthur notes. It is now split up into 14 elegantly furnished guest rooms and, according to Lonely Planet, will run you from $190 per night including breakfast. Find more information at the Guest House website.

Given that the house itself was built in the mid-19th century, it seems a Laffite association would be tenuous at best, but in fact looks can be deceiving. According to endnote number 37 to Chapter 14 of William C. Davis’ The Pirates Laffite, the lot has an impeccable bond to both of the brothers. From the book:

… where today stands the Lafitte Guest House at 1003 Bourbon Street, Laffite residence is confirmed by Marie [Louise} Villard’s August 16, 1816 purchase. The association of the Laffites with her and the property, even if one does not assume that Pierre bought it for her in their placage arrangement, is confirmed three years later after she sold and then repurchased it in 1819, paying in part with a promissory note guaranteed by Jean Laffite…

As Davis notes Marie Louise “Louison”, a quadroon in a placage living arrangement with Pierre Laffite and mother of seven of his children, had a sibling, Catherine “Catiche” Villard. Catherine lived with her sister – possibly at this location – when she gave birth to Jean Laffite’s son Jean Pierre in 1816. None of the other so-called “Lafitte” locations have anywhere near that kind of authentic pedigree.

As a curious aside the Guest House is said to be haunted by a little girl who died of yellow fever there some time in the late 19th century. The girl is known to locals as “Marie”.

The hotel was put up for sale in 2009 and I could not find any information about whether or not it has a new owner as yet. If anyone knows anything more, please leave a comment s’il vous plait.

On a final tenuously related note, today marks the anniversary of the birth of Saint Jeanne d’Arc, the Maid of Orleans. May she smile on the New as well as the original.

Header: Modern photo of Lafitte Guest House via their website

History: The Battle of New Orleans and the Brothers Laffite

2012-01-05T09:24:00.002-09:00

Sunday marks the 197th anniversary of the decisive battle fought on Chalmette plain that ended the War of 1812. We refer to the Battle of New Orleans as occurring on January 8, but in fact skirmishes, feints and brutal gore took place for almost a three week period beginning before December 21 and ending with a definitive surrender by the British on or around January 15. Unfortunately, most people today believe that the Battle of New Orleans was a futile waste of life, the Treaty of Ghent having been “signed” on December 24. As we’ve discussed before, the Treaty was not ratified by the U.S. Congress until after January 8. This was due to a clause ante bellum in the Treaty that would cede all territory occupied by the British on or after December 24th to their sovereignty. This included the areas in and around New Orleans.

But that piece of misinformation is just one of the many puzzling things to come out of one of America’s most easily forgotten “darkest hours”. So let’s pick another one to examine, and let’s keep it close to our seafaring hearts. May I suggest where the heck Pierre and Jean Laffite were over the course of those fateful three plus weeks?

At the Centennial of the battle, it was popular to attribute much of the victory to the combined efforts of one brilliant General and a rag-tag, polyglot group of local Louisianans, volunteers from Kentucky and Tennessee, enslaved and free blacks and, of course, pirates. The seamen of Barataria as a group and the Laffite brothers in particular were singled out as one of the most influential reasons for the victory. At that time, as was the case only a few years after the war, “the Laffite brothers” was translated in popular culture and imagination as “Jean Laffite.” The tide has turned now, with modern historians claiming that the Baratarians had little if any impact at Chalmette plain – William C. Davis, for instance, claims that only two percent of Jackson’s forces were actual Baratarians – and the brothers who commanded them had even less. I would argue that the truth is somewhere in between these two radically different opinions. But let us first examine what the experts have to say.

Lyle Saxon, who’s Lafitte the Pirate was first published in the late 1920s, is certainly the least reliable of our sources. His book is more storytelling than history and, although it is a wonderful read, it is full of the myths and legends about the Laffites – and Jean in particular – that are now so engrained in the popular imagination that they have become de-facto facts. Even so, his only comment on what the Laffites were up to amounts to no more than a paragraph explaining that “Pierre Lafitte was given a position of trust on [January 8]…” and Jean was in the Gulf, guarding against a “rear attack”. He goes on to defend Jean against the label of evading service, but he has nothing further to say on the matter.

In The Baratarians and the Battle of New Orleans, masterful historian Jane Lucas deGrummond argues that – as her title implies – those pirates from Grande Terre were a big part of Andrew Jackson’s victory on Rodriguez Canal. DeGrummond was a more than capable researcher who sighted sources religiously and argued with a very convincing voice. Still, in the thirty plus pages devoted to the three weeks of battle, she has nothing to say about any contribution made by the Laffites aside from them providing a significant amount of flints, shot and gunpowder to the effort.

Next we have Jack C. Ramsay, Jr. In Jean Laffite, Prince of Pirates, he devotes a full chapter to the Battle of New Orleans. Though his overview lacks the detail of deGrummond’s, it is concise enough. This makes the omission of any specific action by the Laffite brothers during the fighting particularly glaring. He brings them back to the fore of his narrative only at the end of the chapter, noting that General Jackson praised their “courage and fidelity” in his famous speech on January 21.

The definitive modern work on the Laffite brothers is William C. Davis’ The Pirates Laffite, and Davis puts a new spin on what the siblings were up to at Chalmette. The entire book, well researched and documented to be sure, is skewed toward Pierre. Davis is not an apologist but a sympathizer; he is clearly trying to return Pierre’s memory to our consciousness, it having been overshadowed by Jean’s for almost 200 years. It is a commendable endeavor to be sure but it has a fatal flaw: wherever there is ambiguity in the record as to which Laffite a document or memoire is referring to, Davis gives the nod to Pierre.

So it is that Davis presents us with Pierre not only as close, personal advisor to Andrew Jackson but as tracker for General John Coffee in the swamp beyond Rodriguez Canal. Late in the battle of January 8 he is a commander of men, sent with General Humbert to assist General Daniel Morgan on the west bank of the Mississippi. Pierre even delivers a speech to Morgan’s men, penned by Jackson himself. Meanwhile Jean, whose mission to General Reynolds at Little Lake Barataria is well documented by orders written in Jackson’s hand, is skulking around Grande Terre and presumably up to no good. Davis mentions that Jackson’s orders of December 22 required Jean to return to Chalmette as quickly as possible but then seems to toss that fact out the window. Like the proverbial baby with the bath water, he throws Jean back into the ignominy of evading service that Saxon once argued so vehemently against.

What then is the truth of the matter? Were the Baratarians a help or a hindrance, or of no consequence at all? And what of their leaders, the men who spelled their last name differently than any other “Lafitte” in Louisiana? As I said early, the truth must be somewhere in the middle.

The Baratarians were most effectual as artillerists, on Battery Number 3 in particular. These two twenty-four pound guns, commanded by Renato Beluche and Dominique Youx, were the bane of the British throughout the fighting. Also, most of the sailors aboard Commodore Patterson’s frigates Carolina and Louisiana were Baratarians; both ships bombarded British encampments on Chalmette with great success. The brothers themselves, aside from providing men and material, were certainly put to active duty if not directly on the line or aboard ship. Were the Laffite brothers heroes? Oh no. Were they at the battle with men they knew and called “brother”? Most definitely. Anything more specific than that is open to interpretation.

Header: Fredric March as Jean Laffite in The Buccaneer c 1938

Tools of the Trade: Seabird Messengers

2012-01-03T08:46:00.000-09:00

Something we rarely hear about in the history of seafaring is the use of birds as carriers of information from ship to ship and from ship to shore. More people are familiar with the heroic actions of carrier pigeons by land in war time, particularly those used in Europe during World War I. As early as the 17th century, however, clever sailors devised ways to use seabirds as messengers.

An example of this was written about by Lieutenant Vaillant who was aboard HMS Ganges off Gibraltar in 1784 with a small squadron of other ships. He writes of the use of wild birds for signaling in this excerpt from his memoires:

The four vessels sailed in company; without losing sight of each other: and we even visited one another, when the weather was calm, and we could hoist out our boats. When this kind of intercourse was rendered impracticable by high winds and too stormy sea, we had recourse to another, that of mutually writing letters, of which the gulls and terns were carriers. These birds, beaten by the winds, and tired with their flight, would pitch upon our yards to rest themselves, where the sailors easily caught them. Having fastened our little epistles to their legs, we then let them fly: and, making a noise to prevent their alighting again on the vessel, obliged them to wing their course to the next. There they were caught again by the crew, and sent back to us in the same manner with answers to our letters.

Though this was certainly not a standard or even habitual way of getting information from one ship to another, it is an ingenious one. Although it is worth pointing out that it was a difficult service for the birds, no doubt.

Header: HMS Ganges (1856) via royalengineers.ca

Books: 21

2012-01-02T12:12:00.000-09:00

Today is the twelfth anniversary of the much-mourned passing of one of nautical literature’s greatest sons: Patrick O’Brian. In honor of an occasion I remember the same way I do the anniversary of my own father’s death – coincidently, tomorrow – I offer the Brethren a bit of the master’s genius. An excerpt from O’Brian’s last Aubrey/Maturin novel, 21 The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey:

Very soon they had explored almost every part of the ship from the safer tops (propelled by Padeen and other seamen) to the echoing vaults of the darkened hold, where facetious midshipmen and first class volunteers would terrify them with sepulchral moans and waving sheets.

‘Dearest Stephen,’ said Sophie, passing him a cup of tea in the cabin. ‘I cannot tell you how glad I am that our daughters are friends again: there was a time when I almost despaired – when I should have whipped them if I had not thought it would do more harm than good. It only made me dogged when I was young.’

‘I cannot imagine you being whipped, Sophie,’ said Christine.

‘But I was, and quite often too. My mother would make us stand with our faces to the wall and whip the back of our legs with a thin sheaf of willow-wands. I do not think it ever improved my French verbs or arithmetic or even my manners.’

‘I knew some Dominican nuns who did that,’ said Stephen. ‘They whipped my Saavedra cousins until they bled: I had thought it was only Catholic. Jack hardly ever flogs: discourages it, indeed. How do you find him, my dear?’

‘Oh, very well, I thank you,’ said Sophie, blushing. ‘I must admit he is rather thinner than I could wish: but he does love having his flag, and I am so very, very happy for him. It was Prince William who sent the news, with his best compliments, which I thought wonderfully polite.’

The three little girls came in, since if there was tea there might also, in the nature of things, be cake, or at least muffin. On seeing Stephen they stopped, not looking very wise, and made a concerted bob: then Brigid ran over to him and said, ‘Oh sir, the Admiral says a Portuguee came in with the flood and he hopes there may be some mail. A boat pulled across to the flag not long since.’

‘I shall go upstairs – I shall go on deck, and ask whether it would be proper to enquire. Ladies, forgive me, I beg.’

No. It would be most improper. Jack was surprised that a man who had seen so much sea-time could suppose the thing possible or even decent – it was not exactly mutinous but it would deserve and certainly receive an exceptionally harsh reproach. But in any case Stephen was talking great nonsense. The Portuguese had been aboard Lord Leyton this hour and more and there had been no sign of mail – nothing handed up the side, no passing out of bags, no hurrying to and fro. No. The boat had done nothing more than deliver a gentleman, the gentleman in regimentals who was now walking up and down the quarterdeck with the Admiral arm in arm. ‘I have been staring at him with my glass, in this illbred fashion, for some little time,’ said Jack. ‘For although I think I know the face and the carriage I cannot put a name to either. Should you like to take a look?’

‘Sure, it is very ill-bred: but I might, to make you easy.’ Stephen took the telescope, focused it, and almost at once, as the two men on the far ship turned, he said coldly, ‘It is Henry Miller. He was at Trinity in my time and he killed Edward Taaffe in the Fifteen Acres when I was in my last year.’

‘Miller? Yes, of course, my neighbour over at Caxley. He must be related to the Admiral – Miller is Lord Leyton’s family name, and that person over there often spoke of a peerage going to some fairly close connexion. Cousin, of course: they would not be walking arm in arm, otherwise.’ After a pause Jack went on, ‘What do you mean by your Fifteen Acres?’

‘It is a space on the Phoenix Park – you know the great park in Dublin, I am sure?’ Jack nodded. ‘And that is where people go, particularly the young men of Trinity, to settle matters of honour.’

‘Just so: and he killed a gunner officer in Malta, too. He is said to be a very good shot; and he has capital pistols. I have heard him called Hair-Trigger Miller, and to be sure I have seen him bring down a great many pheasants.’

‘Would you say he was a quarrelsome man, at all?’

‘I scarcely know him. We are necessarily acquainted, but he is not the sort of man whose acquaintance I should value – in short, I do not like him. It is not the fighting. As you know, duels are much more usual in the army than with us, or even the Marines. And anyhow you and I have both been out from time to time… cannot top it the Holy Joe.’

Jack stared out over the water and went on. ‘For all I know he may be well enough liked in his regiment: but his reputation in the neighbourhood is so indifferent that I was astonished to learn that he had called on Edward and Christine when they settled in Medenham, and then at Woolcombe when Christine was staying there, with Edward so far in the north. I have no room to blackguard a man for incontinence, being no model myself: but there are limits… You know very well, Stephen, how much influence a man with a large household and a considerable estate can bring to bear on his dependents – his dependents’ daughters – and there were some very ugly tales of girls in child being turned away. I know very little: yet his conduct does seem to match with the general reprobation.’

‘He is not married, I take it?’

“No, nor ever has been. Being almost next in succession to the Leyton title, he is said to be saving himself up for some very brilliant match.’

‘Can you square a man’s valuing a peerage very highly with his going out and risking his life so often?’

‘Yes, if he is an unusually resentful unloved creature and at the same time an uncommon good shot.’

On a final note, 21 is an uncommon opportunity for writers to observe a true master of that craft at work. O’Brian’s original handwritten manuscript – a first draft no less – is included side by side with the typescript. Seeing how he edits as he writes is like watching Mozart scribble off a concerto. Brilliant!

Header: Paul Bettany as Stephen Maturin and Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey from the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Seafaring Sunday: A Look at Pepys

2012-01-01T00:36:00.001-09:00

January 1, 1660: Samuel Pepys (pronounced "peeps"), who was at the time the first secretary to the British Admiralty, began his famous diary. To keep up with Pepys diary, follow him here.

Header: Samuel Pepys by John Hayls via Wikimedia

Sailor Mouth Saturday: New

2011-12-31T15:30:00.000-09:00

New seemed to me a very appropriate word, given the day, and though there are only a few references to it in that favorite of my Saturday reads, The Sailor’s Word Book of Admiral Smyth, there is certainly enough to expand on here.

“The new act”, which sounds like something our bumbling politicians are doing to us even as we speak, is in fact an old Royal Navy reference to a sailor deserting his ship. Less severely in the way of possible punishment, it later referred to a seaman slipping away to shore for a while with the thought that his mates would cover for him. As Admiral Smyth notes, “… though termed new, [this] is an old trick.”

A newcome was an officer joining a ship in his new position for the first time. Thus we hear of newcome captains, lieutenants and so on who had to earn the respect of the seasoned salts aboard us. Newgate birds were men released from jail – by the 18th century it was any prison or gaol, not just old Newgate – on the understanding that they would serve their sentences and usually beyond as deck hands. This term was used not just in England but anywhere English was spoken.

Newell is a piece of timber that works with rigging to hold the gangway for loading and unloading of men, animals and provisions.

The new moon is familiar to all as the “dark of the moon” when she lies between the sun and our Earth. The first new moon in 2012, coincidently or not, falls on my birthday.

“Do you hear the news?” This is a question asked of the new watch as they come to their stations inquiring whether or not they are aware of course, bearing, weather and so on.

New is, in a broader sense, the word that has stuck most tenaciously to half of the world as well. The New World was named so in the Age of European Exploration and many a place name still testifies to that. From New Holland (now Australia) to Nova Scotia and from Newfoundland (which was not “new found” at all when so named; the Vikings knew it well and called it Vinland) to La Nouvelle Orleans, what is very old was made new by the application of European languages.

How like divinity we can behave at times when we’ve no right to such claims at all. The whole thing brings to mind the characters Miguel and Tulio from one of my favorite kid’s movies The Road to El Dorado.

But now I’ve run off on a tangent and there’s only one thing for it: drunken revels and a wish of Happy New Year to all the Brethren. I’m so grateful for each and every one of you. Keep coming back in 2012; there is so much more to discover and discuss.

Header: Tulio and Miguel as sailors cum gods in The Road to El Dorado

Booty: Good Luck Charm

2011-12-30T09:40:00.001-09:00

We've considered the superstitions of the sea before, on more than one occasion in fact. As we sail for the end of the year, a time on which many a superstition is based, let us examine just a few more sea-going beliefs. This time, because it’s something we’d all like to have in the coming year, we’ll look at the items that late 18th and early 19th century sailors assured themselves would bring good of fortune to them and to their ships.

One of the best good luck charms was not a thing but a person. Children aboard ship were thought to bring good weather and rich prizes. Perhaps this is one of the reasons young men – and occasionally women dressed as young men – were so welcome at sea. Even better than a kid you knew in passing, though, was a mess mate with a gold earring.

If no man with his ears decked out pirate style was available, and children were scarce, a piece of someone the sailor loved was thought to draw him back safely to that person. A lock of hair from mother, wife, lover or child was the best charm of all but sometimes nail clippings and even teeth were carried for good luck.

Animal relics were also popular. Rabbit’s feet had been considered lucky for centuries when sailors adopted them as a charm against the dreaded dead calm. A necklace of shark’s teeth was a powerful personal amulet, particularly if the sailor wearing it had killed the shark himself. The luckiest animal part of all was the horn of a unicorn; this was, in all cases, the front tooth of a male narwhal which grows through the whale’s head and has the appearance of a horn. This treasure had to be kept in tact but on display for it to have any efficacy for the ship and crew. The vignette in O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels wherein Stephen brings aboard a narwhal horn with all circumstance, only to have it broken by Jack’s steward Killick is still one of the most amusing – and quietly heartbreaking – pieces in the books.

Religious articles were popular as well. A Christian cross was highly esteemed as a lucky fetish and was one of the things that first hand accounts of pirates often note them wearing. Equal armed crosses, on the other hand, were shunned as bringers of ill weather. One exception on this note seems to be the privateers of Jean Laffite’s Galveston and South America. Equal armed crosses were popular symbols in Spanish Mexico and so silver crosses of this nature were often “found” and worn by men like Louis Aury and Dominique Youx. A St. Christopher medal, regardless of the sailor’s religious background, was considered lucky. Doubtless the image of the saint carrying the Christ child over troubled waters had a lot to do with that. An anchor medallion would also bring luck and any medal or statuary showing a saint holding an anchor was even better; St. Philomena, whose statue I treasure in my home, was particularly popular in the West Indies for instance.

Pocket pieces that still carry a certain power today include a lodestone and a found coin. The lodestone, with its magnetic properties, has always been considered magical and is seen as kin to those mysterious magnets that work the compass. Found coins are one of those things that delight from a very early age, and that lucky feeling a person has when they come across one is doubtless at least part of their popularity at sea. I personally carry three in my pocket whenever I go out on the water.

General good luck for ship and men could be had by nailing a used horseshoe to the mainmast or bowsprit. It is at sea that the belief in making sure that the horseshoe was nailed “upright”, in the form of a U, so that the luck could be “caught” within it, originated.

From ancient times, painting a set of eyes on the bow was considered mandatory for the safety of the ship. This belief morphed into the dragons on Viking ships and then the animal and human shapes of later figureheads. Either as an extension or from some separate belief, sailors sometimes had human eyes tattooed on their person. Some historians have speculated that this practice in turn led to the popular miniature paintings of the late 18th century known as “lover’s eyes”, which were tiny portraits of one of the person’s paramour’s eyes. If this is the case it would be a rare example of a “fashion”, so to say, working up the class ladder rather than down.

Pick your poison, mates; one charm is as good as another but a sailor has to find what works for him or her. Happy Friday, Brethren (a day, by the way, when you should never leave port – just a friendly warning).

Header: A WWII U.S. officer ready to hunt for his own shark tooth necklace via Navsource.org

Lady Pirates: A Lower Class Female

2011-12-29T08:45:00.000-09:00

Among the female adventurers and candidates for military or naval glory, none in their time stood more forward than Ann Mills. By what chance, or in what capacity she first commenced her career on shipboard, is not known; but, about the year 1740, she was serving as a common sailor on-board the Maidstone frigate; and, in an action between that ship and a French enemy, she so greatly distinguished herself, by personal prowess, as to be particularly noticed by the whole crew. It is, by the circumstances of her portrait being taken with a Frenchman’s head in her hand, that we are naturally led to imagine the service she performed must have been of a most desperate nature, or of being boarded by the enemy; and probably, after the conquest cut off the head of her opponent, as a trophy of victory.

The above paragraph, with its period appropriate long sentences, is from James Caulfield’s Remarkable Persons. This fascinating, if questionable in authenticity, group of character sketches was published in serial form over the course of 1819 and 1820. The picture at the header, of sailor Ann Mills holding the head of her vanquished foe, caused somewhat of a sensation at the time and then the question arose; why haven’t we heard more about this woman? That inquiry has yet to be properly satisfied.

Who Mills was and where she came from remains a relative mystery. Caulfield simply assumes that “… some love affair induced this woman to assume the male character, in order to follow the fortune of a favourite lover who had gone to sea.” This was, of course, not unheard of and may actually have been more common than the lens of Victorian-written history would like us as their posterity to imagine. It was also not at all unusual for a poor girl to simply slip into the gender that was likely to make the most money. Regardless of Victoria’s imaginary world, men have always had a leg up in that area.

Caulfield lumps Mills in with other “notorious viragos” of her era including Anne Bonny and Mary Read, which may be the reason that she is often counted in modern lists of “lady pirates”. In fact, the very marginal information we have about her seems to point to her never turning to piracy proper. Although given her place aboard a Royal Navy ship in the 18th century, to call her a privateer would not be unreasonable in the least.

In his remarkably well researched book Villains of All Nations, Marcus Rediker skips the speculation about who Ann Mills might have been to dig deeper into why she and others became sailors and warriors. What drove a woman in a time of corsets and panniers to pull on pants and fight not just with men but like men? Rediker posits that it was the very nature of impoverished and often displaced women of Mills’ era and beyond to be strong, aggressive and daring in pursuit of perhaps not a better life but at the very least three squares a day. He writes that the “lower class female experience” was:

… a matter of course-bred physical strength, toughness, independence, fearlessness, and a capability of surviving by one’s wits. The prevailing material reality of working women’s lives made it possible for some women to disguise themselves and enter worlds dominated by men…

This paragraph appears in Villains on the same page as the above picture of Mills, although the general conversation focuses on Bonny and Read. The overall message is that women who chose to stand up and fight were not as unusual as modern popular history would have the average person believe. That in fact heroic acts of physical strength and personal courage – lifting bales of goods or pails of milk, giving birth at great personal risk, working long hours, fighting off assailants and so on – were practically everyday occurrences for the “lower class female” in the 17th, 18th and early 19th century. The main reasons Rediker lists for women taking the next step and dressing like men are economic necessity, adventure and, as Caulfield speculates in the case of Mills, love. Curiously the latter, which was probably not as typical as the simple need to put food in her belly, is often considered the most powerful motivator for behavior such as Ann’s.

Whatever the case, it appears that “about the year 1740” a woman possibly named Ann Mills and dressed as a man aboard “the Maidstone frigate” cut off the head of an enemy in combat. How she got to that point, and why, remains open to speculation as does what became of her from there.

Header: Ann Mills from Remarkable Persons via Corbis images

People: The Leg, the Saw and the Ax

2011-12-28T09:30:00.001-09:00

Today's pirate is a shadowy figure about whom we know very little. What we do know comes second hand from Philip Gosse via Johnson/Defoe and most of it has to do with a serious injury suffered, endured and recovered from. To this end, the brief story of William Taylor tells us a lot – perhaps more than we want to know – about medical treatment aboard the average freebooter in the Golden Age.

According to Gosse in his The Pirate’s Who’s Who, Taylor was “one of Captain Phillips’s crew.” Which Captain Phillips, for there were several, he does not say but we can reasonably rule out John Phillips, of whom we have previously spoken, based on the date of Taylor’s trial for piracy. Gosse does not give us a ship’s name or location, but indicates that Taylor was “wounded in the leg while attempting to desert.”

The true misery for unfortunate William Taylor begins here. There being no surgeon on board ship, Taylor’s mates took a very piratical approach to the would-be desert’s recovery: they elected the ship’s carpenter to amputate his shattered leg. It probably goes without saying that surgical instruments were not to hand either, so the carpenter took up a tool that he was familiar with and proceeded. At this point Gosse quotes, probably from Johnson’s History of Pirates:

Upon which [the carpenter] fetch’d up the biggest saw, and taking the limb under his Arm, fell to Work, and separated it from the Body of the Patient in as little Time as he could have cut a Deal Board in two.

Here we moderns imagine the pain that poor Taylor must have suffered under such work but other factors jump to mind shortly thereafter. Not the least of these is the bacteria swarming on that saw. By this era a well trained naval surgeon would, at the very least, have poured vinegar over the “instrument” to take off the worst of any visible muck.

Our carpenter, however, is not to be outdone by any quack doctor either in the way of pain or sterilization. The story continues:

… he had heated his Ax as he perform’d the other Part for he so burnt the Flesh distant from the Place of Amputation that it had like to have mortify’d.

This grisly process resulted in a surprising recovery for the hearty if ill-fated William Taylor. Recovery enough, at any rate, for trial and sentence to hang; Gosse tells us that Taylor was found guilty of piracy in Boston on May 12, 1714. The end of the brief entry says, however, that “… for some reason not explained [he] was reprieved.”

Who exactly William Taylor was, and on what ship he went a-pirating remains a mystery. His fate after trial and reprieve is also unknown, as is just how long he lived with his sawed-off leg.

Header: The Amputation by Thomas Rowlandson

History: Hygiene Aboard Us

2011-12-27T11:10:00.000-09:00

In the early 19th century, concerns for the good health of any general population came to the fore in more than one Western government. Curiously, at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution when children pulled coal carts on hands and knees and women stood at machines for fifteen hours a day, medical professionals and leaders of nations began advising fresh air and vegetables for their burgeoning populations.

Of course, the same focus on health and hygiene applied to the many navies on both sides of the Atlantic. Even merchant vessels – notorious for their ill treatment of their marginal crews – got in on the act, giving at least lip service to good physical health. The privateers of the Gulf incorporated these thoughts to their daily shipboard business as well, and the health of many a mariner probably did improve. Though bacterial infections did not subside, certain persistent illnesses like scurvy virtually became a thing of the past.

Here are a few of the common sense admonitions that were put to good use aboard ships of the time via Peter H. Spectre’s The Mariner’s Book of Days:

Every vessel should be pumped out morning and evening.

A clean, sweet, and dry hold is essential to the health of the crew.

Nothing can be more injurious than for men to sleep over bilge-water which must be the case if any water is left in the hold.

The hold ought to be cleaned often, and when it is, it should be white-washed; and also the between-decks often whitewashed.

In tropical climates, avoid painting as much as possible, particularly in-board.

In port in tropical climates, give the men a little coffee before they go to work.

The inconsiderate indulgence in new rum has been one great means of increasing the numbers attacked by yellow fever.

Do not allow the men to lay about in night dews, and particularly not to wait about at the wharfs.

Allow the men use of fresh water whenever it can be spared for washing clothes, and also themselves.

Generally speaking – perhaps aside from that interesting connection between rum and yellow fever – good advice all around.

Header: The Sailor’s Farewell, anonymous lithograph circa 1820

Seafaring Sunday: Cheers!

2011-12-25T23:28:00.000-09:00

This beverage is called a "Frostbite"; enjoy!

1 ounce tequila
1 ounce heavy cream
1 ounce white creme de cacao
1/2 ounce white creme de menthe
Ice cubes
Cocoa powder to garnish

Shake the liquid ingredients vigorously with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Sprinkle with cocoa powder to garnish.

Cheers!

(All courtesy of Anne Tainter and I'm So Happy It's Happy Hour ~ a tremendous book)

Header: by Miki Suizan circa 1920 via Old Paint

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Christmas at Sea

2011-12-24T13:57:00.001-09:00

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor-'wester, blowing squally off the se;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.

They heard the stuff a-roaring before the break of day;
But 'twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops'l, and stood by to go about.

All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.

We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;
But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard.
So's we saw the cliff and houses and the breakers running high,
And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.

The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;
The good red fires were burning bright in every longshore home;
The windos sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;
And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.

The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;
For it's just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)
This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn,
And the house above the coastguard's was the house where I was born.

O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,
My mother's silver spectacles, my father's silver hair;
And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,
Go dancing round the china plates that stand upon the shelves.

And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.

The lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.
"All hands to loose topgallant sails," I heard the captain call.
"By the Lord, she'll never stand it," our first mate, Jackson, cried.
"It's the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson," he replied.

She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,
And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood;
As the winter's day was ending, in the entry of the night,
We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.

And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,
As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;
But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,
Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.

~ Robert Lewis Stevenson

Header: Moonlight on Lake Michigan by William Henry Marchen via American Gallery

Booty: A Tentacled Yuletide

2011-12-23T09:13:00.000-09:00

This beautiful picture taken by Pasquale Vassallo and posted over at NatGeo depicts a handsome Italian octopus with snow covered Mt. Vesuvius in the background. Looks like the Holidays to me! Click to enlarge for beautiful detail or click over to the original post. Either way, pretty amazing.

Books: Captain Scarfield

2011-12-22T10:16:00.000-09:00

In the late 1800s Howard Pyle published his Book of Pirates. The book is full of interesting anecdotes and life stories about pirates both familiar and arcane. It is also full of Pyle’s lyrical prose which is descriptive, insightful and generous to its characters’ thoughts. This is the kind of prose that would never be published today, and our literature is diminished greatly for that fact. To put it more succinctly, I cannot recommend this book enough.

Though Pyle purports that all of his tales are true, one in particular jumps off the page as a story – though plausible – well told but impossible. This is “Captain Scarfield” and it would, in all honesty, make a gripping pirate movie to this very day.

The story is set in 1820 in the American city of Philadelphia and the West Indies. It focuses on young naval Lieutenant James Mainwaring who Pyle tells us is a “broad-shouldered, red-cheeked, stalwart fellow of twenty-six or twenty-eight.” Mainwaring has had the good fortune to serve aboard USS Constitution during the War of 1812 and is still in the U.S. Navy as our story unfolds.

He is a close friend of a much older Quaker businessman, Eleazer Cooper who, as captain of his own merchant vessel the Eliza Cooper, has become quite literally filthy rich trading flour and other goods to blockaded ports during the war. The story is rounded out with the addition of Cooper’s niece Lucinda Fairbanks. The eighteen year old girl, who now lives with her childless aunt and uncle, is in love with Mainwaring. The two cannot hope to marry as our story opens, however, due to her status as a Quaker and her uncle’s disposition against war and those who engage in it.

Mainwaring is called away to command the brig of war Yankee, assigned to hunt pirates around the Bahamas coast. In particular, Mainwaring is charged with the capture of the most heinous pirate of all, the notorious Captain John Scarfield. While making his last call to the Cooper farm before he sets out to sea, Mainwaring informs his old friend of his assignment. Eleazer, quite uncharacteristically, begins to vehemently defend the pirates in general and Scarfield in particular.

Mainwaring is taken aback by the old Quaker’s defense of a man who had maimed, killed and encouraged rape aboard his ship. Out of respect for his host, however, he refrains from protesting too vehemently. After a brief and clandestine interlude with the charming Lucinda, the Lieutenant is off to take up his new command.

Pyle puts in the perfect vignette for any motion picture just here. Mainwaring is alone in a coach bound for New York and he contemplates the miniature of Lucinda that he wears next to his heart:

…in the damp and leathery solitude he drew out the little oval picture from beneath his shirt frill and looked long and fixedly with a fond and foolish joy at the innocent face, the blue eyes, the red, smiling lips depicted upon the satinlike, ivory surface.

Yankee spends five months in the West Indies hunting freebooters with a deal of success. To Mainwaring’s frustration, however, the one pirate he wants to meet most is always two steps ahead of him. Scarfield even leaves taunting messages for the Lieutenant with battered and marooned merchant seamen.

Finally, Mainwaring heads for the most notorious pirate port of all, San Jose in the southern Bahamas. He boldly maneuvers Yankee into port and, to his utter shock, is met by the “… large, well rigged schooner” Eliza Cooper riding at anchor. He puts his gig in the water and finds Eleazer Cooper waiting for him at the gunnels of his ship. Cooper has a ready explanation – he is only selling foodstuffs to the locals – and the guns Mainwaring saw on deck were used only in self-defense. “I am a man of peace,” Cooper says. “But there are men of blood in these waters and an appearance of great strength is of use to protect the innocent from the wicked.”

Upon further questioning, Cooper reveals that he had only just finished a transaction with Captain Scarfield and Mainwaring drops his usually calm façade. In response Cooper, in an unaccustomed menacing tone, promises that the Lieutenant shall have “… news more or less directly of [Scarfield] within the space of a day.”

Unsatisfied and uneasy, Mainwaring returns to his ship. He hangs lanterns as night falls and posts double watches before retiring to his cabin to tend to his log. Once he is settled in, he hears calls along side his ship and in short order Captain Cooper appears at his cabin door. But this is not the gentleman Quaker Mainwaring has known from his youth. As they converse, Cooper becomes more agitated, sweating and shaking as if he is either frightened or intensely angry.

Mainwaring finds the case is the latter when, enraged by the Lieutenant’s insistence on knowing Scarfield’s whereabouts, Cooper pulls out a pistol and cocks it in Mainwaring’s face. “I am John Scarfield,” Cooper shouts at last. “Look at me, then, if you want to see a pirate!”

Stunned at first, Mainwaring regains his senses when he realizes that Scarfield/Cooper means to take Yankee as prize. He manages to get the pirate to discharge his pistol harmlessly and then hand-to-hand combat commences on the floor of Mainwaring’s cabin. The Lieutenant is stabbed more than once but he at last reaches the spent pistol and pummels the pirate into unconsciousness.

The pirates have overrun his ship in the meantime but his crew, ready as they were, beat the villains off. Most of Scarfield’s crew swims off in the dark waters of San Jose’s harbor.

Scarfield/Cooper is not dead, and he lingers aboard Yankee for three or four days tended by his “left hand wife”, a local mulatto woman. The old Quaker’s delirious rantings lead Mainwaring to muse about the nature of good and evil and whether or not a man can turn one off and the other on virtually at will:

Could it be madness – madness in which the separate entities of good and bad each had, in its turn, a perfect and distinct existence?

In this, quite interestingly, Pyle seems to echo Robert Louis Stevenson’s thoughts in his 1886 novella revolving around Jekyll and Hyde.

The pirate cum merchant captain finally succumbs to his wounds but he has left one last surprise for Lieutenant Mainwaring. In each of the innumerable casks of flour stowed aboard Eliza Cooper – known as the Bloodhound while sailing under a black flag – the young officer finds a cache of silver coins. “In all,” Pyle writes, “upward of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars…” An enormous sum in prize money for the Lieutenant and his crew.

The end of the story amounts to a quick seven paragraphs. Lucinda Fairbanks marries James Mainwaring and, when her aunt dies, inherits the Cooper fortune. Though Mainwaring has “qualms and misdoubts” about the origins of this inheritance, he tosses them aside rather quickly. He establishes the “… great shipping house of Mainwaring & Bigot” and doubtless lives to a fruitful, happy and ripe-old age.

The story is rich and capably told, if fairly obvious in its “surprise” villain from almost the first page. It is well worth the read, though, and it stands out as perhaps the best of the bunch in Pirates. As noted, too, it would make a stunningly good movie if handled well. Might I suggest Russell Crowe as the stodgy old Cooper turned nefarious pirate in the person of John Scarfield…

Header: The Buccaneer by Howard Pyle

Women at Sea: Barefoot Diva

2011-12-21T09:28:00.001-09:00

On Saturday the 17th of December, the world lost a great but unfortunately little known treasure. The chanteuse known to the French as La Diva aux pieds nus died at her natal home in Mindelo, Sao Vicente, Cape Verde Islands. The fact that the lady named Cesaria Evora was a great singer of traditional West African music is not our only focus in remembering her, however. The Barefoot Diva came from dockside roots and got her start quite literally at sea.

Born in Mindelo on August 27, 1941, Evora was one of the eldest of seven children whose parents worked hard to make ends meet. Mindelo is a port town which, since the days of Portuguese colonization, had been a temporary home to sailors from all over the world. This was still the case when Cesaria – known as Cize (see-ZEE) to her friends – was little. Many of the people in town worked in industries that supported the mariners in one way or another, from restaurants and hotels to the numerous dockside bars.

When Cesaria was seven, her father died unexpectedly. Her mother struggled on, trying to continue to keep her large family together. When the fight became impossible to win, the older Evora children were sent to an orphanage. Cesaria was one of them. When asked about her time there in an Associated Press interview in 2000, Evora was frank about the experience: “I didn’t like it. I value my freedom.”

To gain that freedom, Cesaria began doing piecework at a local clothing manufacturer. She was sixteen years old and the hours were long and grueling. She had a number of friends, both in and out of the orphanage, who knew her true talent: singing. Her beautiful, caramel-smooth voice was already notable among those who knew her and her way with the local music of Cape Verde, known as morna, was unsurpassed. Friends goaded her to sing in public, but at first she refused.

Finally, fed up with her mind-numbing work as a seamstress, Cesaria presented herself at one of the dockside bars offering her services as a singer. The owner accepted, paying her not in cash but in alcohol. Cesaria quickly got a taste for cognac, her appetite for which would become legendary. Buzz about her singing also spread quickly; by the time she was seventeen she had gigs in many of the bars frequented by the sailors that were in and out of Mindelo. Not much later, friends were rowing Cesaria out to ships at anchor to sing for the sailors not allowed shore leave. On these occasions, she was paid in cash and the benefits of a new more enjoyable career became apparent.

Cesaria’s big break, so to say, came when cruise ships began dropping anchor in Mindelo harbor. Cesaria was booked aboard some of them as an entertainer. This exposure brought international attention and she moved first to Lisbon and then to Paris where she once again returned to singing in bars. These nightclubs were more upscale than the sailor dives she had known in her early years, and the pay came in checks instead of a glass. The press took note; Le Monde reviewed her more than once saying at one point that Cesaria belonged “… to the aristocracy of bar singers” and likening her to Billie Holiday. She began recording in Paris.

True international fame came with the release of her 1988 album “La Diva Aux Pieds Nus”. Cesaria had never given up her youthful habit of performing in bare feet and the name “Barefoot Diva” stuck. She was nominated for a Grammy in 1995 and she began to tour internationally, bringing her gorgeous voice and the rhythm-based morna style to audiences around the world. Her album “Voz d’Amor” won a World Music Grammy in 2003.

All the attention left Cesaria Evora unimpressed. She continued to call Mindelo home, buying and renovating her childhood home into a ten bedroom retreat where friends and family were in and out (see a picture of it here). Her health deteriorated; she suffered two strokes and had open heart surgery over the course of a decade but very little slowed her down. Cesaria was out on the road in 2010 with a series of large concerts; she suffered a heart attack after the last one in May.

Cesaria recovered and returned to Mindelo but her health was never to fully return. She announced her official retirement in September and passed on to join that amazing ensemble in the sky last Saturday.

Of the morna music she brought to the world, Cesaria told the Associated Press “Our music is a lot of things. Some say it’s like the blues, or jazz. Others say it’s like Brazilian or African music, but no one really knows. Not even the old ones.”

If anyone knew what morna was, it was the Barefoot Diva who started out singing for sailors in bars and on the waves. Sample a bit of Cesaria Evora’s genius here with one of my favorites “Besame Mucho”.

Header: Cesaria Evora via brooklynvegan.com

Tools of the Trade: Coming In To Shore

2011-12-19T10:47:00.000-09:00

When approaching land or harbor, the navigator must know himself familiar with every detail of the charts he will use, and must form a mental picture of the land and aids to navigation that he will sight. Allowance must be made for the effect of the position of the sun or moon on the appearance of objects sighted.

He must be familiar with the characteristics of all lights, buoys, fog signals, and other aids to navigation that he will use, and with the state of the tide and currents in channels he will navigate. He should select beforehand the objects that he will use for bearings. He should carefully check all buoys to prevent confusion. Ranges should be selected and lines drawn to indicate safe courses and danger bearings where possible. The track of a vessel entering port should be laid down on a chart before entering, and this should be carefully inspected to see that it leads clear of all possible danger. The vessel’s position must be frequently plotted on the chart and should never be in doubt for an instant. Soundings should always be taken when on soundings, whether the weather is clear or cloudy. ~ F.W. Sterling in his Small Boat Navigation published in 1917

Header: Dutch Fishing Vessel Caught on a Lee Shore via Painting-Here.com

Seafaring Sunday: The Vast Bering Sea

2011-12-18T00:37:00.001-09:00

December 19, 1741: Vitus Jonassen Bering dies; this Dutch explorer was the man after whom the Bering Sea was named. RIP

Header: Portrait of Vitus Bering in middle age, artist unknown, via Wikipedia

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Heaving/Heavy

2011-12-17T16:13:00.000-09:00

It probably goes without saying that things can get heavy at sea and that heaving is not just something that poor green guy at the bow does. So let’s get right into it, mates.

Since I’ve already mentioned seasickness, I’ll bring up heaving and setting. This is that ubiquitous and violent roll of a ship in a very heavy sea, which by the way refers to basic “dirty weather”: high wind and waves.

Heaving a strain is pushing on the capstan bars with inordinate force. A “strain” until the late 19th century was a common name for a hernia, thus the inference. In such cases one might be participating in heaving ahead; advancing a ship in water by heaving on a cable fastened to a fixed object before her. On the other hand, the action might be heaving astern; doing the same thing but in the opposite direction. This procedure is often necessary when a ship has run aground on rock or shoal.

Heaving taut is turning the capstan until the cable is straight and, as The Sailor’s Word Book so poetically puts it, “ready for action.” The capstan and the men working her are said to be heaving through all when the cable does not hold and slips within the mechanism.

Heaving in stays is another way of referring to tacking, this because the wind blowing from the fore puts a great deal of pressure on the stays. Heaving out refers to unfurling a sail or sails. With topsails this is sometimes spoken of as footing the sail out of the top.

Heaving down is putting a ship at sea into a similar position to the one she would have on land while being careened. This is done using boats and a series of ropes on her masts to expose part of her hull that would normally be below the water line and is usually resorted to only when repairs are urgently needed. Another phrase for the ship’s position while being careened – with her keel completely out of the water – is heaving out.

We already noted the phrase heavy sea, which may be caused by a heavy gale: a very strong wind in which emergency measures must be taken by reducing sail. Heavy drift-ice is similar to a large iceberg. This is ice which may look small above the water but is in fact massive, and dangerous, beneath the surface. When heavy metal is spoken of aboard us, it is the same as heavy ordnance; balls or other projectiles of a very large caliber.

Thus we have done with heave, heaving and heavy. Happy Saturday, Brethren. So far my Federal Jury Duty does not require me to be away from the ship, but sixty days is a long time. I’ll keep you posted on how my civic duty might impact Triple P.

Header: Ship in Storm, artist unknown, via holidayart.com

Booty: Stuffing a Pirate's Stocking

2011-12-16T08:59:00.002-09:00

We're getting down to the wire now and pretty much regardless of the gift-giving holiday you celebrate it is right over your shoulder. So here’s my final thought for this year on some pirate approved gifts that will delight a freebooter’s heart (and won’t lighten your purse by but a few pieces of eight).

Archie McPhee is a Seattle institution that has been in the neighborhood known now as Old Ballard (it was just “Ballard” when I lived there as a child; perhaps that speaks badly of my advancing age as well as its) since 1983. The store is not so much a gift shop as an emporium with a wide range of offerings to delight the kid in all of us. And that includes the nautical kid.

McPhee offers merchandise with nautical flair, such as this charming narwhal and these “finger tentacles.” They even crawl into the Eldrich cave with offerings from and for the Great Cthulhu. But my favorite bunch of items all focuses on the popular image of good old fashioned pirates. You’ll find everything from cups to notepads (a favorite around chez Pauline) and just about all that falls in between. You’d be hard pressed to leave this site wanting for pirate booty.

Now’s the time if you’re at all in doubt. Get ye to the Archie McPhee website and spend some of those ill-gotten gains on the ones you love.

Happy Friday, Brethren; tomorrow it’s SMS and an update on potential changes – at least temporarily – round about Triple P.

Header: Archie McPhee’s Pirate Lunchbox

History: For Beluche's Birthday

2011-12-15T09:23:00.000-09:00

Today marks the 231st birthday of one of my favorite ancestors, Renato Beluche. All the Brethren are well aware of his many claims to fame as smuggler, privateer, patriot and national hero in the United State, Venezuela, Columbia and Panama. It is unfortunate that so many people in his natal country are not aware of his contributions to their freedom and way of life. Although folks in Louisiana and particularly New Orleans continue to keep his memory alive.

With so many note-worthy actions packed into one 80 year life (and they say corsairs died young!) it is not surprising that Uncle Renato is occasionally claimed by other families in the Western Hemisphere as their own. Who wouldn’t want a golden apple among the branches of their family tree?

Perhaps the most debated, if not necessarily famous, argument for Renato Beluche quite literally being someone else comes from the family of Puerto Rican freedom fighter Mathias Brugman. As an example, some Brugman historians offer the comparison signatures of Pierre Brugman (top) and Renato Beluche (bottom) above. They note that the bold, looping Bs of both signatures seem too similar to have been written by different hands. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Mathias Brugman was born in New Orleans in 1811 where his parents, in the baptismal records of St. Louis Cathedral, are listed as Pierre (or Pedro) Brugman, born in Curacao and Isabel (or Ysabel) Duliebre, birthplace unknown. Mathias had a brother and a sister whose births are also noted in the same records. In 1816, the family permanently relocated to Puerto Rico.

The name Brugman (sometimes noted as Bruckman or Brukman) is the source of the speculation that Mathias may in fact have been the son not of Pierre Brugman, Dutch merchant, but of Renato Beluche, American privateer.

Some specific discussion on the issue appears at the Brugman Family Commentaries on the Familia website where it seems the argument is that the two men may have been one and the same. The evidence for this is slim; particularly when one looks at the commentaries themselves, but the argument seems to continue, bouncing around the web like a curious if little-known meme. Feel free to read the entire commentaries for yourself, but allow me to point out a few specific items.

The text notes that Beluche’s date of birth was December 7, 1780 and that his father’s place of birth is listed as Tours, in France. As Jane Lucas De Grummond notes in her definitive biography Renato Beluche: Smuggler, Privateer and Patriot, 1780-1860, the corsair was born on December 15 and baptized on the following 7th of January. The records list his father as Rene Beluche of New Orleans. According to the genealogical data I have been able to uncover, Rene was the son of Charles Beluche who was born in France in 1697, possibly in the village of Pigot on the Bay of Biscay. It should be noted that, in typical fashion, the baptismal record at the Cathedral is somewhat incorrect; the baby’s given name is listed as Raynado, not Renato.

The real confusion begins with a French letter of marque issued in March of 1810 for the brig L’Intrepide. The owner of the ship is listed as Joseph Sauvinet, a prominent New Orleans merchant and Laffite associate from the earliest days of Barataria. Her captain, according to Dr. De Grummond who is taking her information from legal documentation of the U.S. Navy, is named as Pierre Brugman. A description of Brugman, also in the ship’s papers, shows him to be a virtual twin of Beluche: He is thirty years old, five feet three inches tall and has brown hair. Probably the most arguable point in favor of this Captain Brugman being the revolutionary Mathais’ father is the birthplace he gives: Curacao.

From here, however, the argument begins to unravel. L’Intrepide was, in fact, captured as a pirate by Commodore David Porter in March when she came into the mouth of the Mississippi “in distress” and her captain’s name was then given as Brugman. The captain was never found aboard her, however, and Beluche – not Brugman – appeared at the French consulate a few days later seeking redress for the unlawful seizure of his ship by the U.S. Navy. The ship in question’s name is listed as L’Intrepide.

By May of 1810, L’Intrepide was back in the Gulf where a documented prize, La Ynvicta Espana, was taken by her. As De Grummond notes, this prize is listed in the Historic New Orleans Collection Catalogue No.44-2; the captain of L’Intrepide in this document is named Beluche.

The name Pedro Brugman is again connected with privateering activity in 1815. He is listed as captain of the privateer La Popa in connection with a cross complaint filed against the U.S. Navy. La Popa was owned by Renato Beluche and the complaint referred to a prize taken by her almost immediately after the Battle of New Orleans under a Cartagenan letter of marque. Given that the U.S. had not yet officially recognized Cartagena as a separate state and Beluche was awaiting official pardon from the President after serving on the line with Andrew Jackson, one can easily see why he would want to use an alias in such a case.

Perhaps the most head-scratching evidence provided by the Brugman Family Commentaries is the line “…Beluche, alias Brugman, disappeared during late March 1810 eluding charges for smuggling and did not resurface until February 1817.” Though smuggling charges were certainly brought up on more than one occasion against more than one Beluche, those would have been the least of Renato’s worries. In fact, much of his time between 1810 and 1817 was spent in well documented and above-board pursuits. His name appears on a U.S. letter of marque issued in 1812 as captain of the schooner Spy which would go on to capture the British warship Jane in December. Beluche’s name appears in court records in connection with the libel of Jane the following January. Within a few months of this filing, Beluche would be listed among the mariners holding some of the first letters of marque issued from Cartagena and his service as gun captain of a 24 pound cannon on Rodriguez Canal during the Battle of New Orleans is more than well documented.

I personally have no doubt that Beluche and Brugman were two separate men and that Mathias Brugman, the Puerto Rican revolutionary, is not the son of my ancestor. The curious point though, at least for me, is not those distinctive signatures. It is the letter of marque with Brugman’s name listed as captain of L’Intrepide and the accuracy in the documentation of his birthplace. Did Brugman in fact command the brig until her capture by Porter at the Balize? When she was released, did he turn over her command to Beluche or did Sauvinet, her rightful owner, select someone else – namely Beluche – in his stead? Or did Beluche know Brugman personally and simply choose the guise of an acquaintance when the need for discretion arose?

Finally, are the signatures shown above so very similar that they can unequivocally be said to have been consistently penned by the same hand? For that, I have an answer; no, they’re not. Beyond that, well, this is what makes history – and genealogy – so much fun.

Header: Comparison of Pierre Brugman and Renato Beluche signatures via Familia

People: The Real Master and Commander

2011-12-14T08:26:00.000-09:00

Thomas Cochrane, the tenth Earl of Dundonald, was a man of outstanding courage and determination. He had a brilliant record as a frigate captain but he was also a fearless fighter for radical causes, a friend of the opressed and a champion of liberty. When Lord Byron learnt of his arrival in the capital of Peru following the liberation of that country from the colonial rule of Spain he wrote, "there is no man I envy so much as Lord Cochrane. His entry into Lima, which I see in today's paper, is one of the great events of the day." ~ from the prologue of Cochrane: The Real Master and Commander by David Cordingly

Cochrane, often spoken of as one of Patrick O'Brian's main inspirations for his heroic character Jack Aubrey, was born on this day in 1775.

Header: Miniature by an unknown artist thought to be of a young Lieutenant Thomas Cochrane

Books: Ship of Dreams

2011-12-13T09:45:00.001-09:00

This post was actually supposed to appear yesterday, on O’Brian’s birthday proper, but due to extreme weather here in the sub-Arctic it is showing up a day late.

The provenance of December 12th was discussed in brief yesterday, with one of my favorite little scenes from the 20 plus series of books by Patrick O’Brian sometimes referred to as “The Aubreyad”. I find that title is a bit pretentious but, in all honesty, I don’t think O’Brian ne Russ would. He strikes me as the kind of guy that sort of thing would appeal to.

I racked my brain for a post that would fit the occasion and then the best idea of all fell into my lap as I was just about to give up and write about jib sails. Why not review, in brief, my very favorite book from the series which I have just recently finished rereading? Thus, I offer my take on Patrick O’Brian’s HMS Surprise; there will be spoilers.

HMS Surprise is the third book in the series and when it opens the key involvement in all of the books – the close personal friendship between Captain John “Jack” Aubrey and Doctor Stephen Maturin – is well established. One of the most attractive things about the Aubrey/Maturin series is these two gentlemen’s fraternal love for one another. Even when they are about to come to blows, we know without doubt that they still have each the other’s back. O’Brian makes you wish that you had a friend like Aubrey or Maturin, particularly in times in your life when you don’t.

Jack’s command, the sloop of war Lively, has been involved in the capture of a Spanish treasure fleet and the debate at the Admiralty is what to do about this. Spain is not yet a British enemy, and therefore the ships in question cannot properly be libelled as prizes. This means that the Admiralty and the government, not the crews involved in the action, stand to gain the most financially. We are privy to this discussion and to the unfortunate name dropping of the First Lord who indicates Stephen Maturin is a British spy during the course of the debate.

Given that the Napoleonic Wars are in full swing, this is a dangerous misstep on the part of the Admiralty lord, particularly since quite literally even as he speaks Maturin is on a covert mission in Southern France. When Jack and the crew of Lively put in to pick Stephen up, they are informed that he has been captured by the French and – to the seamen’s horror – is being tortured for information. There is not a moment to lose as Jack, Barret Bonden, Preserved Killick, Tom Pullings, William Babbington and a handful of others attack and kill the French in their dungeon, freeing Stephen from an intricate device whose application permanently – if only partially – impairs the use of his left hand.

Lively returns to London, where Stephen spends his recovery time teaching Jack’s coxswain Barret Bonden how to read. Jack, meanwhile, is in dire financial straights. To such a degree, in fact, that he is arrested and carted off to debtor’s prison. This is a catastrophic turn of events for his love life. The young woman he hopes to marry, Sophia “Sophie” Williams, has a shrew of a mother that will not allow her to wed unless her groom is “comfortable”. An indebted sailor is not at all to Mrs. Williams’ taste and Sophie is forced to start shopping about elsewhere. Very Austen-esque indeed.

Stephen, returned to good health, jumps to Jack’s aid with both feet. Through his association with the powerful Sir Joseph Banks, Stephen sees to it that some of the Spanish treasure finds its way into Jack’s pockets. This allows Aubrey to pay off at least a few debts, putting him back in the hunt for Sophie’s hand. Stephen’s behind the scenes maneuvering also wins Jack command of the titular frigate that will be his favorite ship throughout the series. Surprise is given a mission to transport a new ambassador via India. Before they leave, however, Stephen manages to arrange a secret meeting between Jack and Sophie at which they promise not to marry anyone but each other.

The voyage to the East Indies is arduous, with a long stint in the Equatorial doldrums in the Atlantic that finds many of the Surprises sick with scurvy. A quick stop in Brazil to replenish fresh food and water solves the problem, but more trouble is on the way. The ambassador, Arthur Stanhope, becomes debilitated due to seasickness. Upon arriving in India, things look up, but the unfortunate Mr. Stanhope will eventually die despite Stephen’s best efforts.

Surprise is in need of a refit and port becomes home for some weeks. While Jack and the crew are busy with their ship, Stephen wanders the local streets and markets, befriending a lower caste girl named Dil. He also, very unexpectedly, runs into his true heart’s desire, Sophie Williams’ cousin Diana Villieres. Unlike Sophie, Diana is a widow and is unfortunately free with her virtue – if she had any to begin with. She has been stringing Stephen along since Post Captain, even going so far as to have a brief sexual liaison with Jack. Not surprisingly she is in compromising circumstances in India, being “kept” by a wealthy merchant named Richard Canning. It should be noted that Sophie and Diana are the archetypes of the two kinds of women to be found in the series – and in O’Brian’s novels in general. Sophie represents the noble, but very frigid, wife who has every potential to become a shrew, while Diana is the manipulative sexual predator who happily eats men for breakfast.

When Maturin and Canning meet the two become enraged with one another over Diana, whom Stephen has asked to marry. After young Dil is killed in the streets over a set of silver bangles given to her by Stephen, the doctor falls into despair. He takes his rage out on, not Diana who will not commit to him, but Canning. A pistol duel is arranged and, though Stephen is shot in the ribs, he kills Canning outright. This only increases his guilt as he realizes that Diana now has no one to take care of her, Stephen being in dodgy financial circumstances himself.

Surprise, which has in the meantime driven off a squadron of French ships bent on capturing a flotilla of British East Indiamen loaded with specie, is now ready to sail and Stephen, his situation deteriorating, offers Diana conduct to England aboard her. Jack, who is leery of Diana with good cause and desperately worried for his good friend, will not allow it. Diana will have to book passage aboard an East Indiaman.

Stephen is violently ill with fever caused by the ball lodged in his chest and – as in the scene from the movie Master and Commander – operates on himself with great success once Surprise arrives at a little island in the Indian Ocean. It is here, while recovering, that Stephen finds and collects the tortoise he will christen testudo Aubriae in recognition of his friend. The poor old turtle is seasick the entire way back to England.

When Surprise reaches Madeira, where Jack and Stephen were to rendezvous with their ladies, there is nothing for our heroes but disappointment. Sophie has returned to England, although she leaves word for Jack that her promise of marriage is still firm. Stephen, on a much less cheerful note, finds that Diana has again chosen the life of mistress over wife. She has left Madeira for the United States with the shady if decidedly rich Henry Johnson.

The book, which has so many favorable things occur for Jack – particularly at sea – has a decidedly down ending. Though both Jack and Stephen are on the rise as far as their careers, their personal lives are in shambles. Once again O’Brian, in a not very subtle way, reminds us that women are bad news and the only happiness for any true sailor is at sea. All that said, the rich tapestry of people and places offered by HMS Surprise makes all the disappointment well worth the while. And then too there’s always the next book The Mauritius Command; what ever might be in store for us there?

Header: Current paperback cover of HMS Surprise with painting by Geoff Hunt

Seafaring Sunday: Birth of a Legend

2011-12-11T00:11:00.001-09:00

"Must I put on silk stockings?"

"Certainly you must put on silk stockings. And do show a leg, my dear chap: we shall be late, without you spread a little more canvas."

"You are always in such a hurry," said Stephen peevishly, groping among his possessions. A Montpellier snake glided out with a dry rustling sound and traversed the room in a series of extraordinarily elegant curves, its head held up some eighteen inches above the ground.

"Oh, oh, oh," cried Jack, leaping on to a chair. "A snake!"

"Will these do?" asked Stephen. "They have a hole in them."

"Is it poisonous?"

"Extremely so. I dare say it will attack you, directly. I have very little doubt of it. Was I to put the silk stockings over my worsted stockings, sure the hole would not show: but then, I should stifle with heat. Do you not find it uncommonly hot?"

"Oh, it must be two fathoms long. Tell me, is it really poisonous? On your oath now?"

"If you thrust your hand down its throat as far as its back teeth you may meet a little venom; but not otherwise."

~ from Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

December 12, 1914: Richard Patrick Russ, the author later to be known as Patrick O'Brian was born in Buckinghamshire, England

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Heave

2011-12-10T16:22:00.000-09:00

Today's word shoulders a heavy burden at sea. It indicates things ships and parts of ships do on a regular basis, but it also serves to command and exhort sailors to their work. A lot of store is set by the words heave, heaving and heavy aboard ship even today. So much so, in fact, that it will take two SMS posts to cover them all.

To heave generally indicates one of two things. First, heave means to throw or cast something overboard. In this sense heave should not be confused with start. Heave is something done routinely and out of necessity, as in heaving the lead. Start is something done out of desperation, as in starting water and guns over the side to lighten ship when being pursued by an enemy. Second, heave can mean to drag or pry something out or up, as in heaving the anchor.

To heave should not be confused with to heave to, which, I will point out as an aside, I have seen done disastrously in nautical fiction. A ship is said to heave to when, as noted by Admiral Smyth in The Sailor’s Word Book, she:

… [puts herself] in the position of lying-to, adjusting her sails so as to counteract each other, and thereby check her way, or keep her perfectly still.

This is done for various reasons including dirty weather, to meet or bespeak a friend or in response to the command of a dominating enemy. “Heave to and prepare to be boarded,” is a familiar, if universally feared, call of buccaneers, pirates and privateers to their prey.

This in turn is similar to heaving about. A ship is said to heave about when she turns suddenly as in tacking.

Many of the previously mentioned orders using the word have to do with hauling up and dropping anchor as well as pulling on rope or pushing on the capstan bars, which are known as pauls. These exhortations are used for the most part as encouragement; they transmit to the hands doing the work that their efforts are showing results. For instance, heave and awash is called out when the anchor being pulled up finally crests the water and shows its ring. Heave and in sight is a similar call. Heave and aweigh, by contrast, is called out when the anchor has lifted from the cathead and is heading for the water.

Heave and paul is the order to turn the capstan while heave and rally is the order to push with gusto on the capstan bars. This is virtually interchangeable with heave hearty, while heave handsomely is an order to go more slowly thus applying a gentler tension.

Heave and set describes the up and down motion of the ship at anchor. The heave of the sea is the power of waves or swells to drive a ship at sail forward that much faster, either on or off course.

Men are called to get up from their hammocks with “Heave out there!”

One might be ordered to heave the lead (pronounced led); to take soundings of depth with the hand held lead line. This is the same as casting the lead. Similarly, one would determine the ship’s speed by heaving the log; comparing the knots on a log line to the running of the quarter-hour glass.

We will leave it there for now, Brethren, and return with heaving and heavy next time.

Header: Cover art for the paperback publication of Patrick O’Brian’s Desolation Island by the incomparable Geoff Hunt

Booty: Dressing Down Pirate Style

2011-12-09T09:12:00.002-09:00

I know my tastes run to the esoteric. When it comes to gifts, I would rather receive a signed copy of any O’Brian book ever than another sweater but sweaters are easier to get. And no amount of awesome literature is going to keep you warm when it’s below freezing. I’m not impractical, just quirky. I imagine many of the Brethren are too.

That said, a t-shirt or hoody is something everyone needs, but there’s no reason to go for the one with the generic design when you can add a nautical flavor to that simple gift. And that is where today’s highly recommended website comes in.

PirateMod has an incredible inventory of piratical and seafaring gear to wear from head to toe. Their designs range from traditional to modern and everything in between. And they are not just about freebooting; many of their designs are so purely nautical they'd look quite fitting on David Porter. There's even seafaring gift wrap.

Their website is easy to navigate, they carry a wide range of sizes, their shipping is reasonable and prompt and if you sign up for emails you can get in on t-shirt deals at just $4.00 with new designs each week. If you’re a sailor on a budget, that is something to smile about.

Hop over to PirateMod and peruse the offerings at your leisure. Sometimes the simplest gift is the most elegant, and the best appreciated.

Happy Friday, Brethren; I’ll spy ye on the morrow for SMS.

Header: One of my all time favorite PirateMod designs, which needs no explanation from me

People: The Villain Quelch

2011-12-08T09:56:00.003-09:00

The story of John Quelch, mariner turned privateer turned pirate, is a controversial one. On the one hand, we have a man whose piracy is fairly well documented due to a sensationalized trial in Boston during the summer of 1704. Quelch did indeed sign aboard the Massachusetts privateer Charles, probably as First Lieutenant, where he preceded to lead his fellow crewman in mutiny, toss their captain overboard and make for the coast of Brazil to plunder Portuguese merchants. On the other, certain modern historians argue that Quelch, and the dozen or so men hanged with him, was the victim of railroading by prominent Boston businessmen who did not want their names attached to piracy. Either way, Quelch is one of the first men to be tried for piracy in the British Colonies of North America proper.

John Quelch’s early life is a mystery, which should surprise no one who studies pirates and piracy. Philip Gosse, who is one of Quelch’s main biographers, will say only that he was a native of Massachusetts Colony. He was certainly familiar with the sea when he signed aboard the brig Charles of 80 tons in 1703. Charles was captained by Daniel Plowman and was sponsored by a group of Boston businessmen who had obtained for her a letter of marque to raid French ships off the coast of Newfoundland. This was a potentially lucrative endeavor at the time with the fisheries off the coast of modern Canada booming. The problem for those at sea was the weather, cold and generally dirty even during the summer months, and the puny prizes available. A privateer in those waters would have to work almost as hard as the fishermen he preyed upon.

Whether or not this consideration was what drove Quelch to stir up a mutiny is unknown. What we do know is that, shortly after Charles departed from Marblehead, the crew took her over. They locked Captain Plowman away, either in his cabin or below decks, elected John Quelch as their leader and set a course for the coast of Brazil. Along the way, Plowman would be committed to the deep, either killed first or thrown overboard alive.

Upon entering Brazilian waters, Charles went straight to work. According to Clifford Beal in his 2007 publication Quelch’s Gold, Quelch and his men took nine Portuguese ships from late 1703 to early 1704. These were wealthy merchants full of not only saleable goods like cloth, hides, wine and guns but specie as well in the form of gold dust, jewels and coins. The value of Quelch’s haul has been estimated at over 1 million in modern U.S. dollars.

Apparently satisfied with this impressive booty, Quelch turned for home. According to local rumors, Charles landed at Star Island, New Hampshire where someone – possibly Quelch himself – buried some of the loot. This very unlikely happenstance grew into legend when gold coins were found beneath a stone wall on the island in the mid-1800s. Whatever the case, Charles returned to Marblehead and the crew quickly dispersed to spend their ill-gotten gains. Quelch seems to have had no qualms about what he had accomplished for he was very soon arrested and sitting in jail in Boston. Authorities sent navy ships to apprehend Quelch’s crew and a dozen or so were rounded up to join their former captain in gaol.

On June 17, 1704, a trial was held at the Star Tavern in Boston. The sailors, now beaten down after too much time chained in filthy cells, were by and large defiant nonetheless. Though extreme physical torture does not seem to have been used on the prisoners – that sort of thing being tacitly illegal in British courts – they do seem to have been badgered relentlessly for confessions and repentance by local ministers. Gosse, who’s The Pirates Who’s Who has an entry, however brief, on 40 of the pirates, notes that most were “wretched” and “beaten down” by the time they came to the gallows at Scarlil’s Wharf, Boston. Gosse quotes from “a pamphlet published at the time”:

The Ministers of the Town used more than ordinary Endeavours to Instruct the Prisoners and Bring them to Repentance.

What this means in practice we cannot say, but Massachusetts as a whole and Boston specifically was still a stronghold of Puritan religion in the New World. That these pirates were treated little better than the “witches” of Salem Village is probably a very safe bet.

Quelch and his men were marched through Boston barefoot to the wharf with a heavy guard and the silver Admiralty oar carried before them. This made their execution an official maritime punishment and they were hanged as if on the dock at Wapping, within sight of the ocean. Legend has it that they were buried on the shore at low tide. Only one of their number was pardoned; a thirteen year old boy named John Templeton was determined to have been “only a servant on board” and therefore no part of the mutiny that killed Captain Plowman.

The previously mentioned pamphlet has John Quelch saying to the crowd as the noose was placed around his neck, “They should take care how they brought Money into New England to be Hanged for it.”

Many historians believe that Quelch felt he was within the parameters of his letter of marque in taking those Portuguese merchants. Some have gone so far as to call the hanging of Quelch and his mates the “first case of judicial murder in America.” To me this statement goes too far and points to the misunderstandings still in circulation about privateering and letters of marque. If the facts as they have come down to us are true, then Quelch did turn pirate. His letter of marque was against French shipping only, making the taking of a ship of any other nationality piracy. Then too there is the little matter of murdering Captain Plowman if we want to do more than split hairs.

Whether Quelch was a bloodthirsty villain who got what he deserved or a pawn of greater men in the same manner as William Kidd, I’ll let you judge, Brethren. History is always one part detective work, two parts educated guess and a little crazy supposition thrown in to taste.

Header: Quelch’s alleged flag known as “Old Roger”: it is probably that the flag never flew from the masthead of Charles

The Pirate's Own Book: In the Eastern Sea

2011-12-06T09:21:00.001-09:00

Charles Ellms rarely had first hand knowledge of the pirates he wrote about in his seminal work on freebooters. Since the book was published in the 1830s, well after the threat of piracy along the coasts of North and South America had been all but eradicated, he necessarily had to count on second, third or even fourth hand accounts when writing about Christopher Condent or Edward England. The one exception to that rule in The Pirate’s Own Book is Chapter 13: “Authentic History of the Malay Pirates.” In it, Ellms states that he has witnessed these East India pirates with his own eyes, if not in action certainly upon the ocean they called home.

It is curious that this should be the area of piracy with which Ellms is most familiar. His work on pirates, though often more fantasy than reality, is considered standard reading for those who study freebooters. It seems that should also hold true for those who hunt modern pirates; aside from the Gulf of Aden, the Malaysian Archipelago is still one of the main hotbeds of piracy.

Ellms is not kind to the people of whom he writes and the taint of “western superiority” jumps off the page almost immediately. While he is careful to note that most of the tribal people along the coasts of East India Islands are law abiding citizens, he digs at certain of the groups, calling them “…barbarous and poor, therefore rapacious, faithless and sanguinary.” His recognition that the people are impoverished perhaps saves Ellms, if only just a little, from the harsh judgment of modern sympathies. In all places and times, want has driven men to actions they might not take if their families were well provided for.

The hierarchy of the pirates is simple and familiar, smacking of the Barbary corsairs of 200 years before. A wealthy chief funds the forays of the pirates, including provisioning and arming their ships, in return for a cut of the loot taken including captives, arms and any saleable goods. The pirate vessels, known as proas, according to Ellms who again has witnessed them first hand are:

… from six to eight tons burden, and run from six to eight fathoms in length. They carry from one to two small guns, with commonly four swivels or rantakas to each side, and a crew of from twenty to thirty men.

These particular pirates are not interested in chasing ships in open water but will approach a merchant vessel at anchor in groups, surround it and then get to the bloody business of boarding. Ellms tells us that they are “… upon the whole extremely impartial in the selection of their prey, making little choice between natives and strangers…” He is clear, however, that a “resolute crew of Europeans or Americans stand but little danger” from these freebooters.

Ellms does seem to sympathize with the pirates once again when he tells the story of the freebooting “prince of pirates” Raga. Rajah Raga, as he is referred to, was originally a sea captain who watched his crew drown at the hands of a European naval vessel. The westerners offered no help to the dying men and Raga “… swore anew destruction to every European he should henceforth take.” While he does not actually come out and say it, Ellms seems to understand the source of Raga’s rage, even if he does not condone it.

The last seven pages of the chapter tell the story of the Salem, Massachusetts merchant vessel Friendship, captured by Malay pirates in February, 1831. Ellms does not specifically say whether or not he was present at this event, but he happily details the bloody slaughter of Captain Endicott and a good many of his men. In the end, of course, the pirates are overcome by an unnamed U.S. Commodore who bombards the pirate port, encouraging them to surrender and give up to “punishment” those who committed aggression against the Friendship.

Ellms assessment of these pirates, who were his contemporaries, is both forward thinking and rooted in the prejudices of his era. On the one hand he notes their mistreatment by western governments and extreme poverty as reasons for their depredations of both local and foreign vessels. On the other, he writes them off as inferior and easily handled by a “resolute crew of Europeans or Americans.” It is a curious mixture of thoughts that does not come to the page anywhere else in the book.

Reading Ellms makes me wonder what our descendants, who will have so much in the form of media to judge us by, will think of our mores and attitudes some two hundred years in the future. The thought slips away pretty quickly though; I’m fairly certain I already know the answer.

Header: A Piratical Proa in Full Chase from The Pirate’s Own Book

Ships: The Pirate's Choice

2011-12-05T08:51:00.000-09:00

In 1713 the shipyard of Andrew Robinson at Gloucester, Massachusetts launched a completely new type of ship. She was light, no more than 100 tons in her true form, shallow of draft at a sleek five feet, could be run by as few as 75 men and sailed briskly regardless of the direction of the wind. Robinson called her the schooner and she ushered in a new age of fast, effective sailing not dreamed of prior to her introduction.

The word schooner is a conundrum as there are similar words in most Latinate languages and German as well. John Batchelor and Christopher Chant offer that the word actually comes from the Scottish dialect of Gaelic in their The Complete Encyclopedia of Sailing Ships. According to them, schooner derives from scoon:

… a verb describing the skipping progress of a stone skimmed over the water.

No more poetic description could be used to help one imagine the quick, bouncing form of a schooner in full sail. The sails, routinely fore-and-aft, were rigged on two masts and at first included one or two square topsails on the fore. These were replaced in the late 18th century by so called jackyard topsails that were shaped very much like a jib sail (as illustrated on both fore and main mast in the painting at the header). This configuration of sail made the schooner a viable option for all types of conditions as she did not have to run before the wind to attain high speeds, as was the case with square-rigged vessels. She could sail with the wind on any quarter, turn and tack more readily and quickly, and keep to coastal waters where larger, deeper draft ships would founder.

This speed, ease of handling and ability to be run by a smaller crew, as fore-and-aft sails were more easily handled than square rigging, made the schooner the ship of choice for just about every use. By the dawn of the 19th century, she was being built in Europe as well as the U.S. and could be found in virtually any port around the world. She was used as a mail packet, a tender for ships of the line, a troop and supply transport. Most notably, she was a favorite vessel of both pirates of the Golden Age and the new breed of privateers that came after them. A stop in the Laffite brothers’ Barataria Bay circa 1810 would have revealed half a dozen schooners of various rigging at anchor at any given time. Along with the hermaphrodite brig – which itself was a variation of the schooner type – nothing was more trusted or handy in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean at the time.

Because of its popularity with the men of a piratical bent, the schooner was also the ship of choice for the best of pirate hunters. David Porter, the brilliantly successful Commodore of the Mosquito Fleet that virtually wiped out the tail end of the pirate class in the West Indies, counted on schooners to enter lagoons and bays around islands like Cuba. This allowed him and his men to ferret out the worst offenders and relieve U.S. merchants of the predations that were costing the entire country an arm and a leg.

In the 1840s, with the dawn of the California gold rush and the need for even more speed, the schooner type was modified again. Square rigging was added to her light frame, along with a third mast, and the legendary clipper ship was born. Schooners are still a favorite vessel with sailors of all types, myself included. Their ease of handling and beautiful lines are hard to resist. And what could be better than to be aboard a fast runner on a clear day? Not much at all.

Header: Early 19th century clipper ship by an unknown artist

Seafaring Sunday: Three Knots

2011-12-04T08:25:00.001-09:00

December 3, 1787: A steamboat piloted by James Rumsey and loaded with two tons of ballast achieved three knots against the current on the Potomac River in West Virginia. Eight lucky passengers were along for the auspicious ride.

Header: Modern steamboat via Industrial Revolution in America (dotcom)

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Hail

2011-12-03T16:44:00.001-09:00

While fair weather and a hale crew is always to be wished for aboard us, there’s more to be said about hail than hale, at least at sea.

Of course a man can hail from a city, state or country, whether it be his place of birth or where he currently resides, but so can a ship. She is said to hail from her port of origin, generally the place where she is registered. As an example, Renato Beluche’s schooner Spy, a privateer for the U.S. during the War of 1812, hailed from New Orleans as her letter of mark was endorsed by the Commodore there, Daniel Tod Patterson. Thus any prizes she obtained should rightfully be brought in to NOLA, weather and the soundness of the ship permitting. I will note, purely as a family aside, that the two men hated each other; war makes strange bedfellows indeed.

A ship can itself be hailed, and it is not only in naval service that certain rules apply for doing same. In general parlance, the ship doing the hailing will call “From whence do you come, and where bound?” The answer to these questions should be immediate, or suspicion is aroused. Ships may pass within hail when an urgent need for exchange of information precludes putting boats over the side or time does not permit same. In this case the senior vessel – determined by who is in command – heaves to while the junior passes her stern to receive orders or intelligence.

Hailing a ship at sea was done by voice, flag or gun depending on both distance and the situation. Hail shot was very small balls used specifically for hails and salutes. In the 15th and 16th centuries, a small cannon known as a hailshot piece was supplied to ships for this purpose. Its trajectories were small cubes of iron known as dice.

A man’s good friends within his mess, which may be all of them if he is fortunate, would be known to him as hail fellows. In essence, good company and brothers.

Hailing aloft is done to call the attention of those men who are up in the rigging. As Admiral Smyth snidely remarks in The Sailor’s Word Book:

… call men in the tops and at the mast-head to “look out,” too often an inconsistent bluster on deck.

And that is enough bluster for one day, I shall say. Fair winds and a following sea to all the Brethren. I’ll see you here tomorrow for Seafaring Sunday.

Header: Clipper Ship by Captain Arthur Small

Booty: A Table Fit for a Commodore

2011-12-02T09:49:00.001-09:00

As is tradition here at Triple P, Fridays this December will feature gift suggestions for the seafaring man or woman in your life. This year we’ll be all across the board with stocking stuffers, modern wearables and today, historical tableware.

Setting a table at sea was always tricky at best. The movement of the ocean made keeping china and silver in its place more troublesome than one might imagine. Fine dining sometimes went completely by the board due to weather or war but, whenever possible, most captains did and still do like to set a nice table. This included those of the piratical variety, where only the basest of louts wouldn’t take the opportunity to show off their plunder in the form of gilt chargers and silver flatware.

Established navies were almost duty bound to provide a decent table not only in the captain’s cabin but also in the wardroom, where the officers messed. This included linen, china, crystal and sterling – particularly when company called. Wooden trenchers were considered barbaric by the dawn of the Age of Exploration, no matter how much better they functioned in choppy conditions. Anxious stewards polished silver, kept china from cracking and bleached linen white in all conditions out of pure pride. The best literary example of this is probably O’Brian’s character Preserved Killick, steward to Jack Aubrey throughout the Aubrey/Maturin series.

If you or someone you love might have an interest in dressing their table in pure nautical style, you need look no further than The Pirate’s Lair. This enchanting website offers historical china, silver and linen from some of the world’s foremost navies, past and present. Not only are the navies of the U.S., Canada, France, Britain and Spain well represented, but pieces from many other navies are available too. To point out just a few you’ll find china from the Brazilian Navy, the Greek Navy and the Nigerian Navy.

The prices are not bargain basement by any means, but just one china or silver serving piece would make a nice addition to any table and certainly start a conversation or two. I’ve got my eye on the U.S. wardroom officer blue fouled anchor insignia large, deep pre-WWI serving bowl. Nothing says Christmas like a navy serving bowl. Anchors aweigh!

Header: Formal table setting featuring U.S. Navy china, silver and linen via The Pirate’s Lair

Tools of the Trade: Knowledge of Sail

2011-12-01T08:54:00.002-09:00

Over at Blue Lou Logan’s seafaring blog, Lou is currently reviewing Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels. This labor of love is a well done refresher and memory jogger for anyone who has read the series. For those who have only read a book or two, or none at all, there is no doubt that Lou’s posts will make you want to jump in with both feet. For me, the posts bring to mind my “first time”, if you will, and all the conundrums of “sailor speak” that came with tackling O’Brian. Something, I will say as an aside, you wouldn’t want to do physically; he was a fragile little man and things could easily get ugly.

One of the many hurdles to jump mentally was understanding the language of the sail. While I personally had been around sailing boats most of my life, the sails of a frigate or – even more daunting – a ship of the line could turn my head pretty quickly. Jib I understood, but topgallant royal or any kind of studdingsail were hard to place.

The best resource that I have found in this regard, and many others, is Dean King’s A Sea of Words. Written as a companion to O’Brian’s novels it also handles many of the historical details that may fly past the reader as they focus on the story, including the nuts and bolts of Napoleonic era sailing. The handy chart of sail above (a 19th century engraving similar to those found in King’s book) is just one example. While the above chart does not cover every possible sail from stem to stern, it does show those most frequently let out on a ship of frigate size. Here are the period correct names (approximately 1650 to 1875) for each sail pictured per the numbers noted:

1) flying jib, 2) jib, 3) fore topmast staysail, 4) fore staysail, 5) fore course (or foresail), 6) fore topsail, 7) fore topgallant, 8) main staysail, 9) main topmast staysail, 10) middle staysail, 11) main topgallant staysail.

Note that the cables known as stays, which hold the fore and aft sails, also serve the purpose of keeping the masts upright through tension which is then counteracted by back stays. Back stays, it should be noted, do not have corresponding sails.

12) main course (or mainsail), 13) main topsail, 14) main topgallant, 15) mizzen staysail, 16) mizzen topmast staysail, 17) mizzen topgallant staysail, 18) mizzensail, 19) driver spanker, 20) mizzen topsail, 21) mizzen topgallant.

With the knowledge of these sails firmly in the reader’s mind, just about any seafaring novel can be more readily understood, at least when one encounters issues of sail.

As a final note, if you’re wondering what those sails – often referred to as canvas – were made of it is probable that you already know the answer. After the medieval period, when linen was the favored fabric, sails rightly went by their moniker; they were almost exclusively made of cotton canvas until the modern era.

So topgallants and flying jib as well, if you please; fair sailing and good reading to you all.

Header: Mid-19th century engraving of a Royal Navy frigate with sails numbered via sporcle.com

History: The Continental Navy and Pirate Democracy

2011-11-29T09:34:00.000-09:00

The first was named Alfred, in honor of the greatest Navy that ever existed; the second, Columbus, after the discoverer of this quarter of the globe; the third, Cortez, after the discoverer of the northern part of the continent; the fourth, Andrew Doria, in honor of the great Genoese admiral; and the fifth, Providence, the name of the town where she was purchased and the residence of Governor Hopkins and his brother Esek, whom we appointed the first captain.

This quote comes from John Adams in his role as a member of the Continental Congress. In it, he delineates the first five vessels of the Continental Navy. Upon those vessels, of course, discipline was not an option but Congress was keen to ensure that the potentially out of control discipline that reigned in the Royal Navy of the day did not trickle down to the newly established fleet of the United Colonies of North America. To that end, a written set of Rules and Regulations were approved and enacted on November 28, 1775.

There are 44 Articles in total dealing with everything from victualling to pay to “divine service”. Some specific points are worth noting on this 236th anniversary of their establishment, particularly those that obviously try to distinguish the new naval force from its ancient parent.

Article 1 is telling in and of itself; the first issue on hand is not day to day life aboard ship but duty, honor, and the importance of setting a good example:

The commanders of all ships and vessels belonging to the Thirteen United Colonies are strictly required to shew in themselves a good example of honor and virtue to their officers and men…

A commander may be the law at sea but he is not above it. Like a modern head coach of an NFL team, whatever happens aboard his ship is ultimately his responsibility and/or fault. Leading by example is not just a good idea, it is a given.

“Divine service,” which in general meant reading from the Bible, is expected to be performed twice a day with a sermon preached on Sunday barring “bad weather or other extraordinary accidents prevent it.” Most ships of this time, even in the Royal Navy, did not carry a chaplain, however. Sailors imagined holy men aboard as bad luck. Although Article 2 does not say so, a reading of the Articles of War – which Article 7 states must be done once a month – was an acceptable substitute.

Other Articles ban cursing and drunkenness, with the commander given specific parameters as to punishments for same. Article 4 specifically gives the most severe punishment open to a captain without recourse to consultation with a superior officer – a Commodore – or tribunal of courts martial:

No Commander shall inflict any punishment upon a seaman beyond twelve lashes upon his bare back with a cat of nine-tails…

This clearly speaks to the brutal practices of some Royal Navy captains who would order up to 500 lashes, sometimes for minor offenses.

Care is taken to see that men are paid in a timely manner and that their names are entered into ship’s books appropriately. “A convenient place” is to be set up for sick and injured men and the need for a surgeon and surgeon’s mates is also indicated. Fishing is not just encouraged but mandated when possible, so that the men and particularly the sick have fresh food. The purser is admonished to inspect stored provisions “… and if the bread proves damp to have it aired on the quarter-deck or poop…”

Unlike the Royal Navy, where sailors who died or were killed at sea might have their things sold at auction by their mates, Article 23 mandates that “… cloaths, bedding and other things of such persons…” should be returned to their families.

Article 26 specifically addresses a commander’s duty when faced with an enemy ship. This Article, wherein the captain is again expected to lead by example and “order all things in his ship in a proper posture for fight” was the one repeatedly thrown up in James Baron’s face over the Chesapeake/Leopard Affair, eventually leading to the duel that killed Stephen Decatur.

A commander is given permission to take a life in time of battle when a man deserts his “duty or station”. This occurred when David Porter’s Essex met HMS Phoebe in Valparaiso Harbor. Essex’s gunner deserted his post, saying he would not stay to be slaughtered “like a sheep”. Porter, enraged, gave his adoptive son, Midshipman David Farragut, a pistol and admonished him: “Do your duty, sir.” The gunner was not located before Essex struck to Phoebe. The only other Article that addresses immediate punishment by death addresses cases of murder.

Article 32 gives any crewman, from ship’s boy to First Lieutenant, the right of redress if he feels he has “cause for complaint”. This Article specifically states that if the petitioner does not receive a fair hearing from his direct superior, he may petition the captain.

While these Rules and Regulations for a new navy maintain the disciplines necessary for the running of a capable ship, the tone is very different from those of the Royal Navy. The new egalitarianism and the belief that every man should be heard seeped into the wood and brass of those first five ships and it carries on to this day. One might boldly say that a bit of pirate democracy stood on the decks of the Navy of the United Colonies of North America.

Header: The Continental Fleet at Sea by Newland Van Powell c 1974

Sea Monsters: The Walking Cephalopods

2011-11-28T08:47:00.000-09:00

Last week, the First Mate sent me this brief but intriguing article from Yahoo! News. Entitled “Video: Octopus crawls out of water and walk on dry land,” and containing the eponymous video, it is probably no surprise that the piece itself is rather short. After all, a picture – or in this case a pretty amazing video – is worth a thousand words.

I am personally rather fond of octopi (yes, I did look it up; “octopi” is the correct plural). They are very interesting looking, intelligent, dexterous and painfully shy. The only animals they can tolerate being around for any length of time are the ones they like to eat. And that’s the gist of the article and the video. Evidently, a hungry octopus will happily drag himself over land to get to a tasty morsel.

That’s not all by half, though. A second article referenced in this one chronicles the experiences of researcher Alexa Warburton with a Pacific octopus named Athena. From the article:

Octopuses in captivity actually escape their watery enclosures with alarming frequency. While on the move, they have been discovered on carpets, along bookshelves, in a teapot, and inside the aquarium tanks of other fish – upon whom they have usually been dining.

Think about that for a minute. These things are like aquatic zombies. I’m thinking of pitching a new show to AMC: The Walking Octopi. Eerie.

Header: The octopus featured in the video, walking

Seafaring Sunday: Money for Terror

2011-11-27T11:18:00.000-09:00

November 28, 1795: The United States paid its first tribute to the pirates of Algiers and Tunis. This bribe amounted to $800,000 and a frigate and was supposed to insure that U.S. merchant ships were not raided by Barbary corsairs. The U.S. soon learned that no amount of money would stop the pirates and the First and Second Barbary wars would finally put an end to their predations in the first quarter of the 19th century.

Header: William Bainbridge and the Dey of Algiers via US History Images

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Time

2011-11-26T16:06:00.000-09:00

Time is short, of the essence, and there is not a moment to lose. Or so it seems aboard ship. Stephen Maturin famously complained of this situation at sea in O’Brian’s books and in the movie Master and Commander. Jack Aubrey, for his part, could not comprehend what his doctor was whining about. To him, there truly was never a moment to be lost, and so it is with most sailors. There are other uses for time at sea, however, and even words that sound like it from foreign shores.

Time is, first and foremost, the way of keeping track of the day. All ships – from smuggler’s pirogue to pirate’s sloop to massive ship of the line – ran on bells, which mark her time. The bell was rung, or struck in common shipboard parlance, every half hour with the glass being turned at the same time. Thus eight bells signaled the end of a four hour watch.

The half-hour glass was the true time keeper and the margin for human error was great in keeping track of it, particularly under stress. To rectify any errors in time keeping, noon was read daily via a sextant. Thus solar time was set to rights each day. The call of noon was also the official beginning of the ship’s day when a new page in the log would be dated and begun. This ritual goes along with “taking time” when an assistant – usually a youth or Midshipman – would note the time via chronometer each time the officer observing with the sextant called “stop”. In this way, the astronomical observation is rectified as necessary for the most correct reading possible.

A chronometer and later the very accurate hand held watches, many famously originating from Switzerland, were known as timekeepers or time-pieces aboard ship. They were a source of concern for common sailors. Like the compass with its magnetic workings, time-pieces seemed somewhat magical and therefore must be given a wider berth.

Timenoguy is an ancient word for a stay that could prevent sheets or tacks from getting fouled in other rigging. These ropes were particularly used in the fore rigging.

A timoneer is a helmsman. The word came to English via the French timonier and could also indicate a pilot in some cases. Along the same lines is the word timonogy, which is described in The Sailor’s Word Book thusly:

This term properly belongs to steering, and is derived from timon, the tiller, and the twiddling-lines, which worked in olden times on a gauge in front of the poop, in ships of the line, by which the position of the helm was easily read even from the forecastle.

And with that, happy Saturday, Brethren. Keep your timeonguy and your twiddling-lines taut and, whenever possible, make time for yourself and those you love.

Header: Frigate Rose as HMS Surprise by Scott Kennedy

Booty: Pretty Pirate... Zombies?

2011-11-25T13:10:00.000-09:00

Well, there’s no denying that Marilyn is pretty any way you slice it. Hope all of Triple P’s U.S. Brethren had a delightful Thanksgiving and that every one of the crew enjoys their Friday!

Header: Painting by writer and artist Arthur Suydam

History: Laffite in Jest

2011-11-23T08:58:00.003-09:00

On November 24, 1813, a proclamation by the Governor of the State of Louisiana, William Charles Cole Claiborne, was posted in New Orleans and its surrounding communities. The content of the proclamation would have been familiar to most of the residents who read it, Creole and American alike. The reactions, however, would probably have drawn the lines between the French/Spanish opinion and the new Anglais outlook. The wording of Claiborne’s missive was as follows:

It has been official known to me that, on the 14th of last month a quantity of smuggled goods, seized by Walter Gilbert, an officer of the revenue of the United States, were forcibly taken from him in open day, at no great distance from the city of New Orleans, by a party of armed men under the orders of a certain John Lafitte, who fired upon and grievously wounded one of the assistants of the said Walter Gilbert; and although process has issued for the apprehension of him, the said John Lafitte, yet such is the countenance and protection afforded him, or the terror excited by the threats of himself and his associates, that the same remains unexecuted…

I offer a reward of $500 U.S. to any person delivering the said John Lafitte to the sheriff of the Parish of Orleans… so that the said John Lafitte may be brought to justice.

That first, very long sentence that eventually turns into a paragraph fairly seethes with the Governor’s frustration at his own between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place situation with regard to the matter.

On the one had, Claiborne is confronted by angry Americans like New Orleans Naval Station Commodore Daniel Tod Patterson and Army Colonel George Ross who supported the position that U.S. laws regarding smuggling should reign supreme in Louisiana. In their view, men like the Laffites – and in particular those two brothers who ran their den of pirates in Barataria like a legal business – were nothing but criminals and should as soon be hanged and spoken to.

On the other hand, however, Claiborne has his own opinions and those of his family to deal with. Having been in New Orleans as territorial governor since 1803, the former Virginian and favorite of Thomas Jefferson has gone native, so to speak. He has married local Creole girls, not once but twice, and his current wife Susanna Bosche is cousin to one of Laffite’s own privateers, Renato Beluche. Claiborne knows that the Creole sees smuggling as necessary to open commerce, no more hurtful to his economy than Kentucky produce or French champagne, the latter of which he would not have without smuggling.

Clearly, the breaking point for Claiborne was the attack on revenue agent Walker Gilbert, whose name like Laffite’s is misspelled in the proclamation, and his men. At last, the Governor must appeal to his own people to help him reel in the desperado Laffite who has been wanted – at least on paper – for over a year.

But what of “the said John Lafitte”? What was his reaction to this challenge by a man that he had met personally, at least in passing?

While the details are sketchy, one fact is clear: the morning of November 25 saw another proclamation tacked up around the Crescent City. This one offered $1,000, this time in silver, for Governor Claiborne brought to Cat Island off Barataria Bay; no questions asked. What is rarely noted is that a small memorandum was affixed below the bold signature: Laffite. This clearly read that the King of Barataria posted his notice “as a bagatelle (French for trifle)” and he was “only jesting & desired that no one would do violence to his Excellency.”

As William C. Davis notes in The Pirates Laffite, word of this bravado got around pretty quickly. Letters were sent home about it by those visiting from the East and foreign locales. Within a week the reward offered by Laffite had doubled; by the time Lyle Saxon wrote Lafitte the Pirate in the 1930s, the cash value had climbed to $5,000.

The question that remains is whether or not Laffite, be it Pierre or Jean or both, was actually responsible for the bounty on the Governor. The two most reliable modern sources on the brothers differ in their opinions. Jack C. Ramsay, Jr., in Jean Laffite Prince of Pirates states “… it is unlikely it originated from [Laffite].” Davis, on the other hand, called the posting “Laffite’s own response” and says it points up “… the combination of bravado and impish humor in his personality.” In this case, Davis is specifically referring to Jean.

And that’s the way I like to imagine it going down. Jean Laffite, with a twinkle in his dark eye, offering a bounty on the Governor of Louisiana, but only as a jest; a little bagatelle.

Header: William C.C. Claiborne as Governor of the Territory of Orleans via Wikipedia

People: The Mad Carpenter

2011-11-22T09:27:00.000-09:00

John Phillips, who for all intents and purposes was nothing more than a two-bit crook, is remembered in the annals of piracy because of two distinctions. First, Phillips’ Ship’s Articles have come down to us in tact and include a curious and otherwise unheard of passage regarding “prudent” women. Second, Phillips is given space in A General History of Pyrates by Charles Johnson (aka Daniel Defoe), one of the foremost sources of information pertaining to pirates of the Golden Age. Beyond that, Phillips seems to have been a man who started out with a relatively level head, but lost his equilibrium along the way turning into a murderous, vengeful individual who was mad at the whole wide world.

Probably born in Devonshire, England some time in the late 17th century, John Phillips took up the trade of carpentry. It was as a carpenter’s mate that Phillips was traveling from England to Newfoundland when his ship was overtaken and boarded by the pirate Thomas Anstis. As so often happened during that era, Anstis’ ship was without a carpenter and Phillips was pressed, very much against his will it seems, into joining the pirate crew.

Not long after this incident, Anstis had his ship at Tobago in early 1723. After finishing a careening, many of Anstis’ men – including Phillips – were still ashore when Royal Navy ships came into view. In a hurry to save his own skin, Anstis packed on all sail and left the men ashore to fend for themselves. Phillips and a few others escaped into the jungle but the British ships captured many of Anstis’ men. Anstis himself would later be killed by his own crew for his cowardly act; Phillips, however, made it back to England somehow.

According to Johnson, Phillips got word almost immediately that his mates from Anstis’ ship were to be tried for piracy. Fearing his name would come up in the proceedings, he quickly took up a post on another ship bound for Newfoundland. Unable to find work as a carpenter in the New World, he went to work gutting fish among the numerous fisheries on the coast. This job was brutally hard, paid very little and in the dark and cold of the Newfoundland winters, literally drove men and women mad.

Within four month, Phillips was fed up with the fisheries. He and four other like-minded mates stole a boat belonging to a man name Minot or Minors in August of 1723. Their intention was to go a-pirating and they made quick work of a few local fishing vessels, pressing some of the men aboard them into signing their hastily drawn up Ship’s Articles. Though his articles generally follow the pattern of the few others that have come down to us, Phillips included a passage in same that read:

If at any time you meet with a prudent Woman, any Man that offers to meddle with her, without her Consent, shall suffer present Death.

At least two modern writers have speculated that Phillips was witness to brutal incidences of rape while aboard Anstis’ vessel and had no stomach for such barbarism. This is a curious speculation given Phillips’ later dealings not only with prisoners but with his own crew. Of course murder is not rape but rape is torture; to my mind the theory remains only speculative.

At some point, Phillips took John Rose Archer, who claimed to have sailed with Blackbeard, aboard his ship and promoted him to quartermaster. The caused ill will among Phillips’ original four shipmates and that would bubble over in a short time.

Phillips headed south to Tobago where he and his crew suffered three months of near starvation without a single prize. Finally their luck changed; they captured a French merchant and took her over, renaming her Revenge. Other prizes followed, but trouble was brewing. Some of Phillips’ crew, many of them men forced to serve aboard Revenge, began trying to escape. Many were flogged for their trouble and at least one, carpenter Thomas Fern, was shot dead probably by Phillips himself.

By late 1723, Phillips had returned to the waters off Newfoundland where he gutted the local fishing boats almost as soon as they hit the water. One was notably spared because it belonged to the same man from whom Phillips had stolen his original vessel. “We have done him enough injury already,” he told his crew. After this kindness he turned around and tortured a captain who had foolishly tried to run from Revenge.

The success Phillips had in Newfoundland masked the goings-on aboard his own ship. His punishments of even minor infractions became more heinous and already resentful men turned mutinous. In April of 1724, the Revenges had had enough; they rose up and tossed Phillips overboard to drown in the icy water of Notre Dame Bay.

The lack of leadership, no matter how brutal, made quick work of the men aboard Revenge. Johnson says that the ship was overtaken by the Royal Navy and most of her small crew was hanged including quartermaster Archer.

For all his small success, Phillips life at sea did not seem to sit well with him. Unlike others pressed into pirate service who went on to enjoy their new life, freebooting was a short but arguably not very merry one for the mad carpenter.

Header: Engraving of John Phillips from Johnson’s A General History of Pyrates

Women at Sea: The Sinkable Margaret Fuller

2011-11-21T09:34:00.000-09:00

If you ask me what office women should fill, I reply: any. …let them be sea captains if you will. I do not doubt that there are women well fitted for such an office.

That is my favorite quote from the writer whose byline was simply “Margaret”. Born Sarah Margaret Fuller in Cambridge, Massachusetts in May of 1810, she would go on to become a shining light in what is now known as the transcendentalist literary movement along with men like Ralph Waldo Emerson who was a close friend. Fuller is also credited with being one of the first women’s rights advocates and has been called an inspiration by later women in the women’s rights movement including Susan B. Anthony. On the flip side, she was vilified as a harpy by others; Nathaniel Hawthorne, it must be admitted perhaps one of America’s most misogynist authors, modeled his Hester Prynne on Fuller. In particular he noted that both women shared “… very peculiar thinking on the whole race of womanhood.” Fuller herself was more impressed with the idea of womanhood than with individual women. She would achieve quite a bit in her short life, but she opined that most women weren’t up to the pursuit of literary greatness.

It is not, however, Fuller’s life with which I am concerned. You can read more about that here or here. This post will focus on her odd and ultimately tragic death at sea on July 19, 1850.

Fuller had gone to Europe in 1846 as the first female foreign correspondent for the New York Tribune. In Britain, she met the then exiled leader of the Italian revolution, Giuseppe Mazzini. Enthralled, in her usual fashion, by the concept of the rebellion, she followed Mazzini when he returned to Italy. There she met the former Marquis Giovanni Angelo Ossoli and the two promptly set up house together in Florence. Though scholarly debate continues to this day as to whether or not Fuller was ever legally the Marquise Ossoli, many biographers tacked her lover’s name onto Fuller’s own (particularly Julia Ward Howe whose work on Fuller is available online). Regardless, the two had a son, Angelo Eugene Philip Ossoli known as Angelino, in September of 1848.

Fuller and Ossoli backed Mazzini’s second bid at rebellion in 1849 but when the Pope returned to Rome from temporary exile in 1850, the couple had to pack up and hastily depart for fear of being jailed and possibly executed. They booked passage aboard the U.S. cargo freighter Elizabeth, bound for New York.

Elizabeth set sail on May 17. She appears to have been overloaded; her hold was packed with heavy Carrara marble in bulk form. The trip was slow and the captain, Seth Hasty, died of a smallpox outbreak aboard ship. Little Angelino also contracted the disease but was recovered by the time Elizabeth sighted the U.S. on July 19.

For reasons unknown, Elizabeth veered off course about 100 yards off Fire Island, New York, cracked her hull on a bar and began to sink immediately. This occurred around three in the morning and pandemonium quickly reigned aboard her. The first mate, who survived the wreck, remembered hurrying Fuller, Ossoli and their son up on deck and to the rail before leaping into the dark water. They did not follow him and he would later state his belief that Fuller wanted them to be left behind to die. Whatever the case, all three of the family members went down with Elizabeth, drowning within sight of land.

The story goes that local people appeared almost immediately on the beach with carts and wheelbarrows. They made no attempt to help those struggling toward land but instead began scavenging for valuables from the wreck. Henry David Thoreau, another close literary friend of Fullers, would journey to Fire Island to look for Fuller’s body. His search was in vain; only Angelino’s body was recovered. He lies buried now at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge under a monument to him and his parents.

The clues point to Fuller actually imagining herself dead at 40. She wrote home early in 1850 that she was “… absurdly fearful and various omens have combined to give me a dark feeling… It seems to me that my future upon earth will soon close… I have a vague expectation of some crisis – I know not what.” If dramatic death was what she hoped for, Fuller could not have engineered a more fitting ending to her “future upon earth”.

Poe said once “Humanity is divided into men, women and Margaret Fuller”. Considering his capacity for observing his fellow humans, we have to imagine that Edgar knew of what he spoke.

Header: Late 19th century engraving of Margaret Fuller

Seafaring Sunday: End of the Ladies' Man

2011-11-20T11:35:00.000-09:00

November 20, 1720: "Calico" Jack Rackham is hanged for piracy in Spanish Towne, Jamaica after a very brief trial. His lover, Anne Bonny, famously told him "If you had fought like a man, you wouldn't be hangin' like a dog," as he was being taken to the gallows.

Header: Jack Rackham by Peter Copeland from his Pirates & Buccaneers Coloring Book

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Home

2011-11-19T15:57:00.000-09:00

Home is a place in the mind of a sailor that, if he was to be honest with himself, does not exist. At home, on land, safe from the ocean’s fickle whims, the sailor imagines himself at peace. There is no scut work – no work of any measurable kind if possible – an endless supply of drink and a woman to look after him. Two, if he can work it out. The British sailors of the Napoleonic era had a name for it: Fiddler’s Green. As Dean King informs us this was:

A sailor’s imagined paradise, free of the hardships of the sea and rich with wine, women, and song.

Perhaps this is why the word home has a sturdy place aboard ship.

The Sailor’s Word Book points out that home is:

The proper situation of an object, when it retains its full force of action, or when it is properly lodged for convenience. In the former sense it is applied to the sails; in the latter it usually refers to the stowage of the hold.

As to the sails, it is said that they are home when they are set to receive the wind most favorable. Sheet home is the order to extend the lower clues of a sail or sails to the yardarms. With the hold, her cargo is said to be home when it is in the most favorable spots for the ship’s best running.

The gunner will call home when he has determined by touch that the charge in his cannon is home and no air is escaping the touch-hole.

The anchor is said to come home when it loosens from the ground it is in and is dragged along by the ship moving under current or sail. This can also occur due to an inadequate length of cable. The wind blows home when it skirts land and water with equal velocity. It does not blow home when the wind hits high ground close to the water as in the case of a high-set island such a Gibraltar and this can play havoc with a sailing vessel.

A ship is said to be on home service when she is stationed in waters belonging to her own country. In Britain this was sometimes referred to as Channel service. Likewise a home trader is a merchant vessel not from a foreign country.

A ship is homeward bound on her way to back to her own nation or, more specifically, the harbor or shipyard where she was launched. A homeward-bounder, then, is one such ship underway.

Finally, for your entertainment and really almost completely off the subject, here is my favorite song about home. “Everybody really needs a home…”

Header: The Sailors Return by Toby Edward Rosenthal c 1880

Booty: Remembering the Fitz

2011-11-18T08:39:00.000-09:00

On November 9th in 1975 the bulk freighter Edmund Fitzgerald, known affectionately to her crew as the Fitz, left the port of Superior, Wisconsin bound for Detroit. She sailed Lake Superior in company with the Arthur M. Anderson with little incident aside from high winds until the following day. That evening, the Fitz was stuck by especially dirty weather. Captain McSorley quickly radioed that his ship was taking on water and listing heavily. The pumps were working but the Fitz had lost her radar. One of McSorley’s finally radio transmissions said that his ship was in the middle of the worst storm he had ever seen. Shortly thereafter, Edmund Fitzgerald went down 17 miles off Whitefish Bay. All hands, 29 men total, went down with her. She is now at the bottom of Lake Superior under 530 feet of cold, unforgiving water. Rest easy, brothers and know that we remember you. For better or for worse you are not the first nor will you be the last to be claimed by the world’s seas.

Click here to appreciate the now famous memorial ballad "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot.

Header: The Fitz via surbrookdevermore.net

Tools of the Trade: Punch, Flip and Old Grog

2011-11-17T09:46:00.003-09:00

Recently, I was asked by a friend who is a professional editor and screenwriter to look at a piece he was working on. The screenplay was about buccaneers in the latter part of the 17th century and there were a few points my friend was unfamiliar with as far as seafaring, timeframes, dialogue and particularly the little details of historical accuracy. Of course I was eager to get my hands on the thing; the idea of a well researched, high spirited buccaneer movie (featuring real life filibuster Michele de Grammont, no less) excited me immeasurably. Sadly, reality put a damper on that enthusiasm pretty quickly.

There were a million little details that crushed my spirits thoroughly (the hero, just as an example, wore a tricorn hat and beaded braids a la Jack Sparrow) but one that stood out was the drinking that went on in the buccaneer port of Tortuga (sadly positioned off Puerto Rico, not Haiti where the buccaneer outpost actually was). Many was the time that the protagonists reached for a mug of grog; in fact de Grammont and our hero sealed a deal over pints and pints of the stuff.

In the 1680s, for better or for worse, grog was an unknown commodity. In fact grog was probably largely unknown in the New World well into the 18th century. Grog was initially a drink of the Royal Navy and was not officially adopted by them until 1740. The mix of water and rum was a replacement for beer, which had a habit of going off pretty quickly, particularly in warm climes like the West Indies and India. As an aside here, if you are familiar with India Pale Ale you know how the Royal Navy tried to fix that; the stronger, sturdier IPA was brewed specifically for ships headed east.

This is not to say that buccaneers were not familiar with rum, or that they would in fact not have added things – including water – to it. It simply would not have been called “grog”. What the gentlemen rovers called their drinks of choice, though, is one of the more curious tidbits about the early filibusters and those freebooters who came after. At least to me.

The type of rum that was most available to many of the Caribbean islands in the 17th century was affectionately known as “kill-devil”. This was a common man’s drink composed of rum that had not been properly aged to smooth over the bitter taste of fermented sugar cane. While wealthy land owners, Governors and visiting dignitaries in the first outposts of Britain would drink rum proper which was originally called rumbullion, the working poor and the slaves who made the rum drank a less refined form of same. It was probably an addiction for most and the death of many as well.

Another popular way to drink rum was in what was called a punch. Alcoholic punches were intensely popular in Europe in the 17th century so making one with the locally bottled alcohol was not much of a stretch. Rum punch usually contained water, some form of citrus juice – lime was the most popular – and molasses or sugar. Sometimes nutmeg was grated into the beverage. Henry Morgan and his captains were getting roaring drunk on rum punch when his flagship, Oxford, exploded underneath them killing every man directly across the table from Morgan but sparing the old dog and his mates on the other side.

Bombo or bumboo was also popular and was probably virtually the same thing as rum punch. A heated version of both drinks was called rumfustian. This contained rum, beer, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and a raw egg and was then heated with a rod such as a red-hot poke from the fire. A cousin to rumfustian, flip was a popular drink in the American colonies before and during the Revolutionary War. It was made with rum, beer and molasses or sugar heated just as its relative had been. In his history of all things regarding the title …And a Bottle of Rum, Wayne Curtis states:

If grog was an emblem of the triumph of order over disorder on the open seas, rum – especially in the form of a popular drink called “flip” – was a symbol of the new order displacing the old in the colonies.

And doubtless very popular with the privateers of the era; in fact John Paul Jones was known to enjoy his flip when in port.

All that said, it is important to remember that our freebooting ancestors were not terribly picky about their alcohol, at least in general. An onion bottle full of wine or porter would have done just as well as a bowl of bumboo and the big head the next morning would have been just the same.

And so, in less wordy form, my recommendations went out to my friend and his client. I will continue to wonder about that ambitious buccaneer screenplay and hope for its great success. Especially if the tricorns and grog are ditched all together.

Header: From Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates

Update 11/22: Looking for more in depth information on rum for the pirate in all of us? Check out Blue Lou Logan's well researched and delightful post at his freebooting blog.

History: Viking Cruise

2011-11-15T09:15:00.000-09:00

While clicking about on the computer Saturday afternoon I happened upon an intriguing article from the “Sunday Timeout” section of the Japan Times Online. While Sunday Timeout sounds like some group of talking heads discussing NFL football (something I would certainly watch, particularly if they dropped a nice word or two about the New Orleans Saints), this article is in fact about ornithologist Mike Brazil’s cruise around the British Isles and Iceland. Entitled “In the Wake of the Vikings”, Brazil’s piece is a lyrical look at his awakening to just how pervasive Viking culture became in the so called Dark Ages and is to this day.

Brazil, who writes regularly for Japan Times, was aboard Zegrahm Expeditions’ sailing cruise vessel Clipper Odyssey as an ornithology lecturer. He took three voyages aboard the ship over the course of a summer and learned about where, when and to some degree why the Vikings set up shop along the coastal areas of the Northern Atlantic from archaeologist and fellow lecturer Dr. Colleen Batey. The remote places they visited, and the insight gained, is only a small part of why Mr. Brazil’s fourteen page mini-travelogue is so engrossing.

As Brazil notes, the whys of Viking colonialism are still debated to this day. Was their raiding an aggressive reaction to the encroachment of Christianity into the far north? Was overpopulation causing hardships that spurred on an already eager-for-adventure generation? Did the death of Charlemagne and the resultant splintering of his Holy Roman Empire play a part? Different experts put different theories at the top of the list but, regardless of the cause, the Vikings went forth from their cold fjords, crossed the Baltic and left their mark all over Northern Europe, Russia, Iceland, Greenland and modern Atlantic coastal Canada.

Beginning at Plymouth, England, virtually from the steps where the Pilgrims set out for what would become the United States, Brazil travels to the Isles of Sciilly where a surprisingly temperate climate reigns thanks to the Gulf Stream. A 12th century church there, St. Nicholas Priory, appeared too late to be struck by Viking raiders but may have instead been built by the descendants of Viking settlers. The next stop is Skellig Michael where Brazil’s experience with the local birds produces some beautiful prose indeed. Here he finds the clochans of the 11th and 12th century, sugarloaf-shaped dry stone dwellings that were probably also built by Viking settlers. It is a certainty that, despite Skellig Michael’s isolation, its monastery was rich enough to attract Viking raiding parties in the 9th century.

The next stop on the cruise is even more remote: St. Kilda, Scotland. This island, inhabited for 2,000 years, was finally evacuated in the face of famine and disease in 1930. The Isle of Man is on the itinerary and this part of southern Ireland was once a thriving Viking settlement. Though the Vikings are often compared to the Barbary corsairs and the buccaneers of the 17th century, they might more properly be compared to any European nation during the Age of Exploration. Of course their raiding was legendary and certainly successful, but many times their goal was colonization rather than simple plundering. So it was on the Isle of Man, where much of the modern population has Scandinavian DNA and the red hair to prove it. Here too is the Tynwald, a parliament established by the Vikings in the 800s that is said to be the longest continuously running parliament in the world.

Brazil travels to Staffa; the island’s name is said to derive from the Norse word for the pillars that held up the roofs of Viking homes. Then it’s on to Iona in the Inner Hebrides. Here St. Columba established a monastery in 563 and some of the finest manuscripts of the Dark Ages ushered forth from it. The famous Book of Kells was illuminated here and then moved to the Irish mainland because of the ever present threat of Viking raids.

The Orkneys and the Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae are next. Here stone structures that were built before the Great Pyramid of Egypt stand to this day, doubtless used as navigational markers by intrepid Viking mariners.

The Faroe Islands come into view and it is here that another Norse parliament, the Tinganes, was set up in 850. Completing this pattern is the Althing in Iceland’s Thingvellier National Park. This parliament was established in 930 and exists to this day. Brazil tells us that the word thing in Old Norse, which informs Tinganes and Tynwald as well, meant assembly and thus parliament.

As Brazil poetically puts it, he saw “Iceland the way the first settlers must have viewed it – as a haven on the horizon.” Brazil’s piece, which I highly encourage you to read, reminds us of the unfortunately misremembered heritage we inherit from our Viking ancestors. Raiders they were, sure, with blood on their hands but above that they were pioneers, adventurers and, in some respects the first people to bring a social democracy to a new world. To leave you with one of Mike Brazil’s last thoughts:

[The voyage] fostered in me, too, a profound new respect for the journeys those past peoples made with none of the home comforts and high-tech gadgetry we availed ourselves of aboard the Clipper Odyssey.

Well spoken, indeed.

Header: Thingvellir National Park, Iceland via planetware.com

Ships: Six Frigates

2011-11-14T09:21:00.000-09:00

The United States Navy was reestablished by order of Congress in 1794. Since the Continental Navy had been largely a privateer operation, and the ships that she did have had been sold after the Revolutionary War, the fledgling navy had no ships of her own. Secretary of War Henry Knox proposed that six heavy frigates be built. They should be both strong of hull and fast sailors, something not often seen at the time. And they needed to be ready as quickly as possible given naval threats not only from England and France but from Barbary corsairs as well.

Joshua Humphreys was given the task of designing the ships. Although he is generally credited with their building as well, in fact five other ship builders had a hand in overseeing their execution along with Humphreys. As Ian W. Toll notes in his excellent book on the birth of the U.S. Navy Six Frigates, Knox had the foresight to suggest to President Washington that the building of each ship be completed at different dockyards on the Atlantic Coast. This would not only insure quicker build times but also pump money into local economies which were lagging after the war. Washington agreed immediately and construction was approved in April of 1794.

USS Chesapeake was built at Gosport, Virginia by Josiah Fox. Launched in August of 1799, she would achieve notoriety in the Chesapeake/Leopard Affair. HMS Leopard fired upon Chesapeake in 1807, ostensibly because Commodore James Baron refused to comply with a search request. Baron, his guns unready for a fight, struck almost immediately and would be vilified for his action – or inaction – for the rest of his life. Chesapeake, of 36 guns, would go on to be captured by HMS Shannon during the War of 1812. When she was broken up in 1820, some of her timbers were used to build Chesapeake Mill in Wickham, England.

USS Congress was built at Portsmouth, New Hampshire by James Hackett. Also a 36, Congress was launched at the same time as Chesapeake. She served on the Mediterranean Squadron and in the West and East Indies. She became a receiving ship in 1824 and was broken up ten years later.

USS Constellation was built at Baltimore, Maryland by David Stodder. She carried 36 guns and was launched in September of 1797. She famously captured the French man-of-war L’Insurgent during the Quasi-War, making her the first American built ship to win such a victory. She would go on to duty in the West Indies and on the African Station hunting slavers until she was broken up in 1853. Some of her timbers were used to build a second Constellation; she is now in dry dock and functions as a museum.

USS Constitution was built at Boston, Massachusetts by George Claghorn. Old Ironsides, as she became known, was a true 44 launched in October of 1797. Her greatest victories were achieved during the War of 1812 when she captured the British ships Guerriere, Java, Cyane and Levant. She was marked for breaking in 1830 but, saved by popular outcry, she is now the oldest commissioned vessel afloat.

USS President was built at New York, New York by Forman Cheeseman and launched in April of 1800. Of 44 guns, she served on the Mediterranean Squadron and in the War of 1812 when she was captured by HMS Tenedos after suffering severe damage from running aground. Her captain, Stephen Decatur, struck to the British but it was soon revealed that the Battle of New Orleans had been won by General Jackson the same day. The war was over. Though the British paroled Decatur and his men, they kept President as prize. She was broken up in 1817.

USS United States was built at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Joshua Humphreys. Launched in May of 1797 she also carried 44 guns. She captured HMS Macedonian in the War of 1812 and was commissioned into the Confederate States Navy during the Civil War. She was scuttled in 1862 but raised again after the war. Her repair was never properly finished and she was broken up in 1865.

Header: Battle Between USS United States and HMS Macedonian by Thomas Birch

Seafaring Sunday: Old Ironsides

2011-11-13T11:28:00.001-09:00

November 13, 1830: Joining the effort to save USS Constitution, one of the U.S. Navy's first six frigates, from the wreakers, Oliver Wendell Holmes publishes his poem "Old Ironsides"

Aye, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky:
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar -
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more!

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor's tread
Or know the conquered knee -
Tha harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And ther should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!

Header: Contemporary photograph of Old Ironsides

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Launch

2011-11-12T15:23:00.000-09:00

To launch something is, in the general vernacular, to push or throw it. When dealing with ships that push is generally into the water. The word itself has two specific ancestors according to how it is being used, or so Webster tells us. The Old French word lanchier, meaning to throw or to hurl is probably the origin of the launch a boat use, while the Portuguese word lancha, possibly from the Maylay lanca, means a type of boat.

At sea, a ship is said to be launched when she “descends into her native element.” Things can be launched as well but generally speaking aboard ship launch means to move more than to throw as in “launch the tar bucket aft”. A launch is a ramp that allows a ship or boat to be launched. Launching ways are the timber platforms placed on the incline under the bottom of a ship. Sometimes known as bilge-ways, these platforms keep the ship upright while she is ashore for repair.

A launch was and to some degree still is the largest boat in a man-of-war. The launch is usually longer and more flat in the bottom than a merchant’s long-boat or a fishing boat. This makes it more fit for rowing rather that sailing, thus its use in work away from the ship such as laying out line or cable or going ashore. A large man-of-war would have employed five or more boats including a launch, one or two cutters, a jolly-boat, the gig, usually reserved for transporting the captain, and a dinghy.

Launch ho! is an order that, perhaps surprisingly, has nothing to do with putting anything in the water. From The Sailor’s Word Book:

The order to let go the top-rope after the top-mast has been swayed up and fidded. It is literally “high enough.”

This is a precarious operation and one best done while at anchor when it is necessary to accomplish it at sea.

Header: Sunrise at Grand Manan by William Bradford

Booty: Thank You

2011-11-11T08:55:00.000-09:00

Today is Veterans Day here in the U.S. of A. and Triple P would like to extend sincere admiration and gratitude to all who serve and have served. While popular jargon in my country currently runs to underpaid teachers and unemployable college grads, my heart remains with the men and women who risk their lives to maintain a state of liberty wherein such issues can be raised and debated. To my mind our service people, whether active, reserve or veteran, are the underpaid, underemployed and underappreciated.

Coincidently, perhaps, yesterday was the 236th anniversary of the establishment of the U.S. Marine Corps, a body of people whose service to their country cannot be overestimated. To that end, and as much for fun as to keep memory alive, here are a few little-known facts about that first wave of Marines culled from this excellent overview at Naval History Blog.

When the Continental Congress established the Marine Corps in 1775, there were already hundreds of Marines serving in a number of State Navies.

The first vessel launched by the Pennsylvania Navy was named Experiment.

Philadelphia was the premier recruiting city for the Continental Marines.

The famous rattlesnake flag emblazoned with the motto “Don’t Tread On Me” may have been the first flag flown from the mastheads of Continental Navy ships.

Green was the main color in Continental Marine uniforms, replacing the red of the Royal Marines. One exception was John Paul Jones’ European squadron; Jones continued to dress his Marines in red coats.

Speaking of JPJ, many of his Marines were recruited from Europe; most were French.

The general rule for the number of Marines a Continental ship would carry was one Marine for each ship’s cannon. This rule was, however, rarely followed.

Finally, Continental privateers – unlike any other country’s privateers at the time – also carried Marines. When the schooner Revenge was captured her people were incarcerated in Portsmouth Prison where it was discovered that one of the marines was a woman.

Fair winds and following seas to all the Brethren, and especially fine weather to those among you who give and have given so much for so many. Thank you.

Header: Don’t Tread On Me flag of the Continental U.S.

Sea Monsters: Get Kraken

2011-11-10T09:13:00.000-09:00

In the recent superhero movie Thor the title character tells his human love interest “What you call science we call magic”, or something like that. The point is well taken; the boiling cauldrons and flickering candles of the witches’ cave translate easily to the bubbling beakers and Jacob’s ladders of the mad scientist’s tower. Sometimes, too, science is just as difficult to understand as any magic (or magick). Today’s subject is a good example.

Over at National Geographic online they offer this piece on a discovery of fossilized bones that, when you first look at the article, must be those of a prehistoric Kraken. The Kraken, according to modern interpretation, was one of the many monsters faced by the Ancient Greek hero Perseus in his quest to free himself and his mother from the tyranny of an evil king. In fact, though, that monster was more like a dragon. The word “Kraken” did not come into the English language until much later. The name came about when a Norwegian seaman of the 16th century spotted a giant squid and said it looked like an “uprooted tree” (Kraeken in Norwegian). Kraken, therefore, equals giant squid.

Any of you who have any familiarity with sea life are already scratching your heads. Squid, of course, have no proper bones so how in the heck could ancient squid leave behind fossilized remains? This is where it gets weird.

Mark McMenamin, who is a paleontologist at Mount Holyoke College, took his family on a jaunt to Nevada’s Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park near Las Vegas. While wandering the fossil site, McMenamin noticed “… the orderly arrangement of bones” which led him to the following theory:

… a giant squid or octopus hunted and preyed on the ichthyosaurs and then arranged their bones in double-line patterns to purposely resemble the pattern of sucker discs on the predator’s tentacles.

That is a quote from the article and yes, a paleontologist basically hypothesized that a squid would create its own self-portrait out of the bones of its food source. It’s science!

Actually, it’s not. It’s more of a “pulled out of mid-air” theory that nobody else seems to be buying, and with good cause. McMenamin presented his idea at a scientific conference and has sense had widespread media attention for same. Experts, however, feel that the theory has no basis in fact.

Paul Myers of the University of Minnesota Morris notes that conferences “… are where scientists go to talk with their peers and discuss preliminary data, so they naturally have fairly lax standards.” He also calls McMenamin’s theory “weirdly circumstantial”. Ryosuke Motani of the University of California, Davis, stops just short of saying the theory is bunk by calling it “very implausible” and then goes on to point out that the disc-shaped bones of ichthyosaur spines would fall naturally into a two-by-two pattern, similar to suckers on tentacles, after the animal’s flesh had disintegrated. No artful positioning would be necessary to achieve what we see in the fossil record today.

For anyone who spends time on the ocean, that is certainly a relief. There’s enough to worry about out there without constantly looking over your shoulder for the descendant’s of artistic Kraken.

Header: Ichthyosaur spine fossils via NatGeo

Home Ports: Brooklyn Navy Yard

2011-11-09T09:15:00.000-09:00

The old Navy Yard on Wallabout Bay has a unique and colorful history dating back to the original Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam. The story goes that Sarah Rapelje, perhaps the first European born in North America, came into the world here in a place the local Lenape natives called Rennegachonk. A few years later her relative, Walloon, bought a 300 acre parcel on the bay from the Lenape and called the area Waal Boght; Bay of Walloons. The name passed into English as Wallabout, and the area above it, even before then, became known as Brooklyn.

Ship building proper did not begin in the area until after the American Revolution. In 1781 John Jackson bought land from one of Rapelje’s descendants, Cornelius Remsen, and set up a shipyard on the marshy, narrow bay. Jackson’s first major commission came after the Irish rebellion in 1798, when the U.S. was again mounting a naval force to deal with the pirates of the Barbary Coast. USS Adams, a frigate of 28 guns, was built and launched that same year. She would remain in commission until her destruction during the War of 1812.

The government purchased the yard from the Jacksons in 1801 and the first Commandant, Jonathan Thorn, was appointed in 1806. Ship building was a major undertaking for the U.S. at the time as her navy was considerably short of vessels, particularly when compared to the might of sheer numbers mounted by the Royal Navy. The Navy Yard thrived although much of her work was piecemeal with parts sent to other ship builders for finishing ships. In fact, aside from the disappointment of the Fulton Steam Frigate that made only one short voyage in 1814, the yard did not turn out a fully constructed ship until 1820. USS Ohio was launched from the yard that year.

In 1830 Commodore Matthew C. Perry became attached to the Navy Yard; he would serve as Commandant from 1841 to 1843. The Commodore had a hand in encouraging both good health and education at the yard. He was instrumental in the building of the Naval Hospital in 1837 and he instituted the Naval Lyceum at the yard. This sort of evening extension college for sailors, officers and hands at the yard welcomed famous speakers of the day and turned out the Naval Magazine, first published in 1836. Frequent contributors included Perry and author James Fennimore Cooper.

Granite dry docks were added to the yard and by 1851 there were three such in service. The third was built using the first steam powered pile driver in the U.S. The yard was an active Union hub during the Civil War, turning out the ironclad USS Monitor. The Naval Laboratory at the yard also supplied the vast majority of medicines for the Union Navy.

The Naval Yard continued to thrive throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, turning out such famous ships as USS Maine (the “Remember the Maine!” of the Spanish-American War), USS Arizona, USS Missouri and the super carriers USS Saratoga and USS Constellation. It was not until 1966 that the yard officially closed. Her over 150 years of service made her one of the longest working Naval Yards in the country and the oldest continually running industrial operation in the State of New York.

The Brooklyn Naval Yard is now owned by New York City and operates as a thriving industrial park that hosts companies as varied as design firms, a medical lab and even a sugar manufacturer. But what of her long seafaring history; something like that should never be forgotten.

As noted in this article from the New York Times online, the City of New York agrees. On Friday – Veterans Day – the Brooklyn Navy Yard Center at Building 92 will open to the public. The museum has been billed, according to the article, “… as a bridge between the once heavily fortified naval hub and the surrounding neighborhoods that have seen generations pass without a glimpse behind the gates.” More than that, the museum will stand as a link between America’s seafaring past and future.

On display are such diverse items as the 22,500 pound anchor from the amphibious assault ship Austin, a model of USS Maine and a pipe recovered from the ill-fated USS Arizona, sunk during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. There are also exhibits focusing on the bay and Brooklyn itself. A copy of Walloon Rapelje’s 1637 purchase agreement with the Lenape is on display. The women who worked at the yard during World War II, who won the right to a man’s hourly wage of $1.14 have their own niche, too. There are also artifacts from the brothels and ale houses that serviced the yard in the early to mid-19th century, many of them located on Vinegar Hill. Though Daniella Romano, the center’s curator, notes in the article that the “entertainment area” of the Hill was “… the Barbary Coast of New York… Brothels, gambling houses and brawling” I think she may mean the “Port Royal of New York.” Barbary, though full of fierce corsairs, was not noted for its booze, brothels or gambling.

For a long and productive history, the Brooklyn Navy Yard is well remembered. So too are the ships she produced, the people who produced them and, certainly most of all, those who served aboard them.

Header: Circa 1851 engraving of the Brooklyn Naval Yard and Wallabout Bay from the Brooklyn Navy Yard website

People: Whydah's Pilot

2011-11-07T09:09:00.001-09:00

The pirate ship of Black Sam Bellamy, former slaver Whydah, has become the stuff of legend thanks to the hard work of Barry Clifford and his team of treasure hunters/archaeologists. More is known about life aboard an early 18th century freebooter because of the recovered artifacts from that ship alone than arguably from any other source. What we don’t know, to my mind unfortunately, is much about the individuals who lived and died aboard her.

One exception is a man who went a pirating under Black Sam and became pilot of the Whydah after she was taken by Bellamy. Though we know very little about John Julian, what we do know speaks to how remarkably different pirate society was from the society it grew up in – and rebelled against.

National Geographic online says that Julian was part African and part Mosquito Indian. Philip Gosse, who does not mention Julian by name, says that the pilot of Whydah was “half Carib”. Which is true is lost to history but I have my own theory about Julian’s background. The future pilot probably met Bellamy while he was working in the wrecking or wracking trade, pulling up treasure from sunken Spanish galleons off the coasts of Florida that Cuba. Many South and Central American natives were employed in this trade because of their remarkable diving abilities. Particularly sought after were Guayqueries from the Island of Margarita off Venezuela, where pearl diving had long been a job these enslaved natives were tasked with. While Julian could have been Mosquito or Carib, it may be that he was an escaped slave from Margarita and therefore potentially Guayqueries. Just a thought.

What ever his origins, Julian clearly had a talent for piloting as he was the go-to pilot on each of Bellamy’s successively larger flagships. By the time Bellamy was captaining Whydah, it is certain that Julian was particularly capable as a navigator. Bellamy, who according to Gosse had a bit of a socialist bent, made it a habit to free any slaves he encountered aboard a prize. NatGeo estimates that his Whydah crew was comprised of 30 to 50 African or partially African men. John Julian was not an exception aboard Whydah.

The short but merry life of pirating came to an abrupt end for Julian and his mates when Whydah wrecked off Wellfleet, Massachusetts in a gale. Julian and ship’s carpenter Davis were the only two men to make it to shore, although Gosse counts the survivors’ number as six. Davis would hang in Boston but what became of Julian remains unknown.

A tantalizing theory proposed by NatGeo is that John Julian was sold into bondage. They go so far as to speculate that he was in fact the “Julian the Indian” recorded as a slave to John Quincy of Massachusetts. As a curious aside, this is the John Quincy who was father to the staunch abolitionist Abigail Adams. She in turn passed her hatred for slavery on to her son, future U.S. President John Quincy (pronounced Quin-zee) Adams.

NatGeo goes on to say that Julian was an “unruly slave” and eventual sold by Quincy. Julian made several attempts to escape his new master and was killed by a slave catcher while the man was trying to bring him back from one of these.

Whether or not that was actually the case, Julian’s life aboard Whydah was probably one of the best times for him. Thankfully the memory of that life, however speculative, remains as a glimpse of the freedom a man could find during the Golden Age of Piracy.

Header: Bellamy taking the Whydah via fieldmuseum.org

Seafaring Sunday: Rose Hill Packet

2011-11-06T10:18:00.000-09:00

November 6, 1789: The first vessel built by Europeans in Australia was launched in Sydney Harbor. Known as the Rose Hill Packet or "The Lump", she was crafted by convicts and worked under both oars and sails. She would have had one mast and looked a little like a smaller version of the lugger above (via geograph.org.uk)

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Marine

2011-11-05T18:09:00.000-08:00

It probably goes without saying that the word marine comes from the Latin word for ocean so, technically, anything at sea is “marine”. As Admiral Smyth notes, marine can be defined as “belonging to the sea.”

A marine lagoon is any inlet or lake formed by the introduction of water from the sea and, again in the words of the good Admiral, “the deposits of fluviatile action.” Such inward waterways are favored by smugglers for their general off the beaten path status in comparison to both open shore and inland rivers.

A marine barometer is manufactured differently than those used by land. It generally has a contraction at a certain point in the tube that keeps the mercury from moving with the pitch and roll of the ship which would otherwise put the instrument in danger of giving a false reading. Marine engines are so called to distinguish them from those of a locomotive, which at one time they were essentially the same as. A marine railway, on a completely unrelated note, is a large slip employed to haul vessels up for repair. Marine glue was used in ship’s carpentry and made from a combination of mineral oil, gum and after the mid-18th century caoutchouc now more commonly known as natural rubber (to distinguish it from the modern, man-made varieties).

Marine insurance is perhaps one of the first forms of what we imagine when we use the word. The owner of a ship – usually a merchant vessel – would pay the insurer premium to cover any loss of vessel or cargo in the course of a voyage. The money would of course revert to the insurer if the ship arrived safe and intact at her destination but the insurer would be obliged to return the money should the opposite occur. While ancient civilizations, notably the Romans, had forms of this kind of insurance regulated by the state, the version we are familiar with did not arise until the 1680s with the establishment of Lloyd’s of London. Crewmen were not insured or insurable until the early 20th century when Germany instituted workers’ compensation.

Also falling under this heading would be Marines who make up that branch of the service which originated in England with the Royal variety. These were men trained for combat both on land and sea and placed on ships not only to fight the enemy but to keep the peace among the sailors. A Marine officer was stationed aboard larger ships and areas such as the Marine clothing room and storeroom were set aside specifically for his men. Marines also had a designated area to sling their hammocks and they formed their own mess.

Traditionally in the Royal Navy, Marines imagined sailors as undisciplined and possibly even criminal while the sailors in turn fancied Marines were stupid and good for very little besides polishing boots and firearms. Among each other sailors referred to the Marine Sergeant as “an empty bottle”, meaning an object with no good use to it. Marines in turn adopted the empty bottle slur and morphed it to mean someone who had “done his duty and was ready to do it again” referencing the bottle’s ability to be refilled.

When the United States adopted the military structure of Britain, she seems to have liberated herself of this type of infighting. The saying in the Royal Navy, “Tell that to the Marines” was a response to someone telling a fish story or other tale so outlandish that only a simpleton, or a Marine, would believe it. In the U.S. the same phrase became a response to one sailor telling another of something so difficult that it must be impossible.

“Not a soul could storm a fortress like that,” one might say in astonishment at a well-fortified enemy.

“Tell that to the Marines,” would be the reply meaning they would doubtless take the challenge and overcome it. Probably before lunch.

The only thing left rankling on this side of the pond is the U.S. Marines’ claim to being the “oldest branch of the service” in our country. While it is true that the U.S. Navy was temporarily (and as it turns out foolishly) disbanded in 1783, both services were brought into being in 1775. In fact, the Navy came first on October 13 with the Marines instated on November 10. As my father used to grumble whenever he saw a commercial for Marine recruitment: “No Navy, no Marines.”

But that’s all in the family, really. Anyone who risks their life on the ocean gets a virtual pass around here. In the end, we are all sons (and daughters) of Neptune.

Header: The Bombardment of Algiers 1816 by George Chambers Sr.

Booty: More Myths Debunked

2011-11-04T08:49:00.001-08:00

The good folks at Cracked have once again put curser to word processing program to write about Triple P’s favorite subject, pirates and privateers. This time the title is “6 Absurd Pirate Myths Everyone Believes Thanks to Movies” and once again they’ve hit the mark. The addition of “Absurd” in the title is a very nice touch.

The myths taken on include standbys frequently discussed here: pirates weren’t much for burying treasure and that chest o’ booty spilling over with pieces of eight and pearls was a rare prize indeed, for instance. The authors, Eric Yosomono and Drew Miller, also delve into some more recently debated issues such as pirates talking like “movie pirates” and, that Mythbusters favorite, pirates really didn’t wear those eye patches to cover empty eye sockets but in fact to be ready for dim light below decks in boarding situations. That one is probably bogus on both counts given that A) looking scary was a bonus if you were a pirate, B) pirates avoided hostile boarding whenever possible and C) pirates wearing eye patches isn’t much mentioned in the first hand literature (neither Exquemelin nor Johnson/Defoe speak to the practice at all). But hey, it’s a theory.

My personal favorite among the six listed is “Sailors Became Pirates to Live a Life of Crime”. As the Brethren are well aware, “a pirate’s life for me” spoke more to “I’m sick of authority” than “how much rape and pillage can I get in on a good day”. Sure, there’s a sociopath in every crowd but for the most part pirates and privateers had more of the entrepreneur than the savage horde spirit about them.

Well done once again, Cracked; you’ve hit the nail on the head with this one.

Finally, on a completely different and rather self-satisfied note, Triple P has been endorsed on the sidebar of one of my favorite author’s websites. Benerson Little, whose books are a staple of research around here, notes Triple P is a “good blog on pirates and privateers”. I’ll just call that a ringing endorsement from a former Navy SEAL who is also a talented researcher and author, elite swordsman and expert on pre-20th century firearms. And oh look, Mr. Little has a new book on the way debunking pirate myths. Serendipitous? I’ll let the Brethren decide.

Header: Fredric March as Jean Laffite in The Buccaneer (there are at least 25 odd myths in this movie alone)

Women at Sea: Laffite's Last Love

2011-11-03T09:07:00.001-08:00

Reading the off-handed remark about “Jean Pierre Lafitte” and the woman from the Savannah, Georgia “neighborhood” that he “married” while researching Monday’s post made me think. Where did the idea that either of the Laffite brothers married a woman from the southern part of the East Coast come from? With this question in my head, I went back to my copious notes and that bible of all things about the brothers The Pirates Laffite by William C. Davis to dig up the tantalizingly unfinished story of Pierre Laffite’s last love.

The now legendary stories of Jean Laffite’s success with the ladies are probably – like so many other things about the man – blown way out of proportion. Most legends, however, have a grain of truth at their beginning and this is probably the case when it comes to Laffite’s love life. Because the two brothers have virtually melded into one entity in the popular mind, most people don’t even know about Pierre Laffite. The entire timeline of the brother’s exploits is now simply ascribed to Jean, with Pierre fading to the point of becoming simply a “middle name”. Pierre’s love for the ladies seems to have been grafted onto Jean, whose personal life is something of a mystery, and then increased exponentially until we now have a picture of a dashing if insatiable satyr who also enjoyed long walks on the beach.

It is Pierre, however, that seems to fit that bill if it is toned down to a dull roar. He had at least three relationships that we know of. One he may have carried on in San Domingue/Haiti before the revolution, but that part is to this day speculation. Who the woman was is unclear as well, although Lyle Saxon states that her name was Adelaide Maseleri, but Pierre had a son most probably named Eugene in tow when he met the woman with whom he would have his longest relationship. Marie Louise Villard or Villars, a free quadroon from New Orleans, was Pierre’s partner for close to fifteen years. The two had seven children together the last of whom, Joseph, probably never even saw his father.

The third woman to cohabit with Pierre, for lack of a better turn of phrase, seems to have been named Lucia or Lucille Allen. All the sources agree that she was an American from the East Coast and she turns up in Pierre’s life around the time that he began making trips to Charleston, South Carolina in 1819. These forays, where he sometimes went by the almost comical alias of “Mr. Francisco”, were for the purchase of ships and the hiring of men. Galveston was falling apart and the brothers had their eyes on a new horizon.

When, at the end of 1820, Pierre had all he needed he prepared to see the last of Charleston. This is when Lucia may have joined him aboard the Nancy Eleanor which landed at Isla Mujeres in March of 1821. Here the Laffites planned to build a new Barataria/Galveston but the barren island provided little in the way of homey comforts. Aside, it seems, from Lucia.

She must have been a hearty sort as she would doubtless have been saddled with more than just keeping Pierre happy. One has to imagine that, in a camp full of men, the one woman would be looked to for laundry and cooking services as well as nursing and motherly comfort. Lucia seems to have been up to it; eye-witnesses from the time say that, even when ill herself, she took care of the sick and injured.

There was a fair amount of travel on the water as well. Davis tells us that Pierre and Lucia where staying at a farm on the island of Cancun. Pierre had recently sold a lot of prize goods in Camara and neither he nor Lucia was in the best of health. As it would later turn out, Lucia’s malaise was due not just to infection but to pregnancy. The Spanish authorities, having been tipped off to the pirate’s whereabouts, raided the farm on October 30, 1821. Pierre and Lucia were taken into custody but only briefly.

They managed to escape under cover of darkness, round up the scattered members of Pierre’s group and leave Cancun in a fishing boat. The little group of refugees debarked at Dzilam de Bravo on the 31st and staggered to a little village called Telyas. They were taken in by a local family but Pierre was very sick and possibly injured. Davis writes: “Then, on or about November 9, within sight and sound of thousands of pink flamingos feeding in the lagoon, Pierre Laffite breathed his last.” There can be no question that Lucia was at his side.

What became of Lucia and the child she was carrying is in fact unknown. The most likely outcome was opined by John Burton Thompson in a 1953 article for the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate: Lucia died giving birth to Pierre Laffite’s daughter at Dzilam de Bravo and was buried there. No one seems to even hazard a guess as to what became of the little female child.

What facts we can garner from this are probably of little use in the uphill battle to sort out reality from legend, particularly where les frères Laffite are concerned. That does not degrade the poignancy of the story, however. Lucia Allen, probably of Charleston, South Carolina, literally gave everything she had for the love of a famous – if now partially forgotten – pirate.

Header: Beach at Dzilam de Bravo on the Yucatan Peninsula via ramsar.org

Tools of the Trade: All God's Creatures

2011-11-02T08:33:00.001-08:00

Superstition is allowed a very wide berth on any blue water ship. Some say it is one of the many necessary ingredients that bind a crew together in their common goals. Because animals were often all around ships as well as aboard them, superstitions about them have come down to us in droves. Some persist to this day. Here are just a few of the seagoing “dos and don’ts” from our shared nautical history:

Many types of sea birds bode good or ill just by their appearance. A swan seen floating on the sea is thought to signal good weather ahead. A kingfisher near a ship was a portend of calm. Seeing gulls on land meant incoming wind and rain. Petrels or gulls flying near a ship also indicated stormy weather and worse still if they landed and refused to be shooed off the vessel. Sighting a cormorant while underway was thought to be very bad luck; sighting a swallow, however, was very good luck.

Killing dolphins or porpoises was not much thought of before the 20th century; they were considered much like tuna and went straight to the galley. After World War I, however, killing either of these mammals was considered an ill omen. Since Roman times, a shark following a ship was said to be a sign that someone aboard would die.

Domestic animals also foretell weather and luck. Drowning the ship’s cat – whether accidently or on purpose – would surely provoke a hurricane or typhoon. The ship’s cat sneezing meant rain. If a cat ran ahead of a sailor on his way to his ship, his luck would be good. In the same circumstance, however, a cat crossing the sailor’s path signaled bad luck. The ship’s dog howling would catch the mariner’s eye. A storm was on its way and the wind would blow up from the direction toward which the dog’s muzzle was pointing as he howled.

The worst kind of bad luck was sure to follow the killing of a seagull or particularly an albatross. The Brethren may remember the completely non-O’Brian but – as seafaring superstitions go – eerily accurate scene in Master and Commander when Marine Sergeant Howard shoots Dr. Maturin instead of the albatross he was aiming at. Of course true seamen know that shooting at birds just above a crowded deck is patently forbidden but that is another type of ill luck indeed. As Coleridge wrote in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: “And I had done a hellish thing, And it would work them woe; For all averred I had killed the bird, That made the breeze to blow. Ah wretch! said they; the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow!”

Header: Some very unlucky seamen with an impressive albatross via noaa.gov

Horror on the High Seas: The Pirates' House

2011-10-31T09:09:00.001-08:00

I've been to Savannah, Georgia once in my life and I found it both charming and beautiful. The people were delightful, even if the weather wasn’t, and the history of the city is enthralling. Founded in 1733 by British General James Edward Oglethorpe as a buffer between His Majesty’s colonies and Spanish Florida and French Louisiana, she is full of wonderful sights and delicious restaurants. Her seafaring legacy is rich as well and, of course, that means a few piratical legends.

There is a place in Savannah known as The Pirate’s House which is now a restaurant but once, allegedly, housed a famous pirate. The freebooter in question is not actually known but locals call him Flint, after one of the many colorful characters in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. According to Jeff Belanger the opposite is true; Stevenson named his pirate Flint after a visit to Savannah and a stay at The Pirates’ House. Of course Belanger, in his book The World’s Most Haunted Places, throws out this off-handed “fact”:

With the exception of the pirate Jean Pierre Lafitte, who married a woman from the same neighborhood and came from a later era…

Given that Jean and Pierre Laffite were two separate men, probably never did more than glance over the rail of a ship at Savannah and were neither of them ever married, committing that snippet to paper does a deal of harm to any writer’s credibility.

That said, Belanger – who is “one of the world’s most visible and prolific paranormal researchers” according to the bio on the book jacket – tells us that he has spoken to people who have had unusual experiences at The Pirates’ House. As a number of these episodes seem to involve rum, it is no wonder that people are convinced the ghost haunting the restaurant is a pirate.

Belanger reports one particular night when Greg Profitt, who runs a walking tour of the city known as Savannah by Foot, was spending the night at The Pirates’ House on a dare. He was joined by Tony Cross, the darer if you will, and they turned the stunt into a fund raiser for leukemia research. Profitt reports that the two men “… heard a lot of noises…footsteps and banging on the walls and banging on the doors…” Perhaps to calm their jangled nerves, the men reached for a bottle of rum and Cross quoted Flint’s famous line from Treasure Island: “Darby, bring me more rum!”

The men poured out three shot glasses and, again according to Profitt, each took one and then the third glass “… just vanished with the rum in it. We watched it disappear.”

Other “spirit related” incidents at The Pirates’ House included glasses suddenly exploding or filling inexplicably with Spanish moss. Does, as Belanger asserts, the “… spirit of Flint in all his menacing glory still walk the Pirates’ House”? It’s hard to say. What I will say without question is that, given the handsome decor and mouthwatering fare available at the restaurant, as the pictures from Savannah for 91 Days attest, I would happily haunt the place were I an old, chain-rattling seadog.

With that, Happy Halloween Brethren. May your spirits be joyful and may you always have more rum.

Header: The Pirates’ House via Savannah for 91 Days

Horror on the High Seas: The Gunner's Daughter

2011-10-30T11:18:00.000-08:00

The gun to which boys serving in the Royal Navy were tied or 'married' when being whipped. On some ships it was superstition that if the boys were not whipped on a Monday, there would be no good winds the following week. To 'hug' or 'kiss the gunner's daughter' thus meant a whipping. When 'married to the gunner's daughter' for a flogging, the miscreant was tied to the four deck rings which held each cannon in place. As the sailor was tied to the gun barrel, the saying 'you've got me over a barrel' comes from this time. Sailors were whacked with a rope's end on the gun deck, where the ceilings were only a maximum of four feet six inches. For more serious offences, requiring enough room to 'swing a cat' of nine tails, the punishment was carried out on the main deck.

~ from The Pirate Dictionary by Terry Breverton

Header: Cannon on the gun deck

Horror on the High Seas: Devil

2011-10-29T16:48:00.000-08:00

The English word “devil” originated with the Greek word diabolos. This word in Greek did not mean some imp or demon but a slanderer (dia – across combined with ballein – to throw). The act of slander in Ancient Greek culture, and later in Rome as well, was so heinous that the word quite literally became demonized. By the medieval period it had morphed into the Middle English devil, a limb of Satan and later still Devil, Satan himself.

Sailors, much like any group of people who live and work in hostile and potentially deadly conditions, tend to both laugh at and fear evil. Use of the word “devil” and calling upon the Devil are not uncommon at sea, or at least they weren’t. When times are really tough, the essence of evil may be more helpful than the essence of sanctity. And, aside perhaps from Saint Brendan, there has rarely in any history been a saintly sailor.

Devil bolts are those with false clenches. As The Sailor’s Word Book notes, they were often used in contract built ships. They were ill thought of among blue water seamen and usually replaced fairly quickly once the ship was afloat.

A devil’s claw is a very strong split hook used for grasping chain cable. Devil is priming made by wetting and bruising black powder. Caulkers called the water line on a ship the devil, probably because it was the hardest part of the vessel to make air tight.

Devil is also used in weather signals and signs. Devil’s smiles are patches of sunshine streaming down through dark clouds, a sure sign that better weather is on the way. Sometimes the officer in charge – and particularly the captain – was said to have “the Devil’s smile”, considered a good sign that a prize might be in the offing. The Devil’s tablecloth is a particular portend of a south-easter off the Cape of Good Hope, where condensation from the impending storm forms a patch of fleecy cloud at the top of Table Mountain.

Devilry is the act of wanton trouble that is only inches from crossing over into crime. Sailors ashore, particularly after a long time at sea, were notorious for drunken devilry.

Men said that there was the Devil to pay and no pitch hot when there was necessary work to be done and no one stepping up to do it. This was also a phrase that indicated impatience with no outlet; rather an old sea-going form of “all dressed up with no place to go”.

Of course, it probably goes without saying that a sailor can all too easily be caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea. That term’s origin has been a source of debate for years but everyone understands its meaning well enough as we’ve all been there in one way or another.

Finally, in the very worst of circumstances and particularly in a vicious storm, an offering might be made to the Devil. In a gale that had torn his fore and main topmasts away, Charles Ellms tells us that the pirate Captain Lewis “… tore off a handful of hair and throwing it into the air used this expression, good devil, take this till I come.” Lewis must have had the Devil’s ear; despite the loss of his topmasts, he overtook the prize he was chasing.

Header: Sea Devil from a medieval manuscript

Horror on the High Seas: Nix's Mate

2011-10-28T10:16:00.000-08:00

Out in Boston Harbor there sits a tiny speck of an island that, at first glance, almost appears to be man made. Known from about 1636 as Nix’s or Nixes Mate, the island is the site of a pyramid beacon run by the Coast Guard and on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

In the 17th century, the island was large enough to mine for ship’s ballast, graze sheep and unload smuggled goods for reloading onto less suspicious vessels. Probably because of its continued use by smugglers and pirates, the place became notorious; from the time the island was granted to John Gallop in 1636, the good folk of Boston used it as a place of execution for those who committed crimes on the high seas.

Many legends have grown up around the fascination with piratical doings and the demise of scurvy seadogs on the island. One of the most popular stories explains the name of the island as well as why it is now just a speck of earth in Nubble Channel.

It seems that one Captain Nix put out to sea and was killed mysteriously one night in a violent storm. The next morning, the crew found their First Lieutenant – Nix’s mate – soundly sleeping with blood on his shirt. Assuming the worst, they clapped the man in irons despite his protests of innocence, and turned back toward Boston. The First Lieutenant was tried and found guilty, although he continued to tell anyone that would listen that he had not done the bloody deed. He was rowed out to the island and led to the gallows. There he made a promise to the people of Boston about the place where his corpse would hang as a warning. The island, he said, would be washed away to nearly nothing by the sea as proof of his innocence. With that warning on his lips, he died. Within a decade, the Lieutenant’s prophecy had come true and the people of Boston named the little island Nix’s Mate in his honor.

In fact, this story first appeared in 1883 in a purported historical entitled King’s Handbook of Boston Harbor by M.F. Sweetser. It is a charming tale, of course, but probably pure fiction. No one seems quite sure why the island is called Nix’s Mate and the continued use of its rock for ship’s ballast throughout the 17th century insured that it would errode with wind and tide to its present size.

The most famous pirate to swing in the sea breeze on Nix’s Mate was William Fly, whose story is curious enough to deserve a post of its own. Hanged in July of 1726, Fly went to his death with such steadfast obduration that he impressed that bitter witch hunter Cotton Mather himself.

Local legend has it that Fly’s spirit continues to cling to the place where he proclaimed not his innocence but his conviction that piracy was born of the harsh treatments allotted men in the merchant service. Treatments Fly referred to as “bad usage”. It is said that blue lights are seen hovering over the little pyramid beacon at Nix’s Mate on warm summer nights. They dance about in the dark air but disappear when a vessel pulls in for a closer look, flying up like embers out of a fire.

True or no, all sailors love a good ghost story and they are always so much more believable when the mate in question was put to “bad usage”.

Header: Nix’s Mate by Joe McGurl

Horror on the High Seas: The Revenge of Goodwife Cowtie

2011-10-27T09:13:00.000-08:00

Mistress Agnes Cowtie was the kind of business owner that was more typical in her era than our Victorian ancestors would like us to believe. Though she was married to a respectable merchant named George Blak, she herself ran a shipping business that traded with England, Holland and France from the port of Dundee, Scotland. She had at least two grown sons who worked aboard her ships, possibly as officers but certainly as her representatives in trade in foreign ports. It was not at all unusual for Mistress Cowtie to be standing on the dock at Dundee, waving off her carrack Grace of God, as it headed out to the Netherlands.

Was Agnes anxious as she watched that ship sail off laden with both cargo and cannon? Most probably; the year was 1562 and the threat of English piracy surrounded the British Isles. More distressingly for merchants like Agnes and George (as noted here), this piracy went virtually unchecked. Even entreats from Queen Elizabeth herself could not pull freebooters away from their lucrative employments.

Grace of God was armed against such attacks and had, it seems, a relatively uneventful voyage to the port of Veere in the Netherlands. In her book She Captains, Joan Druett tells us that the sons of Agnes Cowtie were probably well known in that port city and may very well have been welcomed into some of the finest homes. They traded their merchandise for sundry items but Druett notes most particularly “6 cast pieces and 16 small pieces of ordinance”. Cannon were just as profitable in such times as finished cloth.

With their business done the Cowtie boys steered their ship away from Holland and may have been headed to the Bay of Biscay, perhaps for a stop around the Gironde to load up on wine. They would never make their destination. Their ship was attacked by a group of English ships. This little flotilla seems to have been led by those notorious pirates from Poole, Captain Clynton and Captain Purser. Grace of God put up a fight in which both of Agnes’ sons were killed. Probably shortly thereafter, she struck to her attackers and the horror really began.

The pirates boarded the carrack and, in a fashion that would become standard among freebooters, took their aggressions out on the crew that had the temerity to defend themselves. Under the guise of discovering where the Cowties had hidden the hard specie, the pirates set into the most brutal of tortures.

Men had splinters of wood shoved under their fingernails. The wood was coated with tar before being set ablaze to burn whatever flesh it touched. When this had no effect, the men’s hands were dipped in hot tar and set ablaze. Fingers and in one case a whole hand to the wrist were lost.

The misery continued with other men, or in at least two cases the same poor sailors, being subjected to the gruesome torture of woolding. In this process rope knotted in strategic places was placed around the head and slowly tightened by the use of a stick. Michael Kuntz gives an eye-witness account of this type of torture as inflicted on German peasants by mercenaries in his book The High Road to the Stake:

They put a rope around another one’s head and twisted it so tight with a wooden billet that the blood leaped from his mouth, nose and ears.

Eyes would be forced from their sockets, as Druett notes “…bulg[ing] out … like eggs.” This simple but terrible operation left seamen both blind and deaf.

Eventually the madness subsided and, almost miraculously, some of the pitifully abused crew of Grace of God managed to make their way back to Dundee despite the taking of their ship as prize.

Agnes Cowtie, doubtless both revolted and enraged when she saw the men she called her “especial mariners” and heard of the senseless deaths of her sons, went ballistic. She began a campaign of appeal to the highest officials and nobles in Scotland claiming the need for redress for not only herself but for the loss of her sons and the inexcusable state of her wounded men. In one particularly touching letter, she and George lamented being “… brought to such extreme wreck and misery by invasion of English pirates, their bairns and servants slain…” Bairns, of course, being the affectionate Scottish word for children.

It may have been that Mistress Cowtie’s timing was impeccable but more likely her shrewd choice of ears to chew and her particular indignation worked more thoroughly than any previous objections. Her petitions went as far as the throne; King James himself wrote to Queen Elizabeth entreating her as “You’re most loving affectionate brother and cousin” to put a stop to the unconscionable predations being perpetrated by her subjects. And she did.

The Poole pirates, most particularly Clynton and Purser, were rounded up via a clever ruse at sea and brought before the recently ensconced Admiralty Judge with the remarkable name of Sir Julius Caesar. This judge had no inclination to cast a blind eye and put the nefarious pirate captains to “questioning” similar to that they had employed against Mistress Cowtie’s men. Both captains were sentenced to hang. Brought down to the gallows at Wapping, Clynton and Purser wore their finest clothes which they distributed to friends from the scaffold. They also answered questions as if appearing in some reality show’s reunion episode. Eventually they were both “turned off the ladder” and in Admiralty Court tradition “… there they hanged till from that ebb two tides had overwhelmed their bodies…”

The English crown, in most unusual fashion, paid not only Agnes Cowtie redress for her lost ship and goods, but also allotted money to her maimed and crippled men for their loss of livelihoods. Whether this satisfied the Goodwife or not, history does not say, but one hopes that other freebooters learned this lesson: don’t mess with Mistress Cowtie.

Header: Tudor era carrack via Wikipedia

Horror on the High Seas: The Lost Dragon

2011-10-26T09:36:00.000-08:00

In 1655 the Dutch East India Company was a thriving commodity. Running ships from Holland around the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean to what is now Indonesia and back again was old hat, so to say. Doubtless, however, no one took it for granted. The ocean, then as now, was a vast and powerful thing that could swallow whole ships, their cargoes, crews and passengers alive. Never being heard from again was a very real possibility.

Surely Captain Pieter Albertszoon knew that the worst could happen as his ship, Vergulde Draeck, left port for the East Indies in October of that year. A leader cannot dwell on the potential for failure, however, and it is a certainty that Albertszoon intended to reach what was then known as Batavia safely. His ship, whose name translates as Golden or Gilt Dragon, carried trade goods for Company use, eight chests of silver coins, provisions for one year and 193 souls including crew and passengers. All signs seemed favorable and Vergulde Draeck rounded the Cape in March of 1656.

Almost exactly one month later, Albertszoon was lost thought he probably did not know it. He was closer to the western shore of Australia than to India when his ship hit a reef that quite literally shattered her hull north of the modern city of Perth. Panic ensued as the roaring ocean around the reef sucked people, goods and finally the ship down to the murky depths. Of the 193 souls in Albertszoon’s charge, 75 managed to make the beach. There can be no doubt that they gathered together, half drown and dripping wet, to watch dumbfounded as their wooden world was swallowed by the sea.

Albertszoon kept his head, however, and began to organize the living immediately. He had the good fortune of a sturdy and fast-thinking First Lieutenant named Abraham Leeman who had managed to salvage a few provisions as well as Vergulde Draeck’s only boat. The situation was perhaps more dire than it would have been at another time of year. With winter on its way, storms would batter the coast and ships passing by – if any – would probably not steer close enough to shore to see signal fires or other markers left by the stranded. It was quickly decided that Leeman would need to hand-pick a small crew, gather what provisions he had salvaged and take the longboat out on the treacherous journey toward Batavia. Albertszoon would stay with the remaining survivors who would doubtless move inland to find water, food and shelter.

Leeman and seven crewmen set out for Batavia perhaps only a day or two after the wreck of their ship. They reached their destination in remarkably good condition on June 6th. The Company’s response was almost immediate; two ships, Goede Hope and Witte Valk, were dispatched to the coast of Australia to search for survivors. In an unfortunately hapless adventure, both ships were battered by relentless weather and high seas. Upon sighting land in the general area where Vergulde Draeck was thought to have gone down, Goede Hope sent in a boat. When the boat and its eleven-man crew did not return, another boat with eight men aboard was sent after them. This was dashed to bits on the rocky shore with a loss of all hands. With still no word from or sighting of either the rescue party or the Vergulde Draeck survivors, Goede Hope and Witte Valk turned back to Batavia. They arrived in mid-October.

Other ships on their way home to Holland were instructed to call on the fatal coast and check for any signs of life. Repeatedly, they found nothing, although just how thorough their searches were remains unknown. Finally, the ships Waeckende Boei and Emmeloort were dispatched on the 1st of January, 1658 with specific orders to make a sweep of the treacherous Australian coast. The captains of the two ships had a falling out on their way, and they separated. Both were off the coast by February but it was Captain Volkersen of Waeckende Boei who sent a party – led by none other than Abraham Leeman, First Lieutenant – ashore. The men found signs of human encampments, including planking possibly from the wrecked ship, but there was no sign of survivors. Leeman and his search party went back ashore but foul weather prevented them from returning to their ship. Despite the sighting of more than one signal fire, Volkersen concluded that his men had been lost on the reefs and turned for home.

Leeman was left with no choice but to once again make the almost impossible journey to Batavia in an open boat. He and his fourteen-man crew set out on April 8th; they arrived at their destination a month later. This crossing had not been as successful as the last. Only five men, including Leeman, survived and all were starving, dehydrated and horribly sunburned. Rumors of possible cannibalism aboard the boat were quashed immediately by the Company.

No further search parties were sent to find the lost victims of wreck and marooning. What became of them remains a mystery to this day. The only tantalizing hint was a chance find, made by a young boy inland from Cape Leschenault, of silver coins dating from between 1619 and 1655. These were found in 1931. It is probably reasonable to imagine that the survivors of both Vergulde Draeck and their would-be rescue party from Goede Hope succumbed to injuries, disease, starvation and exposure. Most of all, it can be imagined, they would have given in to the hopelessness of being lost in an unfamiliar wilderness with no reasonable way out.

The Vergulde Draeck wreck was rediscovered by spear fishermen in 1963 and, despite unfortunate poaching by treasure hunters, many of the artifacts are now on display in the Western Australia Museum in Fremantle. As a curious aside, a rather conspiratorial theory of the collapse of our modern economy via the U.S. dollar is known as the Vergulde Draeck Omen or, yet more ominously, the Vergulde Draeck Triple Witching Condition. Find that delightful scenario here and read more about the Vergulde Draeck disaster at VOC Historical Society.

Header: “Beard Jars” and silver coins from Vergulde Draeck via Heritage Aritcles

Horror on the High Seas: Flashback Lunch

2011-10-25T09:44:00.001-08:00

My current schedule is a little off, Brethren, but I did want to kick off Triple P's third annual Horror on the High Seas week so that we can get a full seven days under our belts, so to say. No new post today but lets start things off right with my dear friend House in Rlyeh's gripping review of the horror classic The Ghost Ship generously gifted to Triple P for her second anniversary. Grab your lunch, sit back and enjoy. Then click on the Horror on the High Seas label below for yet more terrifying flashbacks. Tomorrow, something new: the mystery of the lost Vergulde Draeck.

Header: The Ghost Ship, a new interpretation by Bryan J. Toy via Elfwood

History: Viking Burial

2011-10-24T09:00:00.000-08:00

While Hollywood would have us believe that high born Vikings were sent to Valhalla on flaming ships that were set adrift in glacier-fed fjords, reality is somewhat different. In fact, some of Viking nobility were put to rest aboard ship but the ship was buried rather than immolated. Such burials were rare, ships being expensive articles with more value to their community in use than in the ground, so finding one is a bit of an archaeological dream.

That is just what happened last summer, however, in a wee corner of Scotland known as the Ardnamurchan Peninsula. There, according to this article from CNN, a team from the University of Manchester found a 1,000 year old Viking burial complete with boat.

The gentleman buried in his vessel was obviously of an elite status. His grave goods included not only the boat but weapons including a sword and knife, flints, pottery from the Outer Hebrides and bronze jewelry from Ireland. As the article notes, this was a well travelled and well respected man.

The area where the unknown Viking was found has been a virtual treasure trove for archaeologists. A Neolithic tomb, a Bronze Age monument and a specifically dated 19th century site have all been found in the area. But, as Dr. Oliver Harris says in the article, the Viking burial is “… the best of the bunch.” Doubtless this is true given the absolute rarity of such a find.

The team, led by Dr. Hannah Cobb, plans to return next summer to see if they can discover the Viking settlement that must surely have existed in the area. How long these particular Vikings were in what is now Scotland is always a curiosity and how they lived is even more tantalizing. But for now, the land will revert to winter and the academics will be left to ponder what they have already teased out of the hard ground. Let’s hope more information filters through to us as it becomes apparent to them.

Header: Viking Funeral via Tale Spinning

Seafaring Sunday: Nelson's Blood

2011-10-23T12:18:00.000-08:00

Oh, a drop of Nelson's blood wouldn't do us any harm; Oh, a drop of Nelson's blood wouldn't do us any harm; Oh, a drop of Nelson's blood wouldn't do us any harm; And we'll all hang down behind. So we'll roll the golden chariot along; And we'll roll the golden chariot along; So we'll roll the golden chariot along; And we'll all hang down behind.

~ from the chanty Nelson's Blood which became popular after his death at Trafalgar

Header: Olivier as a dying Nelson from the film That Hamilton Woman