Ships: Queen Anne's Cannon

The painstaking work of raising the ship off Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina that is believed to be Blackbeard's flagship continues at a pace. Thanks to private donations, a large chunk of which come from pirate expert Pat Croce, East Carolina University has been able to raise some of the ship's cannon and many other artifacts from the sediment-clouded waters.

As this article from Hampton Roads notes, some of the more interesting guns were found to be loaded when hoisted up. This goes against naval philosophy of the time - the Royal Navy rarely if ever pre-loaded guns - and may point to a common practice among pirates of the Golden Age. Or perhaps this was simply a common practice of Blackbeard's.

Queen Anne's Revenge was sunk, not in battle, but after hitting a sandbar near the inlet where it now lies. This occurred in July or August of 1718 and Blackbeard met his end at the hands of Royal Navy pirate hunters the following November. There is no record that the QAR sank during a battle or chase, so we must imagine that the guns were loaded simply in preparation.

The cannon are now being kept in a warehouse at the ECU campus where they are taking a long bath in a sodium-carbonate solution to remove close to 300 years of seaworthy crust. Other items, including more guns, have been left in situ where they too are being cleaned by carefully place anodes which draw away the accumulated corrosion. As archaeologist David Moore puts it in the article: "We're using the bottom of the ocean as a conservation space."

A former French slaver, Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge was one of the larger and more elegant pirate ships of any era. She carried over 20 guns, had four decks, three masts and a spacious great cabin complete with gilt fixtures. Her loss must have been a sore trial for the man whose real name was Edward Teach.

On a final curious note, the article mentions that Edward's name may have been Thatch rather than Teach. That's one I have not heard before.

Header: Ocracoke Inlet Map by Henry Mouson c 1775 via Wikipedia

Booty: For Sale: One Pirate Ship

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: Weigh Anchor!

By now many of the Brethren are probably aware that a particularly piratical anchor, underwater for nearly 300 years, was hauled up last Friday. The event is, of course, dear to all who find the lure of legendary pirates irresistible. Given the recent surge in pop culture interest, the timing seems rather good as well.


The 3,000 pound anchor was part of a ship’s wreckage found off Beaufort, North Carolina near the outer banks island of Ocracoke. The vessel is believed to have gone down there some time in 1718 and evidence points to it being Edward “Blackbeard” Teach’s famous flagship Queen Anne’s Revenge.

According to this article at NewsObserver.com, the anchor was “… atop a pile of debris, which appears to be the remnants of the middle part of the ship.” According to Mark Wilde-Ramsing, director of the QAR Project, researchers will set about digging a small hole in the waist of the ship this week. The article indicates that they are looking for organic material in particular, hoping to find seeds and spores that may help to identify where the ship had been as she sailed around the Atlantic and Caribbean.

Previous artifacts recovered from the wreck have ranged from crockery and ceramics to delicate dagger hilts and jewelry. For information on the ongoing discoveries being found in, around and about the ship and its history, “like” the QAR Project on Facebook.

Header: Queen Anne’s Revenge via Design Context

History: Queen Anne's Revenge

For those of the Brethren lucky enough to be anywhere near Raleigh, North Carolina between now and January 30th, I’ve outstanding news. Make time to spend at the North Carolina Museum of History where a case exhibit of small artifacts from the ship thought to be Edward Teach’s Queen Anne’s Revenge is currently on display.

The ship ran aground at Beaufort Inlet in June of 1718 due to her large size and deep draft. Though Teach made an attempt to haul her off the effort was futile. The great Blackbeard had to salvage what he could in a relative hurry and leave his beloved flagship behind.

An unfortunate circumstance for the mythologized pirate has become a boon to modern marine historians. The ship was discovered in 1997 and the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources in conjunction with the state’s Maritime Museum at Beaufort has been studying the wreck ever since. The last extensive dive for artifacts occurred recently and referred to as the Fall Field Season 2010. Some of the treasures collected from those dives include large items like part of the larboard (port) main mast chain, cannon balls, a 33.5 pound lead sounding weight and pewter plate. Smaller artifacts such as ceramic shards, ballast stones, bone and pins were also collected and brought up for study.

The exhibit at the museum in Raleigh will feature various smaller items brought up during past field seasons. The Queen Anne’s Revenge website lists only a few but the items spark the imagination even on the page: a handblown blue-green window pane probably from the great cabin, a brass buckle used to fasten a belt or bandolier, brass scale weights for weighing coins and a hand guard from a small sword that is beautifully gilded and decorated with scroll work. Who might have used, appreciated or simply ignored these amazing pieces of our history? Any of a hundred pirates whose names are now lost to us, or maybe one of the few whose names we know. Black Caesar? Mr. Hands? Perhaps even Blackbeard himself?

The exhibit runs January 7th through 30th and more information is available locally by calling 919-807-7349. For those of you who can’t make it to Raleigh, your humble hostess empathizes as I won’t be going either. But fear not. Click over to qaronline.org and explore fascinating articles and particularly breathtaking pictures of the myriad things that made a pirate ship run 300 years ago. For those of us in the hinterlands, it’s almost like being there.

Header: Hand guard of a sword on exhibit at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh via qaronline.org; see more detail here

Booty: The Inner Sailor

Still looking for Holiday gifts? Got a closet seafarer on your list? Not quite sure what would really bring out their inner sailor on Yuletide? Fear not; Pauline is here to help, as always. Here are a few suggestions for grown-ups (these things aren’t cheap so I wouldn’t recommend them for the under 18 set; I mean, unless you’ve got that kind of coin to throw around) that should hit the spot nicely.

First is the above illustrated pea coat from the J. Peterman Company of Kentucky. Peterman buys his from the same supplier as the U.S. Navy so this is as close to the real deal as you’re going to get without enlisting or enrolling at Annapolis. There are a few very minor differences but over all you have the same tough construction, warm wool and glossy buttons etched with foul anchors. Find it here gentlemen and ladies.

Our next two items come from the National Geographic Store, whose offerings I have always been pleased with. The telescope above is a precise replica of the type used by David Porter and Jean Laffite (that’s right; men on both sides of the law!) 200 years ago. Made of brass, it folds down nicely to fit in one’s pocket, which made it handy when climbing up to the main top to spot a potential prize. The First Mate gave me one of these a few birthdays back and I love it. I’ve seen every moose that cruises through my neighborhood up close from the safety of my living room. Not the original use, of course, but still worth the while. Here is the link.

Finally, a map that is as intriguing as it is accurate. The Ghost Fleets of the Outer Bank reference map. It documents every shipwreck along the Carolina coasts from 1585 to 1969 including a number of confirmed or possible pirate wrecks like Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge. NatGeo’s maps are always stunningly rendered and suitable for framing. If I lived on the Carolina coast, this would be a must have.

These are just a few suggestions but I would also encourage you to poke around both sites for other possible gift ideas. There are lots of quality goodies – some already on sale. Enjoy. Oh, and don’t forget tomorrow is the Army/Navy football game. Go Goats!

Ships: Updates Ahoy!

Wednesday is grocery day at my house (usually) and since it is one of the chores I hate (mostly because it is inestimably tedious in its never ending round of doing the same thing over and over again, rather like splicing rope aboard ship) I like to do it first thing in the morning. That’s why Wednesday posts are always late. And that’s why today I’m throwing out a bunch of updates on ships we’ve talked about before. It’s all good stuff, but it’s also quick and dirty. Oh, my!

Anyway, first off the U.S. Navy (bless her and all who serve) has completed the 2010 Bonhomme Richard survey. Click over to this post at the Naval History Blog for interesting information not only on the survey itself but on the marine archaeologist in charge.

Next is one of Triple P’s favorite pirate ships: Queen Anne’s Revenge. The remains believed to be those of Edward “Blackbeard” Teach’s flagship which sank off the coast of North Carolina circa 1718 are getting a little attention before winter sets in. A dozen of the ship’s eight feet long guns and her 1.800 pound anchors will receive corrosion prevention this month. Aluminum rods will be applied to what an article at Fox News refers to as “…the boat”. I’m not splitting hairs when I correct that term to ship. Anyway, the rods will act as “anodes”, providing a charge of electricity that will not prevent but will slow down the process of corrosion. The article tells us that the “… last full scale excavation and recovery of artifacts” from the ship took place in 2006. Want to follow the progress of not only this project but many others related to the ship believed to be Blackbeard’s? You can “like” Blackbeard’s-Queen Anne’s Revenge on Facebook for ongoing updates. What a fabulous, modern age we live in.

The last ship on today’s list is the mystery merchant vessel found last July at the World Trade Center construction site in New York City. According to this Fox News article, on October 4th experts gave a lecture documenting what has been so far determined about the life and death of this unexpected find. The scientists are calling the 18th century ship a “Hudson river sloop”; she was evidently a two-masted trading vessel of between 60 and 70 feet long. Whether she sank in place or was used as landfill after she became unseaworthy has yet to be determined. That she certainly sailed outside the Atlantic seaboard and probably as far as the Caribbean has been confirmed by the evidence of small, burrowing clams that ate at the ship’s hull and are native to tropical waters.

The ship was found to have an 18th century copper coin embedded in its structure, probably at the time it was built. The coin was issued during the reign of King George II and helps date the ship to between 1730 and 1760 approximately. As an interesting aside, this ancient tradition for keeping ship’s safe continues to this day, and close to home. USS New York, constructed in part from steel beams from the Twin Towers and completed in 2008, carries modern coins in her hull as well.

The plan for the merchant vessel, which is currently soaking in purified water, is yet to be determined. The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which has oversight of the entire World Trade Center project, has not announced their intentions with regard to the ship. Scientists hope to be able to preserve her through freeze-drying, much as Texas A & M is doing with La Belle. Let us hope that the right decision is made not with concern for current economics, but for history – and the future.

Header: Blackbeard via the North Carolina Office of Archives and History (looks like Edward has been using his whitestrips!)

Ships: Rescued In Time

There's a reason why the nautical studies center at Hatteras Island, North Carolina is called the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum. North Carolina's beaches have been quite literally strewn with ships from near and far, wrecked and thrown onto the sand throughout years of hurricanes and Nor'easters. Some of them are surprisingly old. Finding one even relatively intact is unusual at best, but that is what beachcomber Ray Midgett did last spring.

This article from CNN.com documents the ship and how it was found by Midgett, a former government employee who says "...relic hunting is in my blood." Not only that, but Midgett is a tenacious sort. He followed up with local government officials, including North Carolina state Senator Marc Basnight, until the ship was salvaged. Through a joint effort of the Wildlife Resources Commission, the Underwater Archaeology Branch and the Corolla Fire Department along with local volunteers, the ship was freed from her sandy grave and towed up to a nearby lighthouse. It will be moved from Corolla Beach to the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum later this summer.

Many ships, most famously perhaps HMS Somerset, a mid-1700's man-of-war that lies in the sand in Cape Cod, stay hidden under Atlantic coast sand and surf until they are revealed by weather. In the case of Somerset, moving her was determined to be unsound and so archaeologists study the ship when she is visible. The opposite was the case with Midgett's discovery. Once her relative age was determined, experts knew she had to be moved.

Originally those experts imagined the wreck on Corolla Beach might be what was left of HMS Swift, wrecked off the Outer Banks in the late 18th century and then looted and disabled somewhere in the area of the beach. Further research showed that the Corolla Beach ship was in fact a merchant dating from 1650 to 1700. More careful study will be needed but, if the on site dating is correct, that will make Ray Midgett's find the oldest shipwreck yet discovered along coastal North Carolina. Older even than the circa 1719 wreck found near Beaufort N.C. in 1997 and suspected to be none other than Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge.

Midgett and beachcombing colleagues salvaged a number of coins and artifacts, including spoons dating to the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles I, nearby that may have come from the wreck. These will be analyzed by archaeologists but will then be returned to the relic hunters who are entitled to keep their finds.

Were I Mr. Midgett, I'd wish I had a garage big enough for the wreck itself. Imagine having your morning coffee with that kind of seafaring history every day? Priceless. Well done, sir. Keep up the good work out there on the beach.

Picture at the header by Ray Midgett of his find on Corolla Beach, N.C.

Ships: From Concorde To Revenge

Edward "Blackbeard" Teach's flagship, which he named Queen Anne's Revenge, was one of the largest successful pirate ships of the Golden Age. Only William Kidd's Adventure Galley and Bartholomew Robert's Royal Fortune can boast as many men and arms.

Teach's ship was probably built in the first decade of the 18th century. She was 200 tons with a length of 103 feet, 25 feet at the beam and a draft of close to 13 and a half feet. Obviously she was bulky and her draft was almost preposterously deep for a freebooter. Teach, of course, worked his magic more through reputation than fast sailing. Hiding out in shallow cays wasn't exactly his style.

Queen Anne's Revenge was most probably one of the early model frigates being built in England, Holland and France during the late 17th and early 18th century. She had a fore, main and mizzen mast, could carry up to 40 guns and was probably envisioned with a 125 to 150 man crew. Teach would probably have crewed her far more numerously than that. Pirates and privateers not only worked on strength of numbers but needed extra hands to man prizes once they were caught. A reasonable estimate might be 200 to 210 men all together.

From the history available, it appears the Teach's flagship was originally Concorde, a French merchant turned slaver. She carried 14 guns and made trips between the Guinea coast and France's islands in the Caribbean, probably Haiti (then San Domingue) in particular. It was, of course, a cruel trade and when Teach caught up with her in his much smaller sloop Revenge he knew no one aboard would want to fight. Concorde had been becalmed off St. Vincent and her crew and cargo were suffering from fever and dysentery. When Blackbeard raised his skeleton flag, Concorde's captain surrendered without a struggle.

Teach tortured the French captain until he gave up the hiding place of a chest of gold dust. Then he put captain and crew aboard Revenge, to tell the tale of the terrible Blackbeard, and sailed off in Concorde - now Queen Anne's Revenge - with her human cargo and her gold. Once the ugly business of slave trading was taken care of, Teach added 28 guns to his new ship's deck and headed out to really embark on his short but brilliant career of non-stop terror.

It was with Queen Anne's Revenge that Teach blockaded the city of Charleston, eventually receiving a ransom and medical supplies to release her. Shortly after this brilliant episode, in June of 1718, Teach grounded his ship in Beaufort Inlet, North Caroline not far from his home port of Ocracoke Island. In this instance, Queen Anne's Revenge's deep draft was her downfall. The ship could not be hauled off the bar and Teach had to salvage what he could and leave her for a wreck.

In 1997, a ship very nearly fitting the description of Blackbeard's was found in 24 feet of water off Beaufort. Archaeologists are still examining the wreck, bringing up bits and pieces of seafaring life in the 18th century. The North Carolina Maritime Museum at Beaufort has more information about the ship and the pirate here. The scientific jury appears to be still out on whether or not the ship is actually Queen Anne's Revenge. Some are certainly convinced while others remain hesitant. It's hard for me to imagine that the vessel is not what she seems, but maybe that's wishful thinking.

Edward Teach, the infamous Blackbeard, followed his ship's burial at sea only five months later when his headless body was tossed into the ocean by the British off Ocracoke. It seems only fitting, in a violent, piratical sort of way.