Booty: Bonjour Aveline!

I would never call myself a "gamer." We don't own an XboX and, although I did become insanely addicted to "Pocket Frogs" for iPad while recovering from surgery, I tend to consider such things a dangerous pastime that can lead to, well, addiction.

To my intense ambivalence, I was utterly dismayed and delighted to see this post over at The Duchess of Devonshire's Gossip Guide to the 18th Century. I'll be damned if Assassin's Creed isn't coming out with not only a scenario set in Old New Orleans but one featuring a ball-smashing, octoroon, lady assassin. Well, shit. (As an aside, that paragraph probably contains more blue language than the whole sum of every other post here at Triple P. I'll just go ahead and apologize right now: sorry).

Anyway, here's the gist of Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation:

The year is 1765. As the events leading up to the American Revolution heat up in the north, Spanish forces plan to take control of Louisiana in the south - but they have yet to reckon with Aveline, a deadly Assassin who will use every weapon and ability in her arsenal to win freedom for her land and her people.

Sweet beignets! That kicks all kinds of ass on paper! But watching the reveal trailer will really get you pumped. Also, if you're like me, you might be curious about the weapons wielded by Aveline de Granpre. Thankfully, AC has given us a trailer for that too. My personal favorite may surprise the Brethren. Pistols are nice and all, but you never need to reload a machete and the blood splatter stays further away from you than it does with hidden blades.

Anyway, suffice it to say that I would happily welcome Mademoiselle de Granpre aboard my ship as a mate at any time. She'd need to learn the ropes, of course, but she'd be a decided asset in close quarters right off the belaying pin.

Header: Assassin Aveline de Granpre via the Ubisoft website. AC3 will be available in October

Ships: Old Ironsides vs. Warrior

On August 30, 1812, Captain Isaac Hull brought his now famous frigate, USS Constitution, into the port of Boston with what was then astonishing news. Constitution had quite literally destroyed the British frigate of 38 guns HMS Guerriere in a firefight at sea.

The news was particularly well received in Boston, always a port town full of sailors, where the United States' battle cry of the two-month-old War of 1812 was well known: Free Trade and Sailors Rights. Guerriere had been a particular thorn in the side of U.S. merchantmen. Her captain, James Richard Dacres, was notorious for stopping such vessels, searching them and almost invariable finding men he labelled British deserters. Whether the charge was true or not, these men were immediately impressed for service aboard Guerriere.

The battle between the two ships, which began on August 19th some time after 2:00 PM, saw two fighting captains with well-prepared crews coming together in what seemed, on its face, to be a fairly even exchange. The Americans, whose navy was still in its youth at the time, nonetheless trusted their sturdy frigates built of nearly impregnable white oak. They also relied on their crews' unusual mixture of self-discipline and honest enthusiasm. Meanwhile, the Royal Navy ruled the waves, and did not blink at taking on a similar sized ship from any navy in the world, regardless of firepower.

The inequalities of the two ships, however, would lead to the unfortunate result that the Royal Navy had no doubt secretly dreaded from the beginning of the war. As the records of Captain Dacres' court martial indicate, Guerriere was old and desperately in need of a refit when she met Constitution on her way to the port of Halifax in the British colony of Nova Scotia. Her timbers, and in particular her masts, were literally rotten when all three in rapid succession were torn away by Constitution's guns. Then too, as Dacres would point out, she was a French prize and therefor not built to British standards.

On the other hand, Constitution carried 44 guns in answer to Guerriere's 38. Her crew was itching for a fight as many of them had friends and relatives who had been impressed by the Royal Navy; some had even suffered that ignominy themselves. Her captain was capable and level headed and made only one slip toward the end of the battle, missing stays and entangling Guerrier's bowsprit in Constitution's aft rigging. The most remarkable advantage Constitution had, however, was her tough hull. It was, according to legend, during this battle that she earned her nickname. When a shot from Guerrier bounced off Constitution's side, the Royal Navy gun crews began the rumor that she had "sides of iron."

Though Dacres never raised a white flag of surrender, Hull surmised when Guerrier was done and sent his First Lieutenant across in a boat to address the British captain. When asked if he would care to surrender, Dacres famously replied: "Our mizzen mast is gone, and our fore and main gone as well. I think, sir, that on the whole one might evince that we have struck our flag." And to this day the British are better at sarcasm than we Americans.

Dacres was welcomed aboard Constitution with all civility. Hull refused Dacres' sword as well. He would say later that he was particularly glad of it when the news came to him that Dacres had allowed 12 impressed American sailors to wait out the battle in Guerrier's hold, rather than have to fight against their countrymen. Though Hull had hoped to tow Guerrier to Boston as prize, the damage to her was to great. When it was clear that she would sink, Hull had all her stores and people removed to Constitution and then set her aflame.

Though a few later encounters - particularly the battle between USS Chesapeake and HMS Shannon - would not go so well for the Americans, this first decisive victory renewed the American hope for a swift and successful end to the war. It also began, even at this early stage, the British shift from a focus on war at sea - where the Royal Navy was flabbergasted at being regularly defeated - to a war on land. Unfortunately, despite the burning of Washington D.C. which remains the flagship victory of Britain and her colonies in the War of 1812, that didn't turn out so well either.

But the Battle of New Orleans is another discussion for another time. For today, Huzzah! Old Ironsides, her crew and Captain Isaac Hull.

Header: USS Constitution vs HMS Guerriere by Michel Felice Corne via Wikipedia 

Tools of the Trade: In A Fog

Fog can be one of the most deadly atmospheric developments that a ship can meet. This is particularly true along coastlines, which - it should come as no surprise - is where the condition tends to be found. Felix Riesenberg's late 19th century advise that speed in fog should be moderate still applies today. Even with GPS and other high-tech navigational tools, there is always the potential for things to go horribly wrong.

That is no doubt why our seafaring ancestors had fairly stringent rules for how to navigate in fog. As Peter H. Spectre notes in his A Mariner's Miscellany, one should always remember four simple things when caught in a fog on the water: keep your eyes open, keep your ears open, keep your dead-reckoning plot and keep your head.

The conditions that lead to fog are almost standard. Regardless of where one is on the globe, these weather signs will apply. The largest issue is the contact of warm with cold. Warm air flowing over a cold surface, such as water or land, will cause fog. This is particularly true if humidity is high. Likewise, cold air coming into contact with warm land or warm rain will usually lead to fog. How dense the fog is depends on the temperature differential for the most part and to some degree a lack of wind as well.

Sailors identified certain particularly difficult fog conditions by name. The condition known as foggy breath arises when one can see their breath in warm weather, as if the air were in fact cold. Seamen agree that when this situation, which is usually a result of high humidity, occurs, fog will accumulate soon.

Advection fog is the thick, pea-soup fog commonly found off shore. This is caused by warm, humid air blowing over cold water. Radiation fog, on the other hand, is the type that clings to the ground or the water. Familiar to anyone who has spent time in bogs, bayous or swamps, this fog is caused by land that has been warmed during the day cooling down and cooling the air just above it as well. The air farther up remains warm, causing the type of fog which has been both the friend and foe of inland smugglers but is not as troublesome for the seagoing freebooter.

Knowing the conditions that can cause fog, feeling them in the air before the actual situations arises, can go a long way to keeping a ship safe at sea. Even in the thickest of fogs. Fore warned, as they say, if fore armed.

Header: Homeward Bound After the Storm by Monica Vanzant. This lovely piece is available for purchase at Fine Art America

Literature: Of Sailors Old and New

Alexis de Tocqueville, who was born in Paris in 1805, was a brilliant observer of his fellow human beings. He traveled extensively in the U.S. between the War of 1812 and the American Civil War and left his thoughts to posterity in his seminal work Democracy in America. At a time when almost any travel had something to do with getting on a ship and being in close proximity with sailors, Monsieur de T had some thoughts about that, too:

The European sailor navigates with prudence; he only sets sail when the weather is favorable; if an unfortunate accident befalls him, he puts into port; at night he furls a portion of his canvas; and when the whitening billows intimate the vicinity of land, he checks his way and takes an observation of the sun.

But the American neglects these precautions and braves these dangers. He weighs anchor in the midst of tempestuous gales; by night and day he spreads his sheets to the winds; he repairs as he goes along such damage as his vessel may have sustained from the storm; and when at last approaches the term of his voyage, he darts onward to the shore as if he already descried a port. The Americans are often shipwrecked, but no trader crosses the sea so rapidly. And as they perform the same distance in a shorter time, they can perform it at a cheaper rate.

As Benjamin Franklin once noted, the Americans - as de Tocqueville would call us - had become an entirely different race of people. And that went for sailors, too.

Header: Alexis de Tocqueville by Theodore Chasseriau c 1850, just six years prior to his death, via Wikipedia

Seafaring Sunday: An End of Long Strife

August 26, 1865: The Civil War ends with the U.S. Navy at its highest numbers to the day: 600 ships and 58,500 sailors.

Header: Battle of Mobile Bay by Xanthus R. Smith c 1890 via Wikimedia

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Pick/Pike

I was inspired to pick today’s words by U.S. Navy pikes. Trust me, that insane sentence will make sense by the end of this post.

In sailor-speak, pick means the usual things it does on land. Even at sea you can pick your nose and you can pick your friends but I’m not going to finish that old canard. Canard, as an aside, means duck in French; while ducks have beaks and friends, they have no noses. It is only at sea, however, that a ship can pick up the wind. This is a term for a sailing ship going from one trade or other reliable wind to another while avoiding calms as much as possible. This was a favorite tactic of clipper ships in their heyday as they ran from New York to San Francisco then on to China and around to New York again.

Pickets are pointed staffs thrust into the ground to demark military terrain, or even just tie a horse to. Pickets may also be markers for pointing a mortar towards its target, even if same is not visible from the weapon. Piquet is a group put on watch at a distance from the main body of military to sound the first alarm in case of approach by the enemy.

A picard was a type of barge or boat once used for shipping materials and livestock on the Severn river in England. The word’s origin may or may not be related to the French word for a native of Picardy. A picaroon was a small vessel used for piracy in the New World whose name probably originated with the Old World term for petty theft. Piccary was petty thievery on the High Seas and in England pickerie was the theft of small items – a loaf of bread or an apple – that was usually considered the act of women and/or children. The long-standing sentence for pickerie was the far-worse-than-it-sounds punishment of ducking or swimming. Usually carried out in either very cold and/or filthy bodies of water, this form of torture could lead to death outright or infection that essentially amounted to a death sentence.

Pickling for sea voyages was done not only to food but also to wood. Pickling of timber in order to make it more durable was often accomplished with Sir William Burnett’s fluid, a solution of chloride and zinc. Because of this method, pickling was sometimes called Burnettizing.

A picul (or, more properly, pekul) was a commercial weight in China equivalent to approximately 130 pounds. Pictarnie is a Scottish word for the seagoing bird known as a tern.

A pike-turn or a turn-pike is what was known to the French as a chevaux de frise. This was the habit of topping military pikes with iron and standing them upright through beams, much like a fence, to discourage the enemy. In fact, the French term – which literally translates curly hair – is used to this day to denote a certain type of wrought iron fencing.

Finally, a pike is best described by Admiral Smyth:

A long, slender, round staff, armed at the end with iron (as in a boarding-pike). Formerly in general use but which gave way to the bayonet.

And so here is the picture, from the U.S Navy’s Twitter feed, that got me thinking about pikes while picking today’s words. I told you it would all make sense. Eventually.

Header: Engraving of a ducking or water ordeal from the late Medieval period via The Medievalist

Booty: Truly Amazing

As the Brethren are well aware, I am currently spending a good bit of my time kicking cancer's ugly ass in true piratical fashion.  That means that the schedule aboard the good ship Triple P will be adjusting slightly for my early morning radiation treatments. We started yesterday, radiation and I, and should finish up the first or second week in October. Until then, posting may be spotty but I'll do my best and I may occasionally pull an old favorite out of the archives.

For today, though, a truly amazing reminder of just how magnificent - and powerful - the lakes, seas and oceans of our blue planet can be. Watch waterspouts form over Lake Michigan in this video from CNN.

Happy Friday; I'll be back tomorrow with Sailor Mouth Saturday!

Header: One More Step Mr. Hands, illustration by N.C. Wyeth from Treasure Island via Wikimedia