More Blackbeard News

Earlier we reported on the museum exhibit of relics recovered from the ship thought to be Blackbeard's flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge. The more stuff they excavate from this wreck, the more sure they are that it is indeed the vessel of the infamous Captain Teach. National Geographic recently reported on some recent finds which lend more certainty to the identity of the ship. And of course they have great photos. Here's the article.

And in other news, if you're in New Orleans, or have a way to get there, consider checking out PyrateCon this weekend!

Pirate Video of the Day

Here's "Redbeard's Rap" from Bus Pirates, an online comedy show about pirates who invade city buses, apparantly.



You can see episodes one through six of Bus Pirates, as well as some behind the scenes clips, on their MySpace page.

The Jolly Noggin of Blackbeard

In 1996, a marine recovery team found the remains of a wrecked ship in an inlet on the coast of North Carolina. Since then, about a third of the wreckage has been excavated, yielding over 16,000 artifacts of British origin. The wreck has been identified as probably being the Queen Anne's Revenge, a pirate ship that scourged the coast of the southern colonies under the captaincy of Edward Thatch (sometimes given as Teach), better known as Blackbeard.

Blackbeard made his last stand off the coast of NC almost three hundred years ago. Despite the fact that Blackbeard had decided to accept a Royal pardon and retire, Governor Spotswood of Virginia sent two sloops out of his jurisdiction to hunt down the illustrious Captain Thatch.

Lieutenant Robert Maynard, in command of the mission, engaged Thatch near Beaufort Inlet. After a spirited exchange of insults and gunfire, Blackbeard and ten of his men threw grenades made of rum bottles full of gunpowder onto the deck of Maynard's sloop. After covering the deck with smoke and broken glass, they boarded.

They say Blackbeard was shot five times and stabbed close to twenty before he fell. Maynard cut off Thatch's head-- not only for a trophy, but also as proof to collect the bounty (a meagre £100). He hung the head from his bowsprit. That's the beam that juts out from the front of a wooden ship.

According to legend, Blackbeard's decapitated body was thrown overboard, where it swam around the sloop seven times before sinking. But the head was kept, this we know. And scholars suspect that we still have Blackbeard's actual skull.

This supposed skull of Blackbeard and many of the recovered artifacts from the supposed Queen Anne's Revenge will be on display at a grand exhibition of pirate history from antiquity to the present at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh. The exhibit, entitled Knights of the Black Flag, opens tomorrow.

A Bottle of Rum

Pirates didn't have running water on their wooden ships (and in case you didn't know it, you can't survive on sea water because of the salt). So all the water to be consumed on a voyage had to be brought along in barrels. Over the course of a few weeks, the water would get algae in it.

To keep the water from growing, they would sometimes put salt in it (enough to kill algae but not pirates). Or they would put some alcohol in it. Pirates of the Caribbean found an abundant supply of "kill devil," an alcohol that came as a byproduct of sugar cane production. When people began to cultivate kill devil on purpose, its name became rum. A bit of rum in water (and sometimes also with a little salt) is the drink that became known as "grog."

Rum was very cheap and abundant in the Caribbean, and so it was the alcohol of choice for our brethren around the Spanish Main. The Royal Navy gave strict rations of hootch, but pirates could be freer, at least when recruiting Navy sailors. During a voyage, the captain would still ration the rum, and the Articles usually outlined stiff penalties for being drunk during battle.

Pirate Lingo Made Easy

If ye want to portray yerself as a bloodthirsty pirate (and let's face it, who doesn't?), ye have to take an affect to yer speech. No need of immersin' yerself in literature, nor takin' any theatrical dialects class. Just remember these five rules:

Goodbye, G
Any word with an -ing endin' now has an -in' endin'. Most of us do this anyway ("are you comin to the party?"), but with pirate speak, you actually hang on and give emphasis to that final N.

Hello
As soon as ye show yer scurvy face-- at home, at the bar, at the underground cockfightin' den, or wherever-- immediately establish your piratocity by greetin' everyone with a hearty "ahoy!" It's how pirates say hello. In Klingon, the hello greetin' basically amounts to "what do you want?" In Pirate, the hello greetin' basically amounts to "I see you."

Yes & No
Simple as mud. This rule alone will make you sound like a pirate. If you forget all the others, remember to say "aye" and "nay" in answer to questions of truth-value. If someone tells you to do somethin', and you decide to do it, say "aye" twice.

To Be or Else
Pirates do not conjugate "to be." I be a pirate. Ye be a scallywag. She be a saucy wench. They be askin' fer a keelhaulin'!

Friends & Enemies
Finally, when addressing friends, call them "hearties" or "maties." Call a disreputable friend a "scallywag." If someone pisses you off, call them a dog. Nowadays, "dog" is what male friends call each other. But in the Golden Age of Piracy, there was nothing worse you could call someone than a dog. Tone of voice helps-- say it with spitting anger. You can add adjectives: "Ye scurvy dog!" "Ye damned dog!" or make it poetic: "Avast, ye bilge-sucking wagtail!"

Right, that last one be a bit complex. But follow some or any of these rules, and ye will be well on yer way to a life of adventure and plunder! May fortune smile on yer voyages!

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P.S. There's a new comic coming out in April called Cursed Pirate Girl. We're not sure how much actual piracy is in it, but it sounds mighty interesting and the art is made to look old-timey. Read an interview with the artist and see some pages here.

Pirate Haunt of the Day: The Spanish Main

The Spanish Main consisted of the Carribbean coasts of Florida, Mexico, northern South America, and the waterways that served their ports. The riches of the Spanish Empire were concentrated in this area and drew the attention of many a hopeful scallywag.

The Spanish Empire in the Americas largely consisted of Florida, Mexico, Central America and northern South America. From these regions the Spanish reaped mind-blowingly vast amounts of wealth in the form of gold, silver, precious jewels, New World spices and hardwoods, tobacco, and other goods. These riches would be hauled to the Caribbean coast, loaded onto galleons, and shipped back to the motherland. Goods from Asia were also brought in from the east to Acapulco, brought overland to Veracruz, and added to the treasure fleet for transport to Spain.

This is the major reason why the Caribbean was so rife with pirates. A Spanish treasure fleet was not easy to capture, but perhaps trailing the fleet you could pick off a straggler and immediately retire! This did not happen often, but the presence of such vast riches was enough to attract the hopes and aspirations of many an outlaw, who would then wise up and pick easier targets.

There's also a film entitled "The Spanish Main," and there are pirates in it. It is an adventure film from 1945. Check it out if you're so inclined:

What's That in Yer Cannon?

Cannons were the mainstay of sea battles in the eighteenth century, using gunpowder to launch iron balls at about nine hundred miles an hour. A cannonball could be anywhere from two to six inches in diameter, depending on the bore of the cannon. But there were other things besides mere balls a pirate could shoot at another ship.

Yes, you can dump a bunch of silverware, nails, and whatever else is expendable into a cannon and shoot it. This is known as a blunderbuss shot, and while not at all effective in breeching the hull, it would be downright nasty if it hit a person on deck.

They also used bomb shots-- a hollowed out cannonball full of gunpowder, with a fuse. The fuse is lit just before putting the bomb in the cannon. If you time it right, the bomb explodes just as it is hitting the opposing ship. If you time it wrong, it could land on deck and blow up later; or it could blow up in the air and be wasted. If you time it drastically wrong, or if your flash pan doesn't light, it could blow up your cannon and kill you.

What do you get when you attach two cannonballs to a length of chain? You get chain shot. A chain shot spins in the air, and if you shoot it at the rigging, it can wrap around ropes, tear sails and break off the spars, to prevent your prey from sailing away.