What ship Type most Effected Pirate's Life?

[Captain_Python]

I can't believe how the schooner is still getting support. The schooner was too late to really effect pirate life during the Golden Age of Piracy, and besides that, the schooner I think is just too small. It doesn't have enough cargo room for long periods at sea, and pirates often did. Also it has a crew capacity about 25 to 30 smaller than the sloop, giving less crew to take on merchants. Here is a scenario:

You are a pirate captain, and you spot a ship, it is a merchant, ship type Barque. Now lets see what happens when you have the schooner:

You have a crew of 71 on board your ship, and you chase the merchant down. You fire at it's crew, and you are sure that you killed probably 10 men on board. You send a boat of 15 men to board her. When your boarding party gets on board, it is attacked by 25 men. The original crew was about 40. Your boarding crew fights bravely, but has to retreat back to the boat, leaving behing 10 dead and wounded. You have only 61 men now, and if you send more men to attack, you might not have enough men to properly defend both ships if needed.

Now if you had a sloop:

You have a crew of 106. You chase down the merchant. You fire on it's crew, and probably killed 10 men on board. You send a boarding party of 30 pirates, leaving 76 remaining men on your ship. The boarding crew arrives and is met by 25. You boarding crew outnumbers the merchant crew by a little, and defeats them due to that little budge in numbers. You have taken the prize.

What happened:
Now, with a bigger amount of men on board, you have more men to spare on attacks and prize crews. If if the opponent captain by some chance has some spare crew to defend it (which some did, not all merchants had crews of only 15 or 20) you can send a big enough boarding crew to defeat it. Now the above scenario might sound odd, or maybe wrong to some, but I believe that a pirate crew needs around 100 men to be able to support itself. Also, the schooner wouldn't most likely be seen in the pirate golden age, just missing it by a few years.

 

[Meigger]

The first schooner (called a coaster at that time) was launched in 1714. Because this ship "scooned" across the water she was called a Schooner. These ships became small naval crusiers, slavers, and privateer ships. Even during the Golden Age of Piracy ( 16th and 17th centuries) the pirates did not have free reign of the seas. Pirates were common prey to others, such as the roving fleets of the other countries and specifically the Royal Navy. These vessels were not great ships of the line, but lighter craft, i.e. Sloops, Frigates and Snows. These ships were not much different from merchantmen ships, or pirate craft. However, their crews displayed excellent fighting spirit, and any pirates foolhardy enough to slug it out with them usually met their demise.

Wooden sailing ships were damp. dark, cheerless places smelling with the stench of bilge water and rotten meat. Wooden ships leaked badly because its planks could not be caulked sufficiently to not let water in. Once the ship was wet inside it was nearly impossible to completely dry. Consequently, the men suffered from cramps, colds and catarrhs, which was compounded by the lack of dry clothes. Pirates suffered from terrible overcrowding. True, Pirate ships generally carried crews three to four times the size of a merchant ships compliment. 250 men were jammed into a vessel rarely larger than 127 feet long by 40 feet wide. Through this overcrowding, nothing could halt the infestation of vermin during long voyages. These ships became the breeding ground for beetles, cockroaches and rats. Consequently, pirate captains ( as well as merchant, but not to the same extent as they carried smaller but generally healther crews) would lose half of his men to disease. Typhus and typhoid were rampant on board ships pirate ships as was dysentery, malaria and yellow fever. Also pirate crews suffered heavily from syphilis, which incapacitated many of the crewmembers.

Further, for pirates thrist and starvation was rampant. The irregular nature of pirate cruises, with their sudden changes of course to attack their prey or to keep from being preyed on, and their haunts in the remote corners of distant oceans, often put the crews on desperately short rations. This inhibited the fighting ability of the pirate crews.

Pirates were very selective in the ships they attacked as prey, as some merchant ships i.e. the Dutch 700 tonner carrying 54 cannons and a crew of 300 would make short work of a pirate ship. Depending on how long the pirate ship had been at sea and the health of the men determined which ships they attacked. History tells us that pirates generally attacked small fishing boats or small coastal traders which basically had nothing of value on board. Occassionally a Galleon or other ship would be taken with valuables. As an example, Calico Jack Rackam sailed on a two year cruise in the West Indies, captured 20 (small) ships and from one schooner all he got was "50 rolls of Tobacco and Nine Bags of Piemento."

The point is that pirates did not always have the numbers on their side. For most merchant ships it was just assumed they did. Most merchant ships, if heavily loaded and could not outrun or outfight the pirate ship, just gave up. That made the pirates job thankfully easier. Pirates only attacked what they believed they could defeat then make a fast escape.

 

[Captain_Python]

Time is up!

The result it that out of 15 votes, that the opinion is that the Sloop effected Pirate Life out of all the common ship types. Just under that is the Galleon, then the Schooner, then the Frigate, then the Corvette. Let us go into detail on all five of these ships on why they did affect Pirate life so much.

<u>THE SLOOP</u>
When the Sloop (the single masted Sloop) was created, the Pirate had a ship that could be armed with 8 to 14 light caliber guns, have a crew of 75 to 100, was shallow drafted, and was fast. She could quickly catch up to a merchant, cripple it, and capture with good numbers. It was almost like the ship was created just for pirates (but it wasn't. There wasn't a ship type just for pirates ever created). Also, ever since it was so fast and shallow drafted, it could escape warships. It is also very seaworthy for it's size.

<u>THE GALLEON</u>
The Galleon has some pros and cons against the pirates:
Pros.:
-Pirates can out run them
-If a Pirate manages to capture one, they have a huge cargo hold that can be full of valuable goods.

Cons.:
-Even the small Galleon can carry as many, or more guns that the smaller Pirate vessels.
-The small Galleon at minimum requires 50 men to sail, and can have over 100 and almost 200 men. So fighting one of their crew can be anywere from a little difficult, to almost impossible.
-A Galleon is not always small, but can be big, almost as big as Ships of the Line.

So the Effect of the Galleon on pirates was bad at some points, but also good.

<u>THE SCHOONER</u>
The Schooner is even smaller than the Sloop, and carries less guns and crew. But it can be even faster and has a shallower draft. So these vessels are almost equal to Sloops, but the Schooner came later, and only the very last years of the Pirate Golden Age saw major use of the Schooner.

<u>THE FRIGATE</u>
The Frigate is a power to be recon with. It brings power that smaller Pirate vessels could not, so pirates were constanly in fear of them. The Frigates was commonly the biggest ship they would put on independent missions from Navies. But during this time, Frigates were still not being recognized as a good vessel, and not so many were around as during the Napoleonic Wars. But once in a while, Pirates would get a hold of a Frigate, and use it themselves, and be able to take just about any vessel it sees. So pirates feared them and treasured them.

<u>THE CORVETTE</u>
The Corvette is sort of a smaller version of the Frigate, and is a little faster. She has less guns and crew than a Frigate, but it is still commonly more powerfull than any ship that wasn't a ship of war. But ever since it is not as powerfull as a Frigate, it was easier for a Pirate to take than a Frigate, and it could still compete with Frigates, and it gave them a lot of power like the Frigate.

<u>OTHER SHIPS</u>
There are other ship types than this that can be broken up into different groups, mainly the Ships of War and the Merchant Ships. Merchant Ships of all shapes and sizes were common to pirates, and be transformed into pirate vessels. These vessels include Fleuts, Pinks, Caravels, Barks, Barques, and ships of those kind. Then there are those ships that only the Navies of Europe build, the Ships of War above Frigates. Other than these ships, one ship is forgotten, the Cutter. It had a similar to the Schooner as in destiny (it came late in the Pirate age), and it is a cousin of the Sloop. The British Government even made it illegal for civilians to own them due to their speed and shallow draft.

I hope now that people can understand what ships truely effected the pirate age.

 

[DeCuervo]

if'n ye take a frigate and modify her by chopping off the fore and aft casteles, dick the rigging, ditch the officers quarters above deck, add a few extra swivel guns to sweep enemy decks, and whack out a few extra cannon ports it makes THE pirate ship IMHO. You have fire power, deck space that is excellent, speed that is unmatched (with the modified rigging), and a decent draft depending on how much crap you get rid of and the wood she's made of in the first place (ie. the final wieght of the ship).

 

[Cap't Katarine De Lafonta]

I would say that I hav' two choic's fer me own personal style...If I was on a lon' campaign o' plunderin' an seige agains' an opposing country, I'd want a modified Galleon wit a'out `20-25` cannon to a side an rigged so that th' sails can catch th' wind easier, includin' havin' ALL th' masts wit an ability to rotate fer extreme manouverability on such a larg' ship but to count'r th' fact that it miht be slightly less stabl' yer build support arms into th base an partway up th' side o each mast as a kind o' buffer whil' turnin...thoug' I doubt it talks muc' a'out it in history, I rememb'r comin' across such a few modifi'd ships...part o' th' reason that som' pirat's had such a larg' advantag' o'er th same type o' ship I imagin'. A sloop is perfect fer a short raid o' if yer hav' a specific target...usually good by itself o' in a small fleet becaus' yer need to be abl' to skirt th' enemy an yet surround 'em on all sides if yer c'n `3-4` ships bein best...maybe as littl' as two, perhaps on' actin' as a decoy. Also, wit th' Galleon it eith'r ( if yer very brav' on such a campain ) brin it alon' or as th flagship to a larger fleet o' bucaneers...jus' be careful that yer do yer plunderin' in a way that is somewhat inconspicuous, flyin' false flags when comin' across mor' than on' targ't an n't lettin' word o' yer fleet escap' to th' outsid' if yer c'n help it...Unless o' cours' yer hav' mor'n one safe port to call hom' fer yer fleet. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/pirate2.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":" border="0" alt="pirate2.gif" />

 

[v_Grimmelshausen]

I would have said it would be the frigate. Especially the one of the Royal Navy that captured the pirate and brought him to the gallows. Things don´t get more affecting than that, I guess

 

[DeCuervo]

That may have been the crew and not the ship itself.