Captain_Python
Rogue Scholar
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.
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.