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"1545
The captain of Henry VIII's ship the Mary Rose, Roger Grenville of Stowe (father of Sir Richard Grenville of the Revenge) dies in the sinking of the ship. This ship was acting as the flagship of vice-admiral Sir George Carew when the ship was struck by a squall and sank at Spithead (Portsmouth) on July 19th."-
@sim How big was the goddamn fish
Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:06:35 UTC from web-
@nerthos
Lol! No idea.-
@sim Turns out squall also stands for storm.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:07:58 UTC from web-
@nerthos
Yeah, the winds... I was confused for a moment where you got the idea of fish from.-
@sim Now I'm wondering if I'm mixing it up as I know the term has to do with fish.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:13:21 UTC from web -
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@sim @nerthos A squall refers to a very sudden strong marine wind, so it probably got blown over and capsized. For a large ship like that it must have been quite the wind though.
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@maiyannah Google revealed that but the idea of a damn huge fish crashing against the fleet's flagship, sinking it and killing the king's captain is much more amusing.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:10:12 UTC from web-
@nerthos No wonder Ahab was after a big fish.
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@maiyannah @nerthos
Yeah. Hearing about shipwrecks is also interesting. It led me down an interesting path... I think I also ended up learning a bit more about the slave trade through it. And wow... didn't some of these ships have cargo worth a lot?-
@sim Both the cargo and the ship itself were incredibly costly. Relative cost of big warships hasn't changed much over the years, just like today back then one big warship was a considerable drain on a nation's resources
Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:18:39 UTC from web-
@nerthos
Yeah... and if you're a pirate, you can get even more money if you capture one of the ships and keep the crew alive, and either hold them for ransom or sell them into the slave trade.-
@sim Generally capturing big ships wasn't done because big ships require fleet support and are slow and hard to hide. If pirates captured one they'd only manage to get a small fleet chasing them.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:39:09 UTC from web-
@nerthos
Good point. I think it was more likely that they sought after transport ships... not big war ships.-
@sim Basically. A commercial ship is lightly armed because cannon decks take up loads of space, so having a faster ship means you have the advantage. A military ship only has weaponry as far as valuables goes, and is well armed and generally with an escort. I don't discard the possibility of pirates going after a ship or two that returned from a battle in bad shape, but they wouldn't go after normal military convoys, much like modern pirates run from coast guard and navy ships.
Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:43:58 UTC from web-
@nerthos
Yeah, as a pirate I wouldn't want to grape with those guys on a good day... lol. More profitable to take on the Merchant ships. -
It's also a matter of men: the USS Constitution was a frigate, not a big, first-rate ship of the line, but still carried 450 crew, 55 Marines and 30 boys (during battle all these men would be manning guns (25 each side, each w/ 3-4 men), running sail, replacing entire masts and patching holes). The Cutty Sark, last of the tea clippers, carried less than 35. @nerthos @sim
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