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  1. "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."

    Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:07:16 UTC from social.heldscal.la
    1. @sim How big was the goddamn fish

      Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:06:35 UTC from web
      1. @nerthos

        Lol! No idea.

        Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:09:27 UTC from social.heldscal.la
        1. @sim Turns out squall also stands for storm.

          Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:07:58 UTC from web
          1. @nerthos

            Yeah, the winds... I was confused for a moment where you got the idea of fish from.

            Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:14:06 UTC from social.heldscal.la
            1. @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
              1. @nerthos @sim The wonders of knowing multiple languages.

                Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:16:17 UTC from community.highlandarrow.com
                1. @maiyannah @nerthos

                  Haha. That could do it.

                  Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:22:52 UTC from social.heldscal.la
        2. @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.

          Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:10:16 UTC from community.highlandarrow.com
          1. @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
            1. @nerthos No wonder Ahab was after a big fish.

              Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:12:58 UTC from community.highlandarrow.com
          2. @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?

            Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:19:13 UTC from social.heldscal.la
            1. @sim @nerthos Why do you think diving to try to recover shipwrecks is such a lucrative industry in some places?  If you find one that was carrying a lot of cargo the artifacts are very valuable.

              Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:20:00 UTC from community.highlandarrow.com
              1. @maiyannah @nerthos

                I hadn't thought about that... but it makes sense. Even today, you can get a lot of money through it.

                Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:24:04 UTC from social.heldscal.la
            2. @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
              1. @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.

                Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:25:25 UTC from social.heldscal.la
                1. @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
                  1. @nerthos

                    Good point. I think it was more likely that they sought after transport ships... not big war ships.

                    Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:42:25 UTC from social.heldscal.la
                    1. @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
                      1. @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.

                        Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:48:47 UTC from social.heldscal.la
                      2. 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

                        Tuesday, 21-Feb-17 06:59:38 UTC from shitposter.club