Origins: How to escape from pirates

Subject: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: GUEST,Gavin Atkin
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 05:50 AM

From the evidence presented by old songs about pirates, what's the best way to escape? And how do the songs match up with what we know about the boats the Barbary pirates used to sail when chasing ships around the north Atlantic and around the British Isles?

http://intheboatshed.net/?p=609

Well, it made me think!

Gav

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: Scrump
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 06:00 AM

I thought this was another thread about copyright.

I'll get me pegleg and eyepatch.

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 07:02 AM

This is about songs, sailing ships and escaping from scary pirates - I don't think you need too many props, which I think we can safely leave to the jolly people at Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: Barry Finn
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 08:55 AM

Golden Vanity, Send some young kid over the side with an auger & have him drills holes in pirate ships.

Jim Jones, carry 500 marines on board & drive off pirates with rifle fire

Captain Ward & the Rainbow, get defeated by the pirates but go home to tell the Queen all about it

Barry

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: Snuffy
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 09:19 AM

"Good Lord!" Cries our captain, "What shall we do now?
Here comes a bold pirate to rob us, I know!."
"Oh no!" cries our first mate, "That never can be so
We will shake out a reef, boys, and from her we'll go."

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: Amos
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 09:21 AM

One way is to grab the powder-room key and march in there with a torch.


A

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 09:27 AM

I thought the heads were at the bow and open to the sky.

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 09:36 AM

"I thought the heads were at the bow"

Depends who's bathing at the stern... :-)

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 09:46 AM

No one escapes from pirates anymore! We start counseling sessions to show them the error of their ways and convert them to decent professions...like doing commercials for credit cards!

"What's in YOUR wallet?"

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 09:47 AM

(Tap-tap-tap)"Who's that knocking at my door?"
Cried the fair young maiden.

"It's only me from over the sea", says Barnacle Bill the Sailor.

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 09:51 AM

"What's in YOUR wallet?"

Adequate protection, thanks...

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 10:24 AM

Amos-

I can just hear the screams and giggles as you advance into the "powder room" torch in hand at the next Getaway.

Another technique is illustrated by the "Maid on the Shore" who allowed herself to be kidnapped, brought out to the pirate ship, wined and dined. Then she sang the pirates to sleep, gathered up some of their booty, and with the captain's broad sword rowed her way back to the shore. Don't try this if you can't sing on key!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: Snuffy
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 10:34 AM

Do we know the names of the maid on the shore and the captain's broad?
And isn't sword rowing a lot more inefficient than using an oar?

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 10:38 AM

Doubtless there's a lot of things more inefficient than using an
'oar?

...

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 10:49 AM

The pirate song in Garfield's Halloween Adventure is "Over The Raging Sea We Go".

Garfield and Odie watch as a ghostly ship materializes on the river and pirate ghosts emerge. Garfield and Odie hide in an empty cupboard in a house whilst the ghosts retrieve their buried treasure which is under the floorboards. The ghosts discover them because Odie sneezes. Garfield and Odie are chased to the dock where they jump into the river to escape and Odie has to save Garfield because he can't swim. Garfield and Odie are washed ashore.

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 11:28 AM

1. Get deserted, as in

THE PIRATE'S DESERTED BRIDE

From Levy

Far o'er the sea the bark is gone,
With her blood red flag above,
And I am left to weep alone,
My sorrows and my love,
My fears rise with the rising gale,
For my heart is on the main,
Oh! I ne'er shall see that spreading sail
And blood red flag again.


2. No escape, as in

THE PIRATE's SERENADE, also from Levy

Forgive my rough mood, unaccustom'd to sue,
I woo not perhaps as your land lover woo ...

Then wake, lady, wake! I am waiting for thee,
And this night or never my bride thou shalt be.

(Unless she stabs herself, of course.)

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 11:42 AM

Granted the above are not nautical maneuvers. Here are some from Colcord's Songs of American Sailormen:

1. Sail every which way, and moon your pursuer, as in

THE FAIR PRINCESS ROYAL

He chased us to windward for glasses one or two,
He chased us to loo'ard, but nothing could he do,
He fired his bow-chaser, thinking o'er us to prevail,
But the bold Princess Royal soon showed him her tail.


2. Overcome them with curse words, smaller crew, and smaller guns, and do it in midmorning, (perhaps to catch them at tea-time?), and above all, finish them off by lunchtime, as in

BOLD DANIELS

I would see you damned, cried Daniels,
I would sooner sink at sea.
They hoisted up their bloody flag,
Our hearts to terrify,
With their big guns to our small arms,
At us they did lt fly.

She mustered twelve twelve-pounders,
And a crew of a hundred men,
The time the action did begin,
It was just about half past ten,
We mounted six six-pounders,
Our crew being twenty-two,
In the course of an hour and a quarter,
Those pirates we did subdue.

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Mar 07 - 06:37 PM

"THE PIRATE's SERENADE"...wow...the only place I'd ever heard of that was a recording by Burl Ives back in...ummmm.....WAY back. He didn't explain where he might have gotten it.

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Mar 07 - 08:53 AM

I apologise for my triple entendre... :-)

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: Les from Hull
Date: 03 Mar 07 - 09:18 AM

The best way to avoid Barbary pirates was to avoid the Mediterranean.

Of course with you in a sailing ship and them in a galley (had sails but also propelled by oars) you should make sure that you had a plentiful supply of wind!

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: Lucius
Date: 03 Mar 07 - 09:51 AM

You could always reverse engineer Barrett's Privateers.

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 Mar 07 - 12:08 PM

At the risk of hi-jacking this thread (but that's what a pirate would do) I'm posting this help wanted ad from a luxury getaway resort on the coast of Maine:

WANTED PIRATE

Part-time position during summer season for a personable buccaneer; said swashbuckler would lead several seafaring voyages each week to Harbor Island, taking crowds of kids on searches for buried treasure. For more information contact Leslie Hunter, marketing manager, Sebasco Harbor Resort, Phippsburg, Maine (www.sebasco.com).

In the follow-up story in today's Portland Press Herald it was also mentioned that "drinking rum all day" would not be tolerated by the management. When interviewed a spokesman from the Maine department of Labor acknowledged that they had very little reliable data on pirate wages and benefits.

Arrrgggh,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Mar 07 - 01:53 PM

Thanks for an entertaining thread folks!

Gav

Subject: RE: Origins: How to escape from pirates
From: Anglogeezer
Date: 04 Mar 07 - 12:17 PM

It seems from this article in the Daily Telegraph that the ships of the Barbary pirates may have had a superior sailing rig!!

Pirates at the Telegraph

regads
Jake