Pistoleer: Pirates

by Smith, Skye

  "Steer away from the cloud and away from the ghost ship. Steer Nor’east."

  "The ghost ship is setting a good course for Bermuda," Robert reasoned. "The island is a pin prick in my ocean chart, and easy to miss at the best of times. If we do not follow the ghost ship, then we will miss Bermuda."

  "That is no normal cloud,” was the reply. "Look at the size of it."

  "It could be one of the storms we heard about in Barbados,” Daniel called out. "A giant Hurakan storm of the local goddess."

  The men began discussing this amongst themselves. On every island they had stopped at in the Caribbean, they had been warned of the goddess Harahan’s storms of anger with their fierce winds that ripped roofs from houses and flooded the land with waves and rain. They were not given time enough to come to any decision.

  "She's turning!" the bow watch yelled back from his seat in front of the leading corner of the fore sail. "The ghost ship is coming about."

  Daniel could not leave go of the wheel, for nothing sunk a sailing ship faster than a loose rudder, but Robert ran to the windward gunnels and raised his scope to his eye. "Dear God, she truly has no masts,” he called out as the ghost ship finished her U turn, trimmed her sails, and then sailed towards them With the two ships sailing bow to bow, the distance between them was disappearing quickly. "Her lateen yards are mast and yard in one. The yards are lodged in the hull and raked backwards. She is no ghost ship."

  "Aye,” Daniel called out, "but she could be a pirate. She's coming straight for us." He opened his mouth and yelled out to the crew, "Run the oars out, man the rigging! I'm changing course."

  With the scope to his eye, Robert was lost in thought watching the grace of the strange mastless ship. This ship, the Swift, was a Spanish made galliot, a half galley, which could be rowed or sailed, or both. It had two masts and two triangular lateen sails hung from long wooden yards which angled up from fore to aft at a steep angle. The center point of each yard crossed the mast near to the crow’s-nest.

  The pirate ship had the same steeply angled yards and sails, but instead of being held up by a mast, the yards were somehow directly fixed into the hull.. Watching the ship come about had told him why. To cross the wind and change tack, all that this pirate had to do was run the hanging corner of the sail from one side of the ship to the other. Because there was no mast in the way of the sail, the tack was easy and immediate.

  On the Swift, however, to make the same tack would require releasing both ends of the yard, and then swinging the yard to the other side of the mast, and then switching which end of the yard was held down at the bow, and only then could they run the hanging corner of the sail from one side of the ship to the other.

  As clumsy as the work of tacking the Swift may seem in comparison to the pirate's mastless rig, the Swift's Dutch-style rig was far easier and safer to tack than a Spanish-style lateen rig. With a Spanish rig you physically had to lift the yard over the mast to get the sail on the other side of it. Daniel's voice was cracking with all the yelling and it was now shrill to Robert's ears as he ordered a lad to hoist their English colors.

  With three fast steps, Robert was back at the wheel. "The pirate has a bowchaser, and there are gunners standing by it. On my call of 'smoke' put the Swift hard over before the wind." You always saw the smoke at the cannon muzzle precious seconds before the ball would whistle by. He skipped back to the gunnels where his view forward wasn't blocked by sails, and as he did so he yelled to the crew. "Keep your heads down! She's going to fire a gun at us."

  Every head went down immediately. There was no way of knowing what was loaded into the pirate's cannon. It could be a ball aimed at the Swifts hull at the waterline, or it could be an exploding ball lobbed onto the deck to cause a fire, or it could be chains to rip out the Swift's rigging, or it could be grape to kill the crew.

  At the mention of a gun, four of the crew ran forward. The Swift also had a bowchaser cannon but that was not the gun they ran towards. They had heard the order to put the Swift hard to port, north, if the pirate fired, so they were running towards the foremost starboard gun. Once the Swift had changed course, that would be the gun that would first come to bear on pirate.

  It was but a six pounder, and a converted army field gun at that, so its ball was too light to do too much damage to the thick planking on the bow of a ship. It had too small a bore to launch chain, so they had no choice but to load it with grape shot and aim it at any men near the steering helm. Loading it was as easy as ramming a pre-measured sack of powder down the muzzle followed by a canister of grape, so before there was any change of course, they were heaving the gun up to the open hatch in the gunnels so they could run the muzzle out and aim it.

  "Riggers, forget the sails. Load another gun,” Robert cried out, followed by. "Run out those oars men. When you feel the change in course, row like your life depended on it." Which, or course, it did. Then it happened. There was a puff of gunsmoke from the bow of the pirate, which was now less than five hundred yards away.

  "Smoke!" he yelled and yelled again. Everyone ducked and held onto something while the Swift went hard over and the masts groaned, and the rigging screamed, and the sails heaved to their new angle to the wind. But something was wrong. Robert popped his head up to again look at the other ship. They should have heard the boom of the cannon by now. Instead there was a second cloud of smoke. Did they have two bowchasers. Surely not. Not on a ship smaller than the Swift.

  Then came the boom of the second smoke. Or was it the first. What was going on. And then a fountain of water erupted in the sea just ahead of the Swift. Something was not as it seemed. "Stand down from the guns!" he yelled to the gunners, both those readying to fire, and those loading the second starboard six pounder. "Stand down I say." He wanted to yell "don't fire", but saying the word fire could cause a deadly confusion. The gunners were looking at him so he repeated. "Stand down from the guns." They waved an acknowledgement. Next he yelled at Daniel to turn the Swift into the wind.

  After the evasive turn, the Swift was pointing north and had the wind behind her, so Daniel turned her first back to her original easterly course, and then south so the bow was into the wind. The Swift drifted to a stop to the west of the pirate, who had also turned into the wind. Both ships were now parallel as if to shoot broadsides at each other, but neither had enough speed to give them rudder control.

  "What have ya done to us, Rob?" Daniel asked in chagrin. "The pirate'll board us. Men will die. We may all die."

  "She's no pirate,” Robert replied. "Count her crew. She's got fewer than us. If she were a pirate she would be brimming with armed men. Besides, her shot was meant to cross our bow, not hit us."

  "Well it wound'na come close if you hadn't yelled 'smoke' too soon."

  "But there was smoke."

  "An old trick,” grumbled Daniel. "They flashed some powder in a bucket, they did, as if they'd fired the gun. Then they waited until we committed to a turn before they fired for real. You'd better go and calm the gunners, else they'll be lettin' loose with grape."

  Daniel was right, of course, so Robert grabbed the hailing trumpet and made his way forward. Words from the other ship floated towards him. "Are you English?" He put the trumpet to his mouth and replied. "We are the Swift Daniel out of Bridgwater, Somerset. Who are you?"

  "Sorry about the shot. Ve thought ve vere being chased by pirates. Ve are the Tempest out of Bermuda."

  "We were following you in hopes of finding Bermuda,” Robert called out, wondering if he had heard a faint Dutch accent. "We didn't like the look of that big effing cloud." With the crisis obviously over, the crews of both ships were lining up along the gunnels of each ship to stare at each other.

  "Then I suggest sir, that ve can continue this discussion over genever served on dry land. Ve are but thirty miles from Bermuda and if ve leave now ve can be there before the tail of the Hurakan goddess lashes out at us."

  "We will follow you,” Robert replied, but then curiosity got the bett
er of him. "What happened to your masts? Why don't you have any?"

  "Instead, ask vy you still have masts." came the reply, but the hailing was cut short for both captains needed to give the orders to get underway again. Both ships had oars run out, so this was just a matter of turning the ships with the oars until the sails caught the wind. Once the sails were full, and the ships under rudder, the oars were shipped, and a race began between the two ships. And what a race it was, for both ships were light and fast and agile.

  * * * * *

  Bermuda was a coco palm paradise. Even more so to the eyes of the crew after over a week in open sea and after the threat of the goddess of storms and the fear of pirates and ghost ships. The island was a tiny storm hole in the vastness of the Atlantic ... so tiny that most ships sailed passed it without finding it. The Swift was not the only ship who had made for this haven on seeing the size of the storm over the horizon. There was a navy frigate in port, and two trading fluyts, all of which had tall masts and square rigs.

  Since the Swift had left Morocco where triangular sails and lateen rigs were the rule, Daniel had not seen any other ship where the main sails were triangular. Now there were two, the Swift and the Tempest, anchored side by side in St. George's Harbour, which was Bermuda's best storm hole for it was at the north east end of the islands. The Swift was a galliot or half-galley, and the Tempest was like a small xebec that had lost her masts.

  No sooner were both ships resting at anchor than Robert and Daniel rowed the dinghy over to speak to the master of the strange Tempest. They were welcomed aboard by a man who turned out to be a wealth of information about rigging because he was a shipwright by trade. His name was Jacob Jacobsen late of Rotterdam and he ran a shipyard here in Bermuda that specialized in re-rigging ships so that they could sail closer to the wind, which was important on an island so far from anywhere.

  "I built the Tempest here in Bermuda for Captain Tom Chaddock, the governor. The design is based on a Frisian ship that I skippered as a coastal trader out of Rotterdam,” Jacob told him. "In Frisia this type of mastless rig is called a shapebout, however in English the name is far less glorious than she deserves."

  It took Daniel a moment to bring forward his Frisian from the back of his mind for he had been speaking nothing but English since they had left San Agustin in the Floridas. "Shapebout .... leg-of-mutton?" He laughed aloud and Jacob joined him. "Well it does sort of look like a rack of lambs ribs."

  "Ya, vell, I don't mind so much the name,” Jacob said once he could stop laughing and catch his breath. "The Governor is well pleased with it. With two lateens it sails fast and close to the wind, and it tacks quickly and with little effort so the crew is small. It is the perfect design for Bermuda."

  "Of course,” Daniel quieted his laughter, "since it can sail at any angle to the wind you can always make it back to Bermuda if the weather turns against you."

  "Aye, but even your Swift can do that. It is perfect for Bermuda because there are no masts, which solves the biggest problem of building ships here."

  "Which is?"

  "On this island there is cedar for planking and beams, and pole-pines for spars and yards, but not a single tree tall and straight and thick enough to use as a mast. Besides, without the masts the ship is much lighter and does not roll so much, so better, ja? The only problem is that with no mast you cannot rig a boom for loading and unloading heavy cargo. Bah, who cares. Because of this ship, the governor is my friend and my business in Bermuda is good."

  "But I see no others like her in port."

  "Ya, vell, my business is mostly in refitting existing boats. These narrow minded Bermudans refuse to let me remove their masts, so my usual work is converting small single masted square-riggers into for-and-aft rigs. That is one of mine there,” he pointed at a small ship rushing by with two triangular sails, one in front and another behind the single mast. "You see. It has two big triangle sails but only one mast. Good ja?"

  "They have only three men aboard,” Robert said in awe. "and yet it has so much sail, and like you say, all of it held up by one mast."

  "Because one sail is for and one aft, they can share the mast. Each of the top corners of the sails is hoisted by a halyard that runs through a block on top of the mast, so you can raise either or both sails without needing to climb the mast.

  Do you see the taught line running from the bowsprit to the top of the mast. The fore sail has loops and is hoisted up that line. Two of the three corners of the sail are therefore fixed, so all the trimming and tacking is done by changing the position of the third corner. Simple ja?"

  Daniel didn't make a sound. He was concentrating on the grace and ease and speed of the boat they were all watching.

  "The mainsail trailing the mast has its leading side attached to hoops that run up and down the mast. Its bottom side is attached to a boom to keep it stretched out and weighted down. The beauty of a sail that pushes against a mast is that it tacks itself. I call it my Bermudan rig, you know, having two triangle sails sharing a single mast. If ever I find a wealthy backer, I will move back to Rotterdam and make my fortune from this design."

  The Bermudan rigged boat they had been watching was now tacking, and as Daniel stared at the ease in which it did so, it came to him that he was seeing the future of small ships. "That was so effortless, despite having but three crew. Unbelievable. Up until know I thought the Swift was a wonder when compared to other ships, that is, so long as you don't need to make an emergency tack." At this point he told Jacob the story of how close they had come to drowning the Swift in a giant whirlpool off the point at Pamlico Sound.

  "You were just lucky that your Swift is a Dutch rigged lateen. With a Spanish lateen you would have foundered."

  "So, Jacob, if the Swift were yours, how would you rig her?"

  "You mean if I kept the masts?"

  "Of course."

  "Ja, typical. No skipper ever wants to give up his masts." Jacob stared at the Swift for mere seconds before he announced, "Vell the good thing is that she is already running with triangle sails. That means that the keel is already designed for the sideways force. I would just convert her triangle sails from lateen to Bermuda rigs. Not so difficult.

  On the fore mast I would rig two triangle sails Bermuda style. Your two current sails will do nicely with a snip here and some sewing there. On the rear mast I would rig a new triangle sail trailing the mast, and that would be new found power for the ship. Do you have spare sail duek?"

  "Yes, a full spare sail,” Daniel replied. "What about the lateen yards. Can they be re-used?"

  "Ja, your longest yard can be cut in half and used for the two booms for the two trailing sails. The other yard can be cut into two lengths. The shorter piece would become a topmast to add height to the fore mast, and the longer piece would become a bowsprit to add length to the bow. With the added reach of the topmast and bowsprit, your main sail can be used as the new headsail without much cutting or sewing.

  As for lines, you will need a strong one between the topmast and the bowsprit so you can run the headsail up and down it. Umm, your existing halyards will stay to hoist the trailing sails, but you will need a new one for hoisting the head sail. Two new sheets with blocks to control the two booms, of course, and a few other small lines, not many. Not so difficult, ja?"

  "And would she then tack as easily as the boat we were just watching."

  "Ja, of course. The two trailing sails will tack themselves. The head sail would need its free corner run from one side of the ship to the other. Simple, ja, and without any of the crew needing to climb the masts."

  "So how many crew would I need to tack her?" Robert asked. He had been staying out of this discussion because the Swift was Daniel's ship, so it would be his decision and his coin that would re-rig her.

  Jacob paused to think and then replied, "three or four in a breeze. Double that in a blow."

  "Rather than a dozen, excellent. How close to the wind would she sail?"

  "Closer t
han your lateen rig,” Jacob replied. "Closer still if you got rid of that small forecastle. It catches the wind, you know, and tends to push the bow off course."

  "The forecastle stays. It gives shelter to the bow watch, and a high perch in case someone tries to board us." Daniel was visualizing the changes to the Swift, and he wanted them so badly that he would pay almost any price. "What would it cost me to have the Swift re-rigged like this, and how long would it take?"

  Jacob realized he had made a mistake by telling this man that it would not be difficult. He often made this same mistake. He was so enthusiastic about his design that he over sold it by saying it would be cheap to do, and then he was expected to make the changes cheaply. "With you supplying the lines and the sail cloth, and with your men doing the lifting and climbing and sewing?"

  "For sure."

  "Two days of my time to get the work started, and then five half days to finish. That is assuming that your crew stay useful and sober while in port,” Jacob replied. "As for my price, what have you got to trade?"

  "What is the usual trade in Bermuda?"

  "Salt or rope. The fishing ships of Portugal and Spain pass by here on their way to Newfoundland and they only need four things. A safe port in a storm, fresh water, salt for packing fish, and lines for mending rigging and nets." By the time the bargaining ended, Jacob had promised a week of his time, in return for the last barrel of salt the crew had mined on the Salt Island in the Virgins, and a chart showing the location of the Salt Island.

  Before he committed to the immense job of re-rigging the Swift, however, Daniel wanted a 'hands-on' trial of a Bermuda rigged ship. It was arranged that in the morning they would take Jacob's latest Bermudan conversion out for a sea trial. It was a thirty five foot fishing boat which had been re-rigged in preparation for sailing to the Bahamas to search out sources of salt.