???
I believe he did, once. In 1960. For 20 minutes.
Blackbeard - Avast!! I be Blackbeard!!
Drunk Partier 1 - Yeah?!! Well meet Captain Morgan!! [Throws bottle from prominade deck]
Drunk Partier 2 - FAG!!!
Blackbeard - yar…
Actually, the cruise ship would be staggeringly more manouverable than a pirate sloop, since the cruise ship wouldn’t have to worry about beating to windward, making leeway, etc…
Plus, with a maximum speed of what… 20 knots(?) a cruise ship could quite easily outpace a pirate sloop, which probably maxed out somewhere in the 15 knot range with all sails set (topgallant royals, studding-sails, etc…)
I think our pirates would have the best luck if they could creep up and board her unawares. I’m guessing they’d probably have to board across the yards instead of hull-to-hull, but with a largely unarmed crew and unarmed passengers, the combination of cutlasses, boarding pikes, flintlocks and fierce BO would probably carry the day!
I’ve changed my mind, I now think Blackbeard would just run away. Originally I unintentionally thought of how I, with my modern knowledge, go about attacking a modern ship given my ship of early 18th century vintage. This is an incorrect approach. I need to think how someone with the knowledge of an early 18th century mariner would approach an encounter with a vessel that was totally alien to him.
First, a cruise ship isn’t just a little bit bigger, it’s a hundred times bigger than any vessel that existed in Blackbeard’s time. He would probably speculate that a ship that massive would have tremendous armament. It was common in his day for even small merchants to have at least a couple of rail guns mounted, he would have no idea that it is unarmed. Remember that pirate ships weren’t warships, but merchant ships themselves with maybe a few more deck guns added. They would generally avoid well-armed warships if they could because they wouldn’t stand a chance with one.
Second, he wouldn’t want to sink it, just disable it so he could board. To him, that means not firing solid shot at it’s hull, but chain shot into the rigging. But a cruise ship has no sails, and steamships weren’t invented yet in his time. That means it’s mechanism for movement would be completely unknown to him, he would have no idea how to disable it.
Finally, he wouldn’t be able to sneak onboard. Besides the obstacle created by the height of the decks, cruise ships are equipped with radar and they are on the lookout for approaching vessels. After all, there are still pirates today (NGA maintains a database of anti-shipping activity messages online if you want to see reports of piracy over the last 20 years). They would see him coming, there is no way he could surprise it.
I’m with Finagle that this sounds like a typo or something. The boats I worked had a hull thickness of over 25 mm and ore boats have a survival (not necessarily useful) life of well over 50 years.
On the other hand, I will note that in the early 18th century, Blackbeard was not using the fearsome "long 24"s that the USS Constitution used for bow chasers nearly 100 years later. His principle “heavy” ordnance was composed of 6-pounders, and constant improvement throughout the 18th century meant that his 6-pounders were substantially less powerful than the 6-pounders found on ships even during the U.S. War for Independence.
I am not claiming that Blackbeard could not have done more than scratch the paint on a current cruise liner, but I doubt his ability to actually hole the hull or even spring a seam very much.
Interesting. I was deceived because they found a 24 lb cannon shot in the wreckage of the Queen Anne’s Revenge. But apparently, that may have been from target practise from a nearby fort.
With only six lb guns, I think the QAR would just turn and run at the sight of a cruise ship. In fact, I’m not convinced that a full ship of the line could take down a cruise ship if it were under way.
Gavin McLeod would trounce Blackbeard easily.
How about the numbers game? Blackbeard has, what, about 20 men?
I work for Carnival and on Sunday we put 2172 passengers and 890 crew onboard the Elation. And she’s a midsize ship in our fleet. Even the midgets Celebration and Jubilee hold over 2600 counting passengers and crew.
Now, I know they’re not all armed or battle-ready but the passengers could put up some kind of resistance, doncha think? (As for onboard security, all I’ve ever seen them do is check our ID badges.)
Here’s a scary thought: The pirates board, are overcome and end up as a Pirates of Penzance Nightly Review on the Lido deck… :eek:
A typical pirate/privateer would have an unusually large crew both for boarding and for manning prizes. The Queen Anne’s Revenge had a crew of 75 before it was captured. Including the crew of three sloops and the QAR, Blackbeard had about 300 men under his command when the QAR was lost. You definitely wouldn’t want 300 psychopathic pirates roaming around the promenade deck. Keeping the pirates from boarding would be imperative.
Were I ever in the position of defending a cruise ship against invasion by pirates in a wooden vessel, I’m thinking that Molotov cocktails would be the way to go. Stop by the bar, get some bottles of rum, light some fuses, toss over the side, and then the passengers get to watch some fireworks, hopefully from a safe distance.
How many terrorist took over that Italian cruise ship? (Achille Lauro sp?)
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/15/sprj.irq.abbas.arrested
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/7/newsid_2518000/2518697.stm
I would think that once Blackbeard ran away and got his bearings a bit, his goal wouldn’t be to raid the cruise ship for plunder, but to take it over use it as his new ship. Think of how many cannons he could put on that ship! Think of the plunder he could haul! Whether or not he’d be able to sneak aboard and hijack it is another story. Pirates ain’t ninjas, that’s for sure.
Oh, and, “yarr.”
Think of the fuel he’d have to steal! The mileage of a cruise ship is totalled in feet/gallon. You’d have to spend all your time tracking down tankers to plunder. Not to mention that Blackbeard managed to run the Queen Anne’s Revenge aground – I doubt he’d have much luck with something with the draft of the Queen Mary 2.
Very True, although he’d have no way to know that, having been active about a hundred years before the first ships that required fuel of any kind.
Still, something about one of those behemoths bristling with guns and flying the jolly roger makes me giggle.
“Yar, out of the pool, ye scurvy dogs!”
Drachillix and I were on a Carnival cruise for Valentine’s Day and had pirates tried to board, I can imagine everybody getting on their cell phones and calling in the Coast Guard or dialing ship-to-shore for 8.95 a minute or e-mailing their congressman for .75, but only if they had purchased a half hour block of time.
Corona Bottles! Heh. DEATH FROM ABOVE!!! Blackbeards wee vessel would be bombarded with flaming rum soaked TOWEL ANIMALS!! SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIENDS!!! BWAHAHAH!!! Wanna blue margarita with that matey!! Waiter…another bottle of Bacardi 151 here please.
We need some concentrated kinetic energy to do some quick damage [turns to the midnight buffet] 300 pound ICE SCULPTURES!! Over the side and CRUNCH! Thats gonna leave a mark. Not heavy enough for you? Drop a lifeboat on them.
There are plenty of easier, safer, more profitable ways to pirate cruise ship passengers of their money and valuables than brute force. If Blackbeard were around the Caribbean today, he’d have a kiosk shoreside selling crappy T-shirts, trinkets, Cuban cigars, and Genuine Tanzanite Jewelry at 50% of US Mainland Prices!. Be rakin’ it in every day, he would, and no cutting his mates in on any of it.
Just thought you deserved some appreciation for this. Funny, funny stuff.