That happened in a lot of movies, but I don’t think it’s correct. The press gangs were only supposed to recruit people with prior seafaring experience. Being a sailor was a skilled profession. Would you know how to splice the mainbrace? A youth could join a ship as an apprentice and learn. An older person would be less welcome, unless they already had a useful skill such as surgeon or carpenter.
There were ranks of landsmen, ordinary seamen, and able seamen depending on experience and skills. Landsmen would have little to no experience at sea and might be someone who was desperate for a job, given the choice of prison or going to sea, or running away from something. There was always need for people whose only skill was pulling on a rope. With time, on-the-job training, and skill one could move up the ranks and get better pay and higher share of prize-money.
The could lower and raise small boats, no? Lower a boat, then lower loot into the boat, row the boat to the other ship, raise the loot, repeat.
I’d also imaging they could jury rig all manner of booms with blocks and tackle off the ship’s spars. How close to each other could 2 sailing ships safely remain in calm seas?
Close enough that the pirates could swarm over into the ship they were attacking.
I did that on my sailing trip, when we were loading it before leaving port.
Rig up two blocks and tackles; one on the end of a yardarm that is over the pier, the other on a cable stay directly over the hatch into the cargo hold. Attach the cargo to both hooks. Haul on the outboard line to lift the cargo straight up; haul on the inboard line just enough to keep it taught. The haul on the inboard line while paying out the outboard line. The load will shift from one line to the other while the cargo moves over the center of the ship. Then pay out the inboard line and lower the cargo straight down into the hold.
It’s impressive what you can do with human power and right tools, and people who know how to rig it all up and keep the crew organized.
Windlass for the anchor; capstan for everything else.
I’m wondering what the value was of the actual ship they captured, as compared with its cargo?
It depends on the ship and the cargo. The Portuguese carrack was famous for being able to carry a cargo of East Indian pepper worth 6 times the cost of the ship, outfitting, provisioning, and payroll combined.
Then again, pepper is an extremely high value-per-weight cargo, and even there, 1/7 of the total isn’t anything to sneeze at.
I imagine that each of the Spanish treasure fleet ships also had multiple amounts of the ship’s value in their hold. Capturing one of those would have been difficult, since the Spanish sent along galleons to protect the treasure fleet. More of them were lost to storms than to pirates.
Right.
Not to mention- ships sailed with insurance. So, if the crew and officers were not to be harmed, then why fight back? Remember pirate ships were not frigates, by and large or even Brigs- they were small sloops, and a merchant ship had guns- a few guns could dismast a raider.
They loaded the cargo just like the merchant ship got in on board, with booms and nets and manpower.
Right.
And the important thing to note is that the Captain only got two shares- every other crewman got one share (Quartermasters, gunners, etc might get 1.5 shares or even 2). So a ship with 100 crew, gets say 100000 pieces of eight. Captain gets 2000, the rest get slightly less than 1000, which is quickly spent on rum, women and fast living. So, other that undersea wrecks, there is no such thing as buried pirate treasure. All these breathless accounts of how that loot would be “worth $10 million in today’s dollars” are bogus- that money was spent, not buringed.
(Yes, I know one Captain did bury a modest sum in the hopes he could barter it to escape the hangman)
It happened once in a while, when the press gang got desperate. But most of the “landsmen” were brought from the 'assizes"- i.e poachers, debtors, and other minor criminals. The Royal Navy, hard as it was, did feed you and prisons of the time were horrible.
Mostly privateers who could have actual warships. The Golden Hind with 22 guns was by no means a ship of the line, but very maneuverable.
That reminds me that a couple of times, I (or my employer) have had to hire professional riggers to move extremely expensive, delicate items on land and it’s amazing what they can do.
ISWYDT
Probably strand/maroon them alive on the nearest shore and let them figure out how to call for a ride home.
I think there is this weird idea that all pirates held to a universal code. You might run across a crew under the influence of a “gentleman pirate” captain who treats his prisoners with dignity and makes promises he intends to keep. But it’s just as likely your ship is boarded by a gang of desperate psychopaths and rapists who will make short work of the crew and passengers before fighting among themselves for the spoils. Honor among pirates was no more reliable than that among other thieves; meaning not at all.
The issue is that piracy is ancient and worldwide, so how they act varies wildly according to place and time. There was no unified code because they were never unified.
There were fleets of pirates that had a “code”; on the other hand there were also fleets of pirates that raided entire coastlines for loot and slaves until they were depopulated.
That said, the “gang of desperate psychopaths and rapists” style of pirate tended to be short-lived. Not that the longer lived pirates were necessarily merciful, but they were typically more rational and professional than that.
There were also a lot of pirates who liked to pretend that they weren’t pirates, usually by virtue of sponsorship from some nation or another. Having some sort of “code” would help for them.
It’s more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules.