Maritime Trivia

[jbgibson]

I've got a pirate question, of sorts. I know nautical charts were consiered state secrets in some eras. How much disinformation went on? I mean outright publiction of bad data, intended to wreck ships and inhibit access... say, the publicly available version intentionally leaked to pirates and such rifraff, vs. correct ones carefully held, sink it or burn it instead of permitting its capture, etc.

[mckee]

@Talroth... I wasnt critiquing your answer just didn't see it. To slow to post, baby's are distracting. And I am not sure I have a better answer w/o spending a ton of time doing specific research. Tide and current data is generally kept seperate from charts, there might be a note or symbol suggesting that the mariner look at the local Pilot books (where all kinds of local knowledge is usually found). Check out U.S. Chart #1 for modern guidelines.

Regarding state secrets... Oh yes was there ever disinformation. The Spanish published a chart that suggested that the Sea of Cortez connected to San Fransisco Bay! Log books, pilot books, and charts that officers had drawn were well guarded, and I imagine would have been destroyed (at least in the case of military or corporate info) rather than let it fall to the competition. That said were are drifting out of my area of expertise.

[Korash]

I was thinking of middle ages to the era of the Caribbean pirates. That is a bit of a wide range, but not too sure just where to peg these pirates yet......I do know they are led by an Orc and have some non human like races as captains so say "rough" would be best....

[mckee]

Rough...

I've read several accounts written by officers in the past (most of my reading falls in the 17-19 century stuff) of officers beating the *&^% out of crew members. I remember a passage in one book by a U.S. capt in the late 1700 or early 1800s who said something along the lines of... "and I only had to beat the entire crew bloody with a hand spike once, and then they were a good lot"

It was a very rough profession.

[Korash]

I always thought that the captains of that time and earlier often ruled by fear ("...but by God he was fair") in order to not be mutinied.....

And i just noticed the you still have the Grey Pip of the Unknown......Hold on and I will fix that for you..... *BONK*