Frank's LEGO® Pirate Links Page
See my LEGO® Pirate Ships page for information on pirate ships.
See my LEGO® Pirate Gaming page for gaming links and discussion.
See my Pirate Gaming at Brickfest 2000 page for a report on the Pirate Game I ran at Brickfest 2000.
See my LEGO® Pirate Creations page for my own creations.
There are so many pirate sites out there, it is sometimes hard to know where to start. Here are some of the most impressive sites:
knot: (a) A division of the log line, serving to measure the rate of the vessel's motion. Each knot on the line bears the same proportion to a mile that thirty seconds do to an hour. The number of knots which run off from the reel in half a minute, therefore, shows the number of miles the vessel sails in an hour. Hence: (b) A nautical mile, or 6080.27 feet; as, when a ship goes eight miles an hour, her speed is said to be eight knots.
Ok, I found a nice little web page which describes how the confusion came about, it even details why I thought I remembered something about the command given to the Titanic helmsman was incorrect (though it doesn't explicitly mention that, it does mention one of the references that I might have heard this from). Anywise, what it comes down to is that when you have a tiller, you need to turn the tiller opposite the direction you want the boat to go. When you have a whipstaff or wheel, you turn the whipstaff or wheel in the direction you want to go. However, the command given to turn the rudder was historically always given in reference to a tiller, so you turn a whipstaff or wheel opposite the command.
Here's the reference: http://users.senet.com.au/~gittins/wheel.html
Incidentally, looking through several books on ships I have, every illustration, which shows enough of the steering gear to figure out which way you turn it to turn the rudder, shows that you turn a whipstaff or wheel in the direction you want the ship to go.
Here's an excerpt from
http://broadside.napoleonicwars.com/broadside8.html:
If the ships boys were caught up to trouble they might be made to' kiss the gunners daughter.' They were bent over a cannon and caned on the backside. The gunner was the officer in charge of the boys welfare.
Here's some interesting information about my collection (hey - we all need to brag some times):
284 striped shirt pirates 86 blue shirt/red stripes pirates 51 black pirate captains 33 red pirate captains 7 6277/6286 unique torso pirates 77 green vest pirates 17 pirate babes 124 blue vest/tan shirt pirates (most thanks to 1747) 17 brown vest pirates --- 696 15 red admirals 28 red officers 33 red soldiers 18 red torsos (may not have hats an epaulettes for all) --- 94 10 blue admirals (who said the red admiral was so rare?) 43 blue officers 59 blue soldiers 19 blue torsos (same deal as the red ones) --- 131 12 green armada 17 red striped armada 9 red pendant armada --- 38 67 islander kings 22 islander babes 80 islander warriors --- 169
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Page last updated November 2, 1999
