The Brilliant Engineering of the Pirate Brigantine

⚓ In August 1722 a pirate captain could have taken a ship of 32 guns, and he turned her down. He kept a small two-masted brigantine instead, and off Grand Cayman she got away from a man-of-war, first under sail and then under oars. This is the engineering story of the brigantine, told through two converted traders, the pirate Good Fortune and the Continental Navy's Andrew Doria. Working from Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine (1769), David Steel's rigging manual (1794), Darcy Lever's seamanship (1808) and the shipwright's bill to Congress, we follow one chain of problems: the wind, chafe, a swinging boom, too few hands and fourteen heavy guns. A square fore-mast to run before the wind, a gaff main-sail to hold her up toward it. The brigantine was never the fastest vessel in every wind, but she had the most answers, and her real limit was always the number of men aboard to give them. 🔧 Inside this video: • Why Thomas Anstis refused the Morning Star and stayed in the Good Fortune • One word, two ships: the oared Mediterranean brigantin and the English "brig, or brigantine" • Navy canvas two feet wide, Riga hemp and treenails no thicker than a thumb • Rebuilding the merchant brig Defiance: 401 man-days, 4,521 feet of plank, £296 4s 6d • Six points off the wind for a square-rigger, and the one point the gaff sail won back • Fourteen four-pounders of 1,413 pounds each, and 56 men to fight both broadsides • Ice on the Delaware, smallpox at Nassau and prize crews that drained the brig • The Andrew Doria against the sloop Racehorse in December 1776, and the run home past the blockade Salt & Oak takes one object apart like this every week, built from primary sources and arithmetic. Subscribe if that is your kind of naval history. ⚓ A letter to Congress called her a brigantine, a Philadelphia newspaper a brig. Had you been the clerk writing her name into the ledger, which word would you have chosen? Make your case in the comments and bring your source. #AgeOfSail #NavalHistory #Pirates #MaritimeHistory #ContinentalNavy #AmericanRevolution #SaltAndOak 00:00 The Wreck on Grand Cayman 01:28 Two Traders Armed for War 03:07 One Word, Two Different Ships 04:47 The Gaff Main-Sail 06:15 Canvas, Hemp and Treenails 07:06 Rebuilding the Andrew Doria 09:09 Problem One: The Wind 10:40 Problems Two and Three: Chafe and the Boom 13:09 Problem Four: Too Few Hands 13:51 Problem Five: Fourteen Guns 15:59 Ice, Fever and Prize Crews 18:41 The Pirates Pay Their Price 20:43 Powder at Saint Eustatius 21:53 The Black Brig vs the Racehorse 23:58 Running the Blockade 25:38 Burned on the Delaware 26:51 Brig or Brigantine?