Post by Cybermortis on Dec 17, 2012 18:48:49 GMT
This was an over-posted 'myth' on Discovery from the third Pirates of the Caribbean film. I did more than a little homework on this a while back, with an eye towards seeing if this could be tested in any way on the show.
The following is a digest version of what I posted back then, and comes from memory and the few notes I'd made that have survived.
In the film the hero's are trapped in Davy Jones's locker, with no waves or wind the ship the Black Pearl is stuck. Thinking quickly they cut the guns and cargo loose, and have the crew run from one side of the ship to the other to flip it over and escape.
The Black Pearl;
(Note; It appears that the top masts have been stick down in this picture, as when sailing there are two sails on the foremast but only a single yardarm is visible in this picture).
The Black Pearl is a 32 gun former East India Company Trading ship, armed with 12 pound cannons.
The size of the ship in the films isn't clear, or for that matter consistent - in the third film she seems the same size as a British ship of the line, which is absurd as the largest Merchant ships around almost a century later were only the size of frigates.
I was, however, able to find two things to help me out here. First was the information that the Black Pearl seen in the second film onwards is a 'real' ship - as you may have guessed from the picture - which was built on top of a barge called the Sunset.
The second was blue prints for the Pearl showing the Sunset - so while I wasn't able to read the scale on the image I was able to use the known size of the Sunset (109 ft long) to estimate the size of the Pearl.
The figures I got indicated a ship 137.8 ft long, 36.3 ft high and 32.6 ft wide amidships narrowing to 14.5 ft at the stern. Draft would be some 15 ft, with a displacement (assuming a block coefficent of 0.5) of some 963 tons*.
(*This is a rough estimate, the real displacement could be anything from 800-1000 tons, but I think 900 is a fairly realistic figure)
These figures are in fact fairly reasonable for the type of ship she is meant to be and the date** - the East India Company was one of the few companies that used ships of this size. Indeed in terms of size and displacement she is not that far off a 36 gun Frigate from the latter part of the 1700's - the Pearl is taller, and certainly has a bulkier quarterdeck and forecastle than Frigates of the later period, which would account for the similar size and weight even though she has fewer and smaller guns than the later frigates.
(**That is an East Indiaman. She is NOT reasonable for a Pirate ship of the period either in her size or 'design'. Pirates would normally have cut the quarterdeck and forecastle down to improve their sailing qualities. There were also only about three or four Pirate ships with 24 for more guns. In part because Pirates used captured ships, which where smaller types, as well as pirate bands being limited in size. The largest pirate groups were 120 men or less in size, above this they fragmented into smaller groups as one individual*** could not maintain authority over larger groups.)
(***This would be the ships Master, NOT the Captain. The Master was elected by the crew, and had the ultimate authority in the day to day running of the ship. The Captain only had authority when an enemy or prize was in sight. It was very rare for the positions to be held by the same individual.)
Knowing the size of the ship allows us to see if a scale model of the Pearl would be practical, both in terms of building it and also in terms of transporting and testing such a model.
Using the above figures a model 6% the size of the real ship would be 8.3 ft x 2.2 x 0.9 ft - smaller in fact than the boat they used for the underwater boat walk they tested in one of the Pirate specials. (The size of the masts is not a factor, as they were designed so the top and top gallant masts could be removed).
Such a model would be large enough to allow them to simulate the movement of the crew, cargo**** and guns by using an air-pump to move weights over the weatherdeck while the cargo and guns are allowed to move freely on rails.
(****On a REAL pirate ship cargo was carried down in the hold, not as is seen in the film on the gundecks. Pirates picked up several ideas from the Royal Navy - most likely because some of them would have served on warships - one of which was to keep the gundeck as clear as possible so nothing would get in the way of working the guns in action.)
The masts would have to be in place, and secured as closely to the 'real' ship as possible both in terms of the way the rigging was set up and in the relative strength of the rope being used. This is because one very common result of a badly rolling ship was for the top and topgallant masts to break their supporting ropes and either fall into the sea or worse onto the deck. (It would be rather hard to run across the deck after several tons of mast have fallen on top of you.)
This should ideally be tested in an indoor swimming pool, as this would duplicate the conditions in the film - that is no waves or wind. Testing outdoors would be problematical because eliminating wind and wave action would be impossible short of enclosing the entire area. Given the approximate size of the model an indoor pool should not pose any significant problems in regards getting the model inside...as long as they don't have to move it around sharp corners.
The following is a digest version of what I posted back then, and comes from memory and the few notes I'd made that have survived.
In the film the hero's are trapped in Davy Jones's locker, with no waves or wind the ship the Black Pearl is stuck. Thinking quickly they cut the guns and cargo loose, and have the crew run from one side of the ship to the other to flip it over and escape.
The Black Pearl;
(Note; It appears that the top masts have been stick down in this picture, as when sailing there are two sails on the foremast but only a single yardarm is visible in this picture).
The Black Pearl is a 32 gun former East India Company Trading ship, armed with 12 pound cannons.
The size of the ship in the films isn't clear, or for that matter consistent - in the third film she seems the same size as a British ship of the line, which is absurd as the largest Merchant ships around almost a century later were only the size of frigates.
I was, however, able to find two things to help me out here. First was the information that the Black Pearl seen in the second film onwards is a 'real' ship - as you may have guessed from the picture - which was built on top of a barge called the Sunset.
The second was blue prints for the Pearl showing the Sunset - so while I wasn't able to read the scale on the image I was able to use the known size of the Sunset (109 ft long) to estimate the size of the Pearl.
The figures I got indicated a ship 137.8 ft long, 36.3 ft high and 32.6 ft wide amidships narrowing to 14.5 ft at the stern. Draft would be some 15 ft, with a displacement (assuming a block coefficent of 0.5) of some 963 tons*.
(*This is a rough estimate, the real displacement could be anything from 800-1000 tons, but I think 900 is a fairly realistic figure)
These figures are in fact fairly reasonable for the type of ship she is meant to be and the date** - the East India Company was one of the few companies that used ships of this size. Indeed in terms of size and displacement she is not that far off a 36 gun Frigate from the latter part of the 1700's - the Pearl is taller, and certainly has a bulkier quarterdeck and forecastle than Frigates of the later period, which would account for the similar size and weight even though she has fewer and smaller guns than the later frigates.
(**That is an East Indiaman. She is NOT reasonable for a Pirate ship of the period either in her size or 'design'. Pirates would normally have cut the quarterdeck and forecastle down to improve their sailing qualities. There were also only about three or four Pirate ships with 24 for more guns. In part because Pirates used captured ships, which where smaller types, as well as pirate bands being limited in size. The largest pirate groups were 120 men or less in size, above this they fragmented into smaller groups as one individual*** could not maintain authority over larger groups.)
(***This would be the ships Master, NOT the Captain. The Master was elected by the crew, and had the ultimate authority in the day to day running of the ship. The Captain only had authority when an enemy or prize was in sight. It was very rare for the positions to be held by the same individual.)
Knowing the size of the ship allows us to see if a scale model of the Pearl would be practical, both in terms of building it and also in terms of transporting and testing such a model.
Using the above figures a model 6% the size of the real ship would be 8.3 ft x 2.2 x 0.9 ft - smaller in fact than the boat they used for the underwater boat walk they tested in one of the Pirate specials. (The size of the masts is not a factor, as they were designed so the top and top gallant masts could be removed).
Such a model would be large enough to allow them to simulate the movement of the crew, cargo**** and guns by using an air-pump to move weights over the weatherdeck while the cargo and guns are allowed to move freely on rails.
(****On a REAL pirate ship cargo was carried down in the hold, not as is seen in the film on the gundecks. Pirates picked up several ideas from the Royal Navy - most likely because some of them would have served on warships - one of which was to keep the gundeck as clear as possible so nothing would get in the way of working the guns in action.)
The masts would have to be in place, and secured as closely to the 'real' ship as possible both in terms of the way the rigging was set up and in the relative strength of the rope being used. This is because one very common result of a badly rolling ship was for the top and topgallant masts to break their supporting ropes and either fall into the sea or worse onto the deck. (It would be rather hard to run across the deck after several tons of mast have fallen on top of you.)
This should ideally be tested in an indoor swimming pool, as this would duplicate the conditions in the film - that is no waves or wind. Testing outdoors would be problematical because eliminating wind and wave action would be impossible short of enclosing the entire area. Given the approximate size of the model an indoor pool should not pose any significant problems in regards getting the model inside...as long as they don't have to move it around sharp corners.
