Liner Notes for South Sea Pirates
The liner notes for my story South Sea Pirates, part of my Age of Sail fantasy series.
****
Ever further from home, one of our protagonists has reached the Thousand Islands, this world’s equivalent of Micronesia, Oceania and Polynesia. And rather than hang about and enjoy coconuts and fresh food, John Toris is sent after the Starling, the ship that mutinied back in A Voyage Out East.
Hang about and enjoy coconuts is very unfair. Even in harbour a wooden sailing ship needs constant maintenance as ropes and spars wear out, salt and water insinuate themselves the fabric of the vessel and weed and other living things attach themselves to it. How much more work is required after an eight month voyage across seas, fighting gales in the temperate north and south as well as dealing with tropical storms. Captain Carstairs is somewhat eager to get him on his way; he would be within his rights to protest at being sent to sea quite so precipitously.
The local beer is... probably not beer.
His meditation on how to hunt another ship reflects the real difficulty that sailing ships had in finding one another. If an admiral had sufficient vessels then he could put a line of sloops and frigates in the open ocean ten miles from one another, close enough to signal. Yet a hundred miles is not so large a distance out in the Atlantic and a ship, or even a fleet, might take advantage of poor weather or night to slip by.
Toris’s task, to hunt down one ship with only one of his own, is even more difficult; employing local knowledge is the only possible solution.
A sloop of war, a warship with less than 20 guns, is small for a navy, too small to stand in the line of battle, or even be rated, and so be commanded by a post-captain, like a frigate would. Nevertheless it will be more than a match for most merchants, pirates or privateers. For the poorly charted waters of the Thousand Islands Bridgeford with a shallow draft, will be less likely to run aground on shoals or reefs, being much more suitable than the 74-gun Dulcimer. Indeed that line-of-battle ship seems curiously mis-assigned; there must have been a surprise sighting of a large foreign warship in these waters to have had the Admiralty spring loose such a large vessel for the far side of the world in time of peace.
The islands contain many surprises. Mr Smoke casts doubt on the sea-stories and legends of these waters, but almost immediately they find the island of the trolls and of course the Starling is incapacitated not by gunfire or boarding, but by a curse. Toris is no stranger to such things.
The princess has found herself the ruler of her people, which also makes her priestess and magician, responsible for their spiritual welfare as well as their physical. Perhaps choosing to ally herself with John Toris and His Majesty’s Navy is not her wisest move (history suggests that it would be an ambiguous strategy, conceivably preserving her people, but more likely seeing them subsumed into empire). Yet what are her options? To marry some lout with a few hundred followers, and then see the islands torn apart by civil war anyway? Better to marry a stranger who will depend on her.
John Toris is not free to join her however; his ambitions are to rule the quarterdeck of one of His Majesty’s ships, not a tropical island kingdom.
****
The map. Oh dear. The Thousand Islands seems like a cool name, and a cool place. So many islands, each a possible source of adventure (I had thought to get out here earlier in the series but got distracted along the way). Then, a rough map would be a fine bonus for the stories, illustrating where the characters go.
Unfortunately this is where we reach the limitations of my cartographical skills. It’s okay for showing the relationship between places in the story, but it doesn’t give the flavour of an endless archipelago. Well, perhaps I’ll do better next month.
****
Ever further from home, one of our protagonists has reached the Thousand Islands, this world’s equivalent of Micronesia, Oceania and Polynesia. And rather than hang about and enjoy coconuts and fresh food, John Toris is sent after the Starling, the ship that mutinied back in A Voyage Out East.
Hang about and enjoy coconuts is very unfair. Even in harbour a wooden sailing ship needs constant maintenance as ropes and spars wear out, salt and water insinuate themselves the fabric of the vessel and weed and other living things attach themselves to it. How much more work is required after an eight month voyage across seas, fighting gales in the temperate north and south as well as dealing with tropical storms. Captain Carstairs is somewhat eager to get him on his way; he would be within his rights to protest at being sent to sea quite so precipitously.
The local beer is... probably not beer.
His meditation on how to hunt another ship reflects the real difficulty that sailing ships had in finding one another. If an admiral had sufficient vessels then he could put a line of sloops and frigates in the open ocean ten miles from one another, close enough to signal. Yet a hundred miles is not so large a distance out in the Atlantic and a ship, or even a fleet, might take advantage of poor weather or night to slip by.
Toris’s task, to hunt down one ship with only one of his own, is even more difficult; employing local knowledge is the only possible solution.
A sloop of war, a warship with less than 20 guns, is small for a navy, too small to stand in the line of battle, or even be rated, and so be commanded by a post-captain, like a frigate would. Nevertheless it will be more than a match for most merchants, pirates or privateers. For the poorly charted waters of the Thousand Islands Bridgeford with a shallow draft, will be less likely to run aground on shoals or reefs, being much more suitable than the 74-gun Dulcimer. Indeed that line-of-battle ship seems curiously mis-assigned; there must have been a surprise sighting of a large foreign warship in these waters to have had the Admiralty spring loose such a large vessel for the far side of the world in time of peace.
The islands contain many surprises. Mr Smoke casts doubt on the sea-stories and legends of these waters, but almost immediately they find the island of the trolls and of course the Starling is incapacitated not by gunfire or boarding, but by a curse. Toris is no stranger to such things.
The princess has found herself the ruler of her people, which also makes her priestess and magician, responsible for their spiritual welfare as well as their physical. Perhaps choosing to ally herself with John Toris and His Majesty’s Navy is not her wisest move (history suggests that it would be an ambiguous strategy, conceivably preserving her people, but more likely seeing them subsumed into empire). Yet what are her options? To marry some lout with a few hundred followers, and then see the islands torn apart by civil war anyway? Better to marry a stranger who will depend on her.
John Toris is not free to join her however; his ambitions are to rule the quarterdeck of one of His Majesty’s ships, not a tropical island kingdom.
****
The map. Oh dear. The Thousand Islands seems like a cool name, and a cool place. So many islands, each a possible source of adventure (I had thought to get out here earlier in the series but got distracted along the way). Then, a rough map would be a fine bonus for the stories, illustrating where the characters go.
Unfortunately this is where we reach the limitations of my cartographical skills. It’s okay for showing the relationship between places in the story, but it doesn’t give the flavour of an endless archipelago. Well, perhaps I’ll do better next month.
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