Black Sails - Netflix Series

Black Sails First Trailer
IGN

We started watching this series the other night. It looks promising. We've got some familiar names like Silver and Flint, convincing looking sailing ships (they might even be real), bloody piratical violence, horny women, and shabby looking pirate towns. Flint is obsessed with a Spanish treasure galleon that should be enroute to Spain, but where is it? Supposedly there is a schedule with a list of dates and locations, but how accurate / useful could such a schedule be? I mean, they are sailing ships, they are totally at the mercy of wind and weather. It isn't unusual to be becalmed for days or even weeks in the doldrums. But hey, somebody wrote the schedule down and somebody hid it and somebody else found it and Flint would move heaven and earth to find it if that would help. It won't. I expect it will fall into his lap any - minute - now.

Desolation Island by Patrick O'Brian

I finished re-reading Desolation Island by Patrick O'Brian. During an ill-fated cruise to Australia, Jack runs afoul of a Dutch man-of-war, much larger than he is, who sets after him. Discretion being the better part of valor, Jack flees south into an Antarctic storm. Think The Perfect Storm and you have a pretty good idea of the conditions. When a lucky shot of Jack's takes out the Dutchman's foremast, the Dutch ship slews sideways, is capsized by a giant wave and is lost. Boom. Just like that.

I'm thinking that is a hell of an event. Something like that would be a capital subject for a painting, so I go looking for one. 

Loss of HMS Blenheim and HMS Java in a hurricane - Thomas Buttersworth

I didn't find much. Two large British warships, the HMS Blenheim and the HMS Java were lost in a hurricane in the Southern Indian Ocean in 1807. This is closest event I could find to the fictional one in the book. It takes place in the same part of the world, the two ships are of similar size to the ones in the story, and a hurricane sounds similar to the conditions our heroes encounter.

We have one painting of the event (above), but I don't think it portrays the situation very well. I suspect that not many first class painters experienced a hurricane on board a ship.

This scene from Black Sails does a better job.

into the storm | Black Sails 3.01-3.02 storm tribute
alameli
After surviving the storm and an encounter with an iceberg, our heroes wind up on Desolation Island where they rest, recover and repair their ship.

Dutch whalers near Spitsbergen - Abraham_Storck, 1690

An American whaler stops by and lends them some assistance. Though this painting is of a place on the other side of the world, I think it gives us a good picture of the situation. Except for the whale. There is no whale in the harbor at Desolation Island.

Treasure

Lightbox Diamond Factory, Gresham, Oregon

At lunch today, Iowa man tells us he has discovered a diamond factory in Gresham, just east of Portland. There is a story in Oregon Live from a few years ago. Who'd a thunk it? (Previous posts about Diamonds.)

I mentioned this video I came across recently. Jack thinks the Federal Reserve Bank in New York's gold bullion hoard is worth more. Let's see:

Gold on hand	6,331	tons
times	2,000	pounds per ton
times	12	ounces per pound
times	2,600	dollars per ounce
equals	395,054,400,000	dollars

Jack is right, 400 billion is more than 10 billion. Of course this depends on the Federal Reserve telling us the truth about how much gold they have and I am not sure I trust them any more than I trust the Federal Government.

In the Netflix series Black Sails, the pirates recover many tons of gold from a wrecked Spanish treasure ship. Gold is heavy, so they convert a portion of it to gemstones which evidently have a higher value to density ration. This seems to like a risky proposition to me. Gold can easily be measured, gemstones need an appraiser both when you buy them and again when you sell them, which means you are at their mercy, that is, if you can even find one. A couple of pounds of gemstones could be worth as much as a ton of gold, so if portability is an issue, then the risk entailed might be worth it. Gemstones have no particular attraction for me. Oh, they are pretty enough, but not they are not pretty enough that I am going to spend a pile of loot to acquire one just so I can look at it. If one did fall into my hands I would probably hang onto it because it is more likely to hold onto its value than anything else. Some people like to have them so they can show them off. I am not one of those people. My wife has to remind me to shave when we are going out.

Jack's sister recently sold a pile of silver coins she inherited from her father. A lump of silver the size of a pack of cigarettes is worth about $1,400. The coin man used the ping test on her coins.

Ping Test for Silver Coins & Bars
SilverCoins.com

Ping test is a good thing to have in your pocket if you are dealing in silver. There are any number of videos talking about the ping test and they are a real grab bag. First problem is that the ping test is not definitive. The second is it can be very hard to tell the difference between a real coin and a fake, especially if you don't have anything to compare it to. Third is that some real coins will fail the test. I picked this one because it's not too long and he just balances the coins on his finger.

Update the next day: changed ounces per pound from 16 to 12 per Stu's comment.

Gossip

In Black Sails, season 1, episode 2, pirate Captain Flint pays a visit to Richard Guthrie, the pirate's fence and face to the legitimate business world. Royal Navy Captain Hume shows up unannounced and we have this bit of dialog:

Servant: Captain Hume of His Majesty's Ship the Scarborough.

Richard: Captain Hume. You've caught me at business. I must ask you to return another day.

Hume: My apologies, Mr. Guthrie. May I ask what sort of business? 

Richard: I'm sorry?

Hume: I asked what sort of business you're conducting with these men.

Richard: Sugar merchants from the colonies with business I'd just as soon conclude without interruption. So please, if you'll excuse us.

Hume: Tell me something, Mr. Guthrie. Do you have gossip here?

Richard: Gossip?

Hume: I've often wondered if it can survive in so remote a location. You see, gossip is what holds civilization together. It reinforces shame. And without shame, well, the world is a very dangerous place.

Don't think I've ever heard gossip described in a positive light. People do thrive on it, some more than others. If you are running a political campaign you need to take it into account. Probably why I'm not out on the campaign trail. I avoid gossip so I expect most people find me anti-social, and they're right.

Oh yeah, the scene? It turns into a melee when Hume attempts to arrest Richard.

P. S. I started looking for this scene on Netflix, but then I wondered if maybe a transcript was available and there is. Shoot, there are mutiple websites that have transcripts for shows. I'll be durned.