OSR: Pirates of the Merabaha: the Magnificent

This post is mostly naval trivia for the benefit of my players. In my piratical wavecrawl game, the PCs are currently sailing a Bermuda-style sloop.

Shipmodell.com. Lots of images of the same (beautiful!) kit.

Source unknown.

The Magnificent is a 55' single-mast sloop, originally of Tarraconese manufacture. She has a narrow hull, just over 16' at the widest point and a relatively thin keel for her class. When first built she probably carried 12 6lb cannons in two broadsides, but Captain Beatrix had her refitted to carry 4 "long-nines" facing close to dead ahead. The added weight at the prow required adjusting cargo distribution in the hold, but the Magnificent's well-drilled gun crews can lay shot after shot into the stern of a merchant ship without taking return fire.

Originally painted black (though faded to grey), the Magnificent was repainted in blue and white before her long voyage to Chult. Captain Beatrix also used her experience as a carpenter to widen the central cargo hatch and remove unnecessary walls from the lower deck. The lower deck is essentially one giant hold. The crew sleep in the spaces between cargo and stores during inclement weather or on deck on warm evenings. At the stern, the Captain's cabin (a very modest room with a folding bed and a few locked chests) sits just above the ship's armory and "locking closet", a very small room which serves as brig, private room for the quartermaster, or surgery.

In coastal waters the Magnificent could carry up to sixty pirates, but on long ocean journeys the crew is merely thirty. On paper, the ship keeps three "watches" of nine sailors, but in practice sailing arrangements are set by infighting, argument, bribes, and a great deal of shouting by the quartermaster.

The crew of the Magnificent is very mixed: naval deserters from Wexland, assorted scum from the Isla de Caracol, kidnapped fishermen, and Chultan recruits entirely new to the sea. The crew is mixed; approximately 60% men, 40% women, and extremely permissive even by the standards of most pirate ships. As Captain Beatrix put it, "I don't give a damn what they do as long as they sail well and don't drink while the sun is up."

Melbourne Smith

In a fair fight, the Magnificent is outclassed by ships of her own size, let alone larger ships with more guns and more robust rigging. Her speed is a major advantage. She can run rings around a frigate or use her shallow draft to dart up a river or around an island.

The crew have also developed an ingenious (possibly supernatural!) method of disguising the ship's profile using false sails and spare rigging, making the single-masted ship resemble a two-masted (and less nimble) square-rigged merchantman from a distance. By the time she's closed with her prey and raised the red flag of piracy it's often too late.

Final Notes
The Magnificent is significantly smaller than pirate ships in the movies, but she's fairly realistic. The only major deviation - two pairs of prow-chasers rather than sensible broadsides - is an eccentric choice, but hardly an unprecedented one.

Richard G.'s got a post on what his players are up to in their "counter-colonial heistcrawl". My game hasn't quite hit the empire-building/empire-breaking stage yet, but I'm sure it will get there.