OKAY iâm taking that as a yes
iâm only gonna talk a little bit about sailing inaccuracies - theyâre all p much Plot Lampshade things that sum up to âit is impossible to sail a ship of any size with a crew of twoâ
this is most painfully obvious in the whole sequence with jack & will commandeer the dauntless & then the interceptor. there are literally just two of them. thatâs nowhere CLOSE to enough people to weigh anchor on the dauntless (heavy bower anchors weigh AT LEAST 1500 lbs, probably more on a first-rate ship, and you donât get THAT much mechanical advantage on a capstan or windlass). typically weighing anchor is a whole crew activity because in addition to anchors being so fucking heavy, thereâs also a whole bunch of side jobs besides manning the windlass/capstan that are all crucial to the anchor coming up successfully. i suppose they couldâve cut loose the anchor since the dauntless was only a steppingstone to their true goal, the interceptor, but even so, even shaking out the sails (going aloft and untying them) would be impossible with just jack and will (the greenest hand it is possible to be)
once they get onto the interceptor, jack of course says ânow me? i can let you die! but i canât take this ship in to tortuga all by me onesies.â heâs right about that, but having will there wouldnât help. remember will has literally no sailing experience. he doesnât know a halyard from a sheet. all he can do is stand there and look pretty. even if he were a seasoned tar, a ship the size of the interceptor cannot be crewed by less than eight people. i know this because iâve actually sailed on that ship. when you rebrace the sails (change their angle), you need to brace all the yards on one mast simultaneously (their rigging is intertwined in such a way that you canât do them one at a time). that means: two people hauling and one person slacking on the course (lowest sail), one person hauling and one person slacking on the top (second sail up), one person hauling and one person slacking on the tâgallant (third sail up), and one person at the helm. this is the BARE MINIMUM you need to turn the ship at all, even if only one of those sails is set. so theyâre fucked.
nb: even with the bare minimum they could do some REALLY impressive stuff!! the original lady washington (the ship on which the modern lady washington, which played the interceptor, was based) became the first american ship to round cape horn in south america, and it did it with only 8 crew members!
anyways skip ahead to the chase scene. this is Full Of Yikes. iâm just gonna ignore the Magical Shredded Ghost Sails bc ~magic~ (but remember that in particularly heated chases, crews would pump water aloft and wet the sails so they would catch every single hint of wind, so having big holes is a serious issue). also iâm gonna ignore that elizabeth swann (who is admittedly a pirate groupie but has never sailed a day in her life) is the only one who comes up with ideas on how to outrun the pearl, because it is true that book learning can teach you a lot!
first off, iâm going to talk about the major problems with their overall strategies to accomplish their end goals.
barbossaâs end goal is to
they KNOW that both of those are on the interceptor. they also know that if will turner dies, they lose all hope of breaking their curse forever (presumably, judging by their reactions later). so, under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should they allow him to come to any harm. that means no cannon fire, no small-arms fire, nothing (since they donât know which one is will). they can outrun the interceptor, so all they have to do is catch up, pull alongside, snag her with grappling hooks, and board her. the pirates cannot be killed. they have no reason not to just stroll aboard the interceptor, ignore everyone shooting at them, and grab will & the medallion. what they ACTUALLY do in the movie is: kill people willy-nilly & blow everything up. the only reason they donât lose both will and the medallion is sheer dumb luck (and the skill of jack-the-monkey).
if the pirates had been thinking even a little bit they would have tried to capture the interceptor!! âthe makings of your very own fleet,â as jack says to barbossa later. imagine: the two fastest ships in the caribbean, united under one pirate banner. barbossa wants to take the dauntless? poorly thought out. the dauntless is a first-rate ship of the line. itâs HUGE, itâs ungainly, itâs extremely slow. it throws an impressive broadside weight of metal, but literally every other ship in the caribbean could sail circles around it. much better to snag a small, fast, maneuverable ship like the interceptor
our heroesâ end goal is to
they do not need to confront the pearl!!
they SHOULD NOT confront the pearl
THE PEARL IS FULL OF ANGRY IMMORTAL PIRATES WHO WANT TO KILL YOU WILLIAM
so!! weâre avoiding the pearl. how do we do that?
we chuck everything overboard. this is a very real and commonly used tactic from the age of sail! if youâre being chased by an enemy who massively outguns you and outmans you, you abandon all hope of actually fighting them and run like hell. losing weight overboard makes you ride higher in the water, which reduces hull drag bc less hull is in the water.
first thing you throw is the cannons and shot - not gonna need them if youâre not fighting! cannons are INCREDIBLY heavy - i want to say a good nine-pounder (which i think would be typical for a smaller ship like the interceptor) would be around 1200 lbs (or twelve hundredweight, as they like to say). and thatâs weight thatâs FAR above the waterline, bogging your ship down and making it heel more into the wind. if you get rid of cannons, your shipâs gonna be like 5 tons lighter and will ride much stiffer and straighter too (which is a good thing, because of hydrodynamic reasons i donât fully understand)
then you throw your water and supplies - yes theyâre important, but once you escape you can stop at any nearby island and resupply. food and water donât do you any good if youâre dead.
then you THROW THE GODDAMN MEDALLION OVERBOARD, WHY DO YOU STILL EVEN HAVE THAT. barbossaâs gonna stop and fish it out because of course he is jesus christ, which gives you so much time to get away!! fuck!!! maybe bottle up a vial of willâs blood and lash it to the medallion so barbossa finds both of them and leaves you alone from now on.
yes, you make for the shoals, like elizabeth suggests. no, you do not clubhaul - that loses you valuable time which you could be using to get the fuck out of there
i said we were gonna throw all the cannons overboard. i lied. sorry. weâre going to keep two stern chasers - smaller cannons that point straight backwards. weâre going to aim them high and try to damage something important in the black pearlâs rigging. if she loses even her jib (one of the small triangular sails wayy out in front), sheâs going to slow down a lot.
then weâre going to find the interceptorâs best point of sail (which is PROBABLY a very broad reach - going nearly straight downwind but a couple of points off, to make sure the mainsails arenât taking the wind out of the foresails) and go on that until nightfall. once itâs night, we try to sneak away - douse all lanterns, change course, maybe try mooncussing (putting out a raft with lanterns on it and letting it drift in another direction in the hopes the enemy will think itâs us) and make for someplace safe
