The famous galleon the Golden Hind was captained by Sir Francis Drake during his circumnavigation of the world from 1577 to 1580. The Golden Hind was reportedly “barely 100 feet long (30m-long), weighing 120 tons*”. Drake was reportedly knighted by Queen Elizabeth I after completing the circumnavigation**.
The Golden Hind replica*
According to Copilot, the Golden Hind was equipped with 22 guns***.
* Although the Golden Hind was reportedly “weighing 120 tons", Ed Fox says that "the Golden Hind didn't 'weigh' 120 tons. It had, according to some sources, dimensions capable theoretically of containing 120 tuns (casks of a particular size). The lowest contemporary estimate of her size was 80 tons, the largest 400, but most agreeing on 100-120 tons. With the exception of the 400 ton outlier, the discrepancy between estimates of her size is not a problem as there were different ways of measuring."
** Although Drake was reportedly knighted by Queen Elizabeth I after completing the circumnavigation, Ed Fox says that "Drake was knighted by the French ambassador, not Elizabeth."
*** Although Copilot says that the Golden Hind was equipped with 22 guns, Ed Fox says that "The Golden Hind is recorded in primary sources as having 18 guns". I have since discovered that I had previously written "It seems that Sir Francis Drake's Golden Hind carried a main armament of 18 cannon." (More on this later.)
According to https://goldenhind.co.uk/sea-battles.html , “When the English navy and the Spanish navy fought battles at sea the Admirals of each navy wanted to fight the battle a different way. The English navy had smaller, faster ships, and could fire their cannons much faster than the Spanish. This was because their cannons were mounted on a kind of carriage called a truck carriage, which took up less room than the Spanish cannons on field carriages.
“The Spanish navy had bigger ships which carried more soldiers than the English ships, but less powerful cannons. This meant that in a battle the English wanted to keep a long way from the Spanish and use their cannons to sink an enemy ship, while the Spanish wanted to get close to enemy ships and board them. To board a ship means to send soldiers onto an enemy ship to try to capture it. Because the English ships were faster and had better cannons they could avoid getting close enough for the Spanish to board them, but still shoot the Spanish with their cannons.”
That web page features this diagram to illustrate the above details: -
“A truck carriage with a 24lb cannon and a field carriage with a 18lb cannon.”
Drawing by Ed Fox
(Source: https://goldenhind.co.uk/sea-battles.html )
The web page at https://goldenhind.co.uk/group-: visits.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawGyEs9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHTaG5avAjzarDDFIjH_qG6Ednlb57nql91dDN1e6spx28bH6WbW5KPGe8w_aem_4n3xHz3mziphlWYZwXnUEw ) features this photo of a cannon: -
* (According to Wikipedia, "a full-size reconstruction of the ship, was built by traditional methods in Appledore, Devon, and launched in 1973. ..... Since 1996, she has been berthed at St Mary Overie Dock, in Bankside, Southwark, London, where she is open to the public and hosts a range of educational programmes.")
(I now intend to write another blog on this topic due to comments made by people such as Ed Fox and others on another Facebook post of mine.)
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