Some swabs ask me what was the biggest surprise I had upon embarking on my Privateer career. Well as soon as I stood upon the weather deck I took note of how godawful complicated a sailing vessel is. Sails, masts, yard arms, all that rigging, then all the jiggery pokery on deck and below! The reason that so many who call the sea home become "mad" is that most of their brains are filled with the data required to make a machine of such mind manggling complexiy move in any given direction.
This is why, in my own mind, piracy is so silly. To be a good pirate you need to act upon your prey with speed and violence. Big ships are slow and capable of great violence in that they can mount more and heavier guns and you can cram more souls aboard them. Small vessels are fast and manuverable and you don't need so many damnable crewmen who all want their cut, but these ships are not well armed and a good deal of bluster and repuation is needed. The cost to outfit one of these ships, big or small, is also high. People that think they can get rich by piracy better have a pretty good angle or they are just stupid and doomed.
I opt for a mid sized vessel. If a first rate ship showed up un crewed all I would do with it is sell it. Too damn big, slow, and needing way to many men for my purposes. The Sloop, for me, is too small. I do not like the sea in my vessel, sloops founder easily in storms. Also one cannot arm them with what would be needed to take a port. So I have my ship of 32 guns. Not too big and not too small.
She was built in England, saw service for a while under an English flag. Then was taken off the island of Salgem Grande by me. It was dumb luck to take her. Yet here I sit in her great cabin. As for crewing a ship such as this there is much to lament. A hundred men are too little and 250, though proper, is too many creedy hands.
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