Lynx - America's Privateer Trailer HD 

Mike Hurricane , I’m with you there Mike. Loved the video and music, I cry too, I sold my Catalina 42 three yrs ago. At 72 now I remember and miss the power under sail and the wonderful anchorages she took me to.

@@alanbrookes6637 Did you have to stop sailing? I'm 64 and own a smaller Pearson 28.2, gonna try to keep sailing until 80 if possible?

Same thing happened to me Mike , I love the sea and the old ships that once sailed her oceans. I think these old ships will be needed again one day that's what my gut tells me

@Mike Hurricane- What an absolutely beautifully written post!! Sums up the internal feelings inside all of us!!

Sailing a “Sunfish” in the Bahamas years ago ...my husband dove into the clear blue water and came up with a conch...He is gone now but that conch shell still stirs the memory of that time...I love the tall ships...wonderful to see how this came up for me this morning...”ancient skills of boatbuilding and new technology coming together...⚓️

Do you have any information about its performance abilities like hull speed?

@@Craigx71 absolutely. I've gotten to go aboard the Lynx during a tallship festival. The experience was awesome. The crew felt the most "authentic" of all the sailors there, simply because they live aboard and work the ship as a full-time job. They follow the weather up and down the Atlantic coast. While other crews were volunteers who were happy to take you on a guided tour and talk at you before hustling you back off, the crew of the Lynx was spending the day relaxing on deck and letting visitors just wander the ship and look around and their leisure. Good guys, all, and happy to answer questions, but it always felt like you were intruding a little bit by being there (as it should) Apparently, the crew is usually drawn from a youth program designed for "rowdy" boys to get some adventuring and discipline drilled into them, so it's good to know that beyond it's public educational role, the 'Lynx' serves a greater purpose. I agree that she is a beautiful little boat, and I would love to see more such ships recreated. Unfortunately, I missed the Hermione the last time she visited us Stateside, as I imagine that her crew is probably equally "salty." It's an enviable life, were I a bit younger and unattached.

Thank you for this very detailed post about the Lynx. I have been reading quite a bit about privateers, more so from the other side of the ocean. The French corsair where privateers who had their letters of marque (Lettre de marque) or (Lettre de commission). They usually sailed cutters (cotres), small, about 10 to 12 metres long, (33 to 40 footers) with one main mast and an aggressive mat de beaupre, the front oblique mast that was used as a bridge to board much larger ships, these cutters were nimble, fast with an intrepid crew of about 30 men with 12 canons; sailing the high seas quite successfully. Read on the "taking of the Kent" and many others. The "Barbary corsairs" that you mention, were outright pirates and behaved as such. The corsairs had letters of marque as you mention. Although all navies, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, British and Turkish indulged in human cargo trading (slavery), a distinction between the French and the British was that the French unlike the British never gave privateers such as Surcouf, le Chevalier Paul, Jean Bart ( of the same era, late 18th century, early 19th) and many others, titles of nobility while the British did. If a privateer had titles, those had been obtained outside the activity of being a corsair, either by inheritance or acts of service to France. While "corsaires" and pirates have existed for many centuries, those I mention would be contemporaries to the Lynx and the mores of their time are those that I describe.

​@@paulhomsy2751 there are a lot of really good resources out there for research, but the major point to make is that all of this is mostly semantic. Firstly, it was rare for anyone to call themselves a 'pirate', and piracy was a crime, not a profession. So, it was more common to call your enemies 'pirates', to strip them of their legitimacy. This was the ruling on the Spanish Main during the 17th century, for example. The Spanish declared any non-Spaniard sailors in the regions "pirates" and prosecuted them as such. Secondly, anyone who violated the terms of their Marque or Commission (in the case of naval commanders) were committing acts of piracy. This was the allegation brought against William Kidd, who had been commissioned as a pirate-hunter, but allegedly attacked merchant shipping in the Pacific. Violations of terms was so common, that it caused major concern. During the Crimean War (1853-56) the French and English mutually agreed not to employ privateers. In 1856 during the Treaty of Paris, this was formalized with a ban on issuing Letters of Marque/Reprisal for 55 nations, INCLUDING the Ottoman Empire. Which of course, bring us to the final point - the Barbary Corsairs. Corsair/Corsario are terms that originate during the Crusades. This was before the time of formal navies, and so every vessel was effectively a privateer. The French and Spanish continued using this terminology for their hired ships. The term was also never changed, and applied to the Barbary Coast raiders. Outright piracy was no more common along the Barbary Coast than in Europe. The practice of raiding was almost a seasonal activity and pillar of the economy in that region. When fishing was slow, the sailors turned to raiding. It was not as illicit as in European culture. Loans were given out, expeditions were financed, and everything was taxed appropriately. This was the cause for the First Barbary War (1801-05) and Second Barbary War of 1815. Indeed, America put troops ashore in Tripoli during the second war, with the express intent of overthrowing the state's government in order to put an end to tribute payments made to the rulers. This tactic would not have worked if the Barbary Corsairs were simply pirates, attacking whomever they pleased. The Barbary Corsairs are just as much 'corsairs' as the French privateers. Outright pirates never last long; certainly not long enough to extort the major naval powers of Europe and America to the point that Thomas Jefferson is sending millions of dollars of protection money to Ottoman sultans each year.

The original Lynx was an upscaled version of a pilot boat so was meant to be fast. It was a merchant vessel and not a privateer. The letters of marque authorize a ship to take enemy merchant vessels but the crew is paid, there are less crew members and less guns than on a privateer. A privateer was manned and armed as a warship, was privately owned, the crew was compensated by a share of the prize and literally was a government sanctioned pirate ship that might attack and capture anything from small vessels to warships of larger size. A merchantman with six guns and lightly crewed was never intended to be a privateer. If it successf ran one blockade, it served the purpose it was designed and built for.

"Part of the crew, part of the ship"

Part of the crew part of the ship

part of the crew, part of the ship !

“Part of the Crew, Part of the ship.”

Part of the crew, part of the ship

MrTodSchatten look up seafarers collective

Tod, go to the library, and get a copy of "The Bounty Trilogy" by Nordoff & Hall. You will LOVE it. :)

It's a schooner. Not a tall ship.

@Dante lol exactly...

Or 19th century, like the Lynx.

But not a schooner.

@@tommiatkins3443 Im really not at home with the details of ships. i just think they are exceptionally beautiful items. So why not a schooner?

@@luuk341 Technically, a schooner isn't a "tall ship" , but I'm being very pedantic. Ignore me. Yes they are beautiful.

@@tommiatkins3443 ohh I see! Does tall ship only refer to square sailed ships? Isnt the term Full Rigged?

@@luuk341 yup. Full rigged.

They will come back...

+divisioneight forerunner of the clippers.

+divisioneight one of the things that many forget is that America needed to be free for many reasons and to get this they promised land and citizenship to any British soldier or sailor who would join them - many did and they knew this was a win or nothing exercise - if the British won they would surely hang as traitors. Don't forget that back in those days a foreign posting to America could last a lifetime or just some five years for the lucky few - by then you could have met a local lass married her and have children - why go back to starvation and the slums of England?

one of the reasons the 13 colonies won independance was the high level of support for their cause & republicanism in the british public and in the House of Commons - that and the expense of war at a time when the brits were fighting a world war with France - as usual.

divisioneight . Then came along Australia 2 , no more to be said.

@@CaptMarkSVAlcina Australia was just a territory to England back then.

"Her kind" is apt, since the original Lynx, while having a letter of marque, didn't serve as a privateer herself. She was a merchantman carrying cargo and running the British blockade. So she wasn't burdened with guns. She was also not at sea. Lynx was anchored 15 miles up a river when the British captured her. Thanks to the British capturing her, there were made good line drawings which is why she became a good subject for a replica.

I though the Lynx went missing?

If you're referring to the original Lynx, she wasn't famous, so we wouldn't have known about her if she had gone missing. Lynx wasn't a privateer, she was a commercial cargo vessel. Famous and known privateers would be like the Comet and Chasseur (replicated as 'Pride of Baltimore' - which unfortunately was lost in a tragic disaster). The reason Lynx was copied was because drawings existed, courtesy of the British admiralty who made them after she was captured. "Her kind" refers to that she's indeed a Baltimore Clipper and entirely representative for the type of vessels which did go privateering, even if she herself didn't.

She never fought the British. She went to the Mediterranean and she captured two Arab fishing boats and then sunk trying to recross the Atlantic.