I get a kick out of all the historical research I get to do when I’m writing a story, but most of it never makes it into the book. I thought I’d share some of what I accrued writing the latest Rick and Rose Sinclair Adventure called Voyage to Blackbeard’s Island.
In this first post, we’ll talk about Blackbeard and his flagship.
I feel like I’ve been living and breathing Blackbeard the pirate for a long time. It started when I began the second Rick and Rose Sinclair Adventure novel Voyage to Blackbeard’s Island. In it, Rick and Rose embark to discover the lost treasure of Blackbeard on an uncharted island in 1938. That inspired me to write the upcoming companion/prequel novel Under the Skeleton Flag. That novel tells the story of a doctor kidnapped to practice aboard Blackbeard’s witchcraft-powered ship and how the treasure ended up on the island in 1718. I thought I’d share some pictures with you from my visit to the Blackbeard display from the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort, NC. I’ll throw in a little more history along with those images.
Movies and television have made Blackbeard more famous now than during his short piratical career. One of the earliest big hits was the 1952 film (anything with William Bendix in it is gold) and dozens of film and television versions followed. In reality, Blackbeard was a serious threat to commerce for only about two years. Many others sailed for longer periods of time, plundered more ships, and amassed larger private navies.
Rick and Rose are in search of Blackbeard’s flagship, named the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Blackbeard had captured this French vessel and kept it as his own. The exact specifications of the ship are unknown, but this model in the NC Maritime Museum was created using information about contemporary French sister ships. In both stories, I kept to this model as the setting, giving the ship three masts, a raised quarterdeck with aft cabins, and a powerfully armed gundeck. Over time, Blackbeard added to the ship’s original firepower and the Queen may have carried as many as forty guns when she sank.
In the novel, Rick and Rose travel very far to find Blackbeard’s flagship. In real life, the wreck was much closer to their Savannah home. Intrepid salvage experts found the wreck off the coast of North Carolina in 1996. Since then over 400,000 artifacts have been recovered, though a cache of treasure was not among them. The NC Maritime Museum hosts a fantastic collection of those artifacts. Beaufort is also a nice place to visit, so head on over and see the sights. I can recommend a good book to read during your drive.
VOYAGE TO BLACKBEARD’S ISLAND
In 1718, the notorious pirate Blackbeard was captured and killed. But he left no trace of the immense riches he’d plundered during his years on the high seas.
In 1938, antique dealers Rick and Rose Sinclair discover what appears to be a map of an uncharted island sketched in Blackbeard’s hand. With the help of Virginia, a pirate expert, they deem the map authentic, and the most likely place for Blackbeard to have hidden his treasure.
Along with their trusty pilot friend Humphrey, the three set out find the island. But an East Coast mobster is on their tail with his own designs on this trove. And if that isn’t enough danger, Blackbeard used supernatural assistance setting up defenses around his treasure, and Rick and Rose will find that all of them are as potent as ever.
Rick and Rose have survived some wild adventures, but nothing could prepare them for the terrors of a voyage to Blackbeard’s Island.
You can check out Voyage to Blackbeard’s Island here on Amazon and everywhere books are sold.
