Jaco Jacinto Age of Sail Series

The Age of Sail began at the Battle of Lepanto in October 1571 when the Holy League’s fleet of sailing ships defeated a fleet of rowed galleys from the Ottoman Empire. Most naval historians agree that sailing warship design reached its peak during the Napoleonic Wars. The Age of Sail ended abruptly on March 9^th, 1862 when the Confederate Navy ironclad Virginia dueled with the U.S. Navy’s iron plated Monitor. By the end of the American Civil War, steam powered, iron plated warships had begun replacing wooden sailing ships.

C.S. Forester (Horatio Hornblower), Patrick O’Brian (Jack Aubrey) and Alexander Kent (Richard Bolitho) are three of the most popular novelists who wrote Age of Sail novels. Each of their series focused on the fictitious exploits of Royal Navy officers. And, if you enjoy Age of Sail novels, this leads to the first of eight reasons why the Jaco Jacinto series is different…

One, the series focuses on the Continental Navy and the early days of the U.S. Navy. While much has been written about the U.S. Navy’s stellar performance during the War of 1812, there are few books about the trials and tribulations of its predecessor, the Continental Navy, the sea going force that took on the Royal Navy, the largest, most powerful and best trained and equipped navy in the world during the American Revolution. When the war for independence began, the Royal Navy had 355 sixth rated ships or larger and the Continental Navy hadn’t even been formed. After the American Revolution ended in 1783, the Continental Army and Navy were dissolved. The United States had no army or navy for nine years. Then, via the Naval Act of March 1794, the modern U.S. Navy was born.

Two, the main characters are an American and a Englishman. The series has two main characters. One is Jaco Jacinto, an American from Charleston, SC and the other is Darren Smythe, an Englishman from Gosport, U.K. In the first book – Raider of the Scottish Coast – they meet and become friends. Then, later in the novel, they are again mortal enemies. Throughout the series, the careers of Darren and Jaco intertwine. Depending on the global political situation, they either continue their friendship or find themselves at the opposite ends of each other’s cannon.

Three, each book is true to history and has historical tidbits one doesn’t find in most history books. Just as noted under reason one, each novel is chock full of interesting tidbits from the period that aren’t in most history books. For example, most don’t know that the first man to accurately chart and describe the Gulf Stream was none other than Benjamin Franklin.

Four, the battles, firearms and cannon described are accurate and realistic. The reader is given insight into 18^th Century weapons and their limitations as well as the challenges of maneuvering a sailing ship into position when one only can fire to either side. Readers will enjoy captains basing their strategy on their visualization of the geometry of the coming engagement by determining how they will accommodate the wind and the limited fields of fire of their side mounted cannon.

Five, each novel takes on social issues of the era which are still relevant today. In each book, the characters encounter prejudices that still plague our society today. Life in the 18^th Century was very different than the 21^st Century. They lived without electricity, running water, telecommunications, computers, the internet, email, twitter, texts, GPS, supermarkets, modern medicine, cars, airplanes, trains and much more. The pace was a lot slower and long distance communication was via handwritten letters. Women weren’t allowed to attend medical or law school, much less vote.

Six, one doesn’t have to read them in sequence or even all of them. There’s enough backstories in each book so that you will understand what happened in prior novels. This well let you read one or all of them in any order you choose.

As of October, 2020, the Jaco Jacinto Age of Sail series will have seven books. The prospective titles and era they cover follows:

• Raider of the Scottish Coast – first three years of the American Revolution and ends in June 1778;
• Carronade – second three years of the American Revolution and ends in the June 1780;
• Death of a Lady – summer of 1780 up until the Battle of Yorktown
• Last Battles - last years of the American Revolution and the first year of peace that follows;
• For a Few Francs – The Quasi War of 1798 to 1800;
• Fight We Shall – War against the Barbary Pirates 1801 – 1805; and
• Powder & Shot – Ramp up to and the War of 1812.

When asked, which one should I start with, my answer is always the same.  Pick one and dive in…  You’ll enjoy the sail, errr, read!

Jaco was born and raised in Charleston South Carolina. His grandfather Caidin came to Charleston from the Netherlands in 1708 as an ambitious 18 year-old. Caidin had commissions from the British and Dutch East India Companies to find cargos for which he would be paid 20% of the value. At his death, Caidin left his two sons – Javier and Genuto - a thriving import/export business along with thousands of acres of land.

Salomon Jacinto and his family escaped from Malaga, Spain in 1588 after King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issued the Alhambra Decrees which gave practicing Jews a choice, convert or die. Solomon was a blacksmith and trader brought his family to The Netherlands.

When the American Revolution began, Jaco is 16 and had spent the prior three summers on merchant ships as “an officer in training.” The ships carried indigo, lumber, rice and cotton to Lisbon, Amsterdam, Brest and London. He spoke fluent Spanish because his parents insisted he learn the language of their ancestors and French which he learned in school.

Javier Jacinto was a member South Carolina’s delegation to the Second Continental Congress. He was a member of the Marine Committee which was responsible for funding, equipping and recruiting sailors for the Continental Navy. Although he was offered a commission on a Charleston based privateer, Jaco decided to accept an appointment as a midshipman in the Continental Navy.

Physically, Jaco is slim, 5’ 9” tall with olive skin and thick, jet black hair that begets his Spanish Mediterranean heritage. His eyes are bright blue and can be soft and gentle, or fire laser like darts. He is naturally curious about the world around him and focuses on the task at hand. In battle, Jaco is a reputation as being shrewd, unpredictable tactician. As a leader, he cares deeply for the men he commands who will fight to the death for him.

Ever since he was a little boy in Gosport, England, Darren wanted to be an officer in the Royal Navy. He’d spent countless hours watching ships come and go from the Portsmouth Naval Base across the harbor..

Darren’s f upper middle class family owns Smythe & Sons, a manufacturer of surgical instruments and medicines. The firm was started by Dr. Joakim Schmeitz, a graduate of the University of Heidelberg’s medical school and his wife Gretchen in the early 1600s. Both were Protestants and who fled Germany during the Reformation. The couple spent several years in The Netherlands before moving to England and Anglicizing their last name to Smythe.

Darren never wanted to go into the family business and his father secured him an appointment at the Royal Naval Academy. Upon graduation at 16, he was assigned as a midshipman on the frigate H.M.S. Deer, 32 guns.

Smythe looks English with fair skin and curly blond hair. He’s a slim, 5’9” tall, studious and patient. Darren is lucky enough as a midshipman and lieutenant to have captains who mentor him. Seeing their mangled bodies on the quarterdeck forever scarred his psyche and forced him to effectively lead men much older than he. His superiors see him as a future admiral. He sees a career in the Royal Navy as a way of proving himself outside the family business, and through prize money, making his own fortune.

Historical Backdrop of the Novel Raider of the Scottish Coast

When the shots were fired on April 19^th, 1775 at Lexington and Concord, the Thirteen Colonies declared war on the most powerful and one of the richest nations in the world. What had been a simmering rebellion with passive aggressive behavior by the citizens against the mother country’s laws had broken out into an all-out war.

England, which gained supremacy in North America after the Seven Years War, didn’t take the rebellion seriously at first. Those in Parliament and in the British Army thought that after a few battles, the colonists would lay down their arms. Washington’s siege of Boston made the city untenable as a British bastion so evacuated. The British invade Long Island and seized New York, a city they would hold until the end of the war.

At sea, the Continental Navy had to go from a bill passed by the Continental Congress to an effective fighting force almost overnight. While it never could match the Royal Navy ship for ship which had, at the beginning of the war over 550 ships in commission. The Continental Navy had a different mission - disrupt the British maritime commerce.

Desperate for experienced captains, the Continental Congress offered commissions to men like John Paul Jones who were, besides captaining a ship, tasked with training a group of young officers who would in turn, command ships. The war would produce several successful captains besides Jones. Nicholas Biddle and John Barry are just two.

Manning ships was another problem. Thanks to the Articles of Confederation in which the individual states retained the power to tax, the Continental Congress was always strapped for money. It had to beg and borrow money from the individual colonies, from its citizens and from France, The Netherlands and Spain to pay for an army and navy.

Many of frigates the Congress could afford were quickly captured by the Royal Navy or burned to avoid capture. However, both the Continental Congress and many of the colonies issued letters of marque to consortiums who would fund privateers.

By the end of the war, the combined efforts of the Continental Navy and the privateers captured between 12 and 15% of the British Merchant fleet along with 15,000 sailors. Their effort disrupted English commerce as well as made it difficult to keep General Sir Henry Clinton’s army in New York well-supplied.

When France entered the war on the side of the colonists, what had been a three-year rebellion became a global war. Once again, England was pitted against France, Spain and to a lesser extent, the Dutch Republic we know as The Netherlands. France and later Spain wanted to recapture the colonies it had lost in the Seven Years War. Battles were fought in the Caribbean, Atlantic, the Mediterranean, Central and South America, Europe and on the Indian sub-continent. 

Raider of the Scottish Coast begins with the formation of the Continental Navy and ends in May 1778. The issue, i.e. whether or not the Thirteen Colonies would win their independence was still in doubt despite the victory at Saratoga and the formal alliance with France

Historical Backdrop of the Novel Carronade

In June of 1778, when the novel Carronade begins, the War for Independence by Thirteen Colonies had been raging for three years and three months and the outcome was still very much in doubt. However, the French King, Louis XVI, and his Foreign Minister, Charles Grazier, the comte de Vergennes, concluded the Continental Army had won enough victories to have a chance of winning independence, and saw an opportunity to recoup France’s losses from the Seven Years War. France signed the Treaty of Alliance on February 6^th, 1778. The British declared war on France on March 17^th, 1778 right after they learned of the treaty.

At the same time, King Carlos III of Spain was deliberating whether to shift from simply assisting the rebelling colonies with arms, ammunition and safe havens for their ships to declaring outright war on England. Unknown to the Americans, France and Spain negotiated a separate alliance via the Treaty of Aranjuez. This new treaty, signed on April 12^th, 1779, committed France to help Spain retake Gibraltar and the Island of Menorca before they were allowed to make peace with Britain. This commitment, along with several others, violated the codicils of the Treaty of Alliance.

The Dutch continued to supply the Continental Army and Navy with munitions and allowed their islands in the Caribbean to be used by American privateers and Continental Navy ships. They also loaned the Continental Congress money.

In the eyes of the British, Dutch, French and Spanish governments, what started at Lexington and Concord was now a global contest for colonies in the Caribbean, Central, North and South America, and India. Whether or not the Thirteen Colonies gained independence was important only to those who wanted to throw off the British yoke.

The American Revolution was also a civil war. A sizable minority of the population preferred to stay loyal to King George III and many joined the British Army. The rebellion split many families, pitting brother against brother, father against son.

In Florida, a Spanish territory ceded to the British at the end of the Seven Years War, most of the citizens were pro-British. Despite both formal and informal invitations, Floridians elected not to join the rebellion. St. Augustine and Amelia Island became bases for the British Army to support their Indian allies and launch attacks in Georgia and South Carolina. Many battles were fought in the panhandle of Florida as the rebels tried to gain control of the colony.

To disrupt the economies of Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Virginia, early in the war on November 7^th, 1775, John Murray, the 4^th Earl or Dunmore and the Royal Governor of Virginia, declared martial law in Virginia. His proclamation also promised freedom and English citizenship for slaves who joined the British Army. Dunmore’s Proclamation caused many slaves to flee the plantations, which affected loyalists and rebel owners alike. The policy ultimately backfired; most Virginians wanted independence, and Murray was forced to flee with 600 former slaves. Even so, on June 30^th, 1779, General Clinton issued what is known as the Phillipsburg Proclamation which reinforced Murray’s initial offer. Those slaves who fled their plantations were formed into units known as Black Loyalists.

In Philadelphia, the Continental Congress was struggling with managing the war while at the same time working through a governing document, which became known as the Articles of Confederation. Because the Congress couldn’t levy taxes, the majority of the money to pay for the war for independence came from donations and loans from its citizens who supported the rebellion, the government’s share of prize money, and loans from foreign governments.

In England, the war was becoming more and more unpopular. The British population understood war with France but fighting Englishmen who wanted the same rights as they enjoyed was harder to understand. By 1780, the pro-war British prime minister Lord North still lead a majority in Parliament but was facing a growing opposition led by Lords Rockingham and Shelburne.

Despite a mix of wins and losses, Washington kept the Continental Army together; so the British, to use a modern term, had to honor the threat. American privateers and the fledgling Continental Navy constituted another threat: capturing (depending on the source) 10-15% of the British merchant marine fleet.

General Clinton’s strategy to quell the rebellion by crushing resistance in the northern colonies died in the fall of 1777 when Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga. Encouraged by Loyalists in the south and reinforced with additional British Army and mercenaries from ultimately seven German duchies (Hesse-Hanau, Hesse-Hanau, Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Ansbach-Bayreuth, Waldeck, Hanover, and Anhalt-Zerbst), Clinton decided to use Florida as a base to conquer Georgia and then South Carolina.

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Background on the Design, Construction and Armament of the Scorpion

In the late 18^th Century, warship design was still evolving, even though the construction material—wood—and the propulsion method—wind—had not changed since the Age of Sail began at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. When the American Revolution began, ship designers were experimenting with hull configurations that could give newly built ships distinct advantages over their counterparts.

In the late 1770s, two American ship designers—Joshua Humphreys and James Hackett—were coming into their own. Humphreys had designed the conversion of the merchant ship Black Prince into the Continental Navy frigate Alfred. Hackett created and built Ranger, the frigate that John Paul Jones used to raid Scotland and capture H.M.S. Drake.

Both men were testing ideas that were ultimately incorporated into the designs of the first generation of frigates built for the modern U.S. Navy after the American Revolution. In 1794, Humphreys designed the frigate Constitution. Constitution and her sisters—Constellation, Congress, President, United States, and Chesapeake—were faster, more maneuverable, and carried heavier armament than any other comparable ship in any navy. Ton for ton, they were the best frigates ever built. Any one of these frigates was an ugly surprise to any ship that met them in battle.

Back to the fictitious Scorpion. Conceptually, Scorpion incorporates design elements that would be used by Humphreys a decade later. The 600-ton Scorpion is small compared to the typical fifth- and sixth-rate Royal Navy frigates, which displaced 700 tons or more. If Scorpion had been in the Royal Navy, based on her number of guns, the frigate would have been a sixth-rate ship-of-the-line.

There is not one factor that makes Scorpion unique and a formidable adversary, but five. What follows are the five elements that give Scorpion’s captain tactical advantages in any fight with a fifth- or six-rated Royal Navy frigate.

1. Hull Design

As conceived Scorpion is 155 feet long, which is about 20 feet longer than fifth- and sixth-rate frigates in the Royal Navy. Around the time of the American Revolution, ship designers had been learning how the flow around a hull affects a ship’s speed. The French were the first to note that if the shipbuilder tapered the hull beginning in the middle of the vessel to a stern slightly narrower than the bow, the ship would go faster.

Other designers rightly concluded that a narrower hull was faster than a wider one, hence Scorpion’s beam is only 28 feet vice the 35 common on Royal Navy frigates of the time and tapered slightly after the middle of the ship.

The third element is the frigate’s bow. Instead of a “bluff, rounded bow” common at the time, Scorpion has a more pointed bow, which early in the 19^th century became known as the “clipper bow.”

Together, the mythical Scorpion has a longer, narrower, tapered hull with a pointed bow that reduces hydrodynamic drag. The result is a hull speed—the fastest the ship can possibly go through the water—of 15 knots vice the 10-11 of a comparable Royal Navy fifth- or sixth-rater. While the difference between 10 and 12 knots doesn’t appear to be much, the difference of two knots means Scorpion is 20% faster!

2. Hull Construction

During the Age of Sail, most battle casualties were caused by “splinters”, not by the cannon balls themselves. Balls hitting the side of the ship caused the wood to shatter into deadly shards—what we now call spall—that ripped men apart. 

Crews hung their rolled-up hammocks in nettings inside the bulwarks to reduce the spall. This worked until the hammocks were shredded by splinters.

Every shipbuilder experimented with layering wood to reduce penetration and/or splintering. But adding layers of wood added complexity, weight and cost. Weight required more sail area to reach desired hull speeds and caused another problem called hogging. Unless the shipwright took specific measures to reinforce the ship’s skeleton, over time the ship would sag in the middle, i.e., hog.

To prevent hogging, Humphreys used diagonal bow-to-stern stringers to strengthen the hull and resist twisting caused when the ship sailed at angle through the waves . Instead of using three layers of oak, Humphreys used pine for the middle to reduce weight. This is why Constitution and her sister ships could carry 18- and 24-pounders as well as a hull made from layered wood.

Experiments in the 18^th Century, similar to those described in Raider of the Scottish Coast, empirically showed that the softer pine compressed a minute amount when the outer layer of oak was hit. The force of impact on the outer layer of oak was dissipated over a larger area, thus absorbing the energy of the ball. The inside or third layer of oak added resistance and prevented the ball from sending splinters throughout the gun deck.

The layered planking as envisioned on Scorpion was designed to be effective against 9- and 12-pound balls. In a fight with a ship with larger cannon firing 18-, 24-, or 32-pound balls, the planking on Scorpion would resist but ultimately give way from the impact of the heavier shot.

3. Weighted Keel

Every ship of the 18^th century carried ballast in the form of large boulders placed in the hold along the sides of the keel. Netting kept them in place so they wouldn’t shift in heavy seas. This was a practical/effective and cheap solution to keep a ship from capsizing.

Square rigged ships are at their best when running with the wind coming over their sterns or rear quarters. When the wind comes over either beam, the ship heels and moves slightly sideways—this movement is called leeway—as well as forward. 

Since the late 19^th Century, most modern single-masted sloops have a weighted keel that hangs below the hull. These provide stability and increase the amount (in square feet) of sail that can be carried. The keel also eliminates leeway and helps convert the push from the wind coming over the side into forward motion.

Size, weight, draught (the amount of water under the bottom of the ship needed to keep from running aground), and the depth of most harbors make large keels on sailing warships, even ones that are retractable, impractical. However, if one extended the existing keel just two feet for the length of the ship and filled the void between the sides with lead, iron ingots or stones, the ship could carry much more sail on a beam reach and reduce leeway. Scorpion has just such a keel extension.

4. Copper Bottom

Until copper sheathing was attached to wooden ship bottoms, sea worms ate the wood and vegetation hung from the bottom, reducing speed and maneuverability. Ships had to be hauled out of the water regularly and cleaned to eliminate the source of ‘drag’ and repair damage from sea worms.

In 1761, the Royal Navy built its first copper-bottomed ship, H.M.S. Alarm. Due to a lack of copper in Great Britain and the expense, the Royal Navy was slow to apply copper to the bottom of its ships even though the value—ships could remain at sea longer and retain their sailing qualities—was understood.

Copper mining began in Colonial America in the late 17^th Century in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. By the time the American Revolution broke out, there were coppersmiths throughout the colonies. American shipbuilders and their suppliers were quick to figure out how to roll copper plates and attach them to a ship.

5. The Long 12-Pounder

Gun designers were aware that barrel length increased accuracy by minimizing the oscillations of the ball going down the barrel and the velocity of the projectile. By the time the American Revolution broke out, the “long nine,” a 9-pounder with a barrel approximately two feet longer than the standard 9-pounder, was already in wide use as a “bow chaser,” i.e., a gun mounted in the bow for firing forward.

In researching Raider of the Scottish Coast, the author came across references to “long twelves.” After the Revolution, cannon-makers created the long 18- and 24-pounders that equipped the Constitution and its sisters. So, why not, as an evolution of the long 9-pounder, lengthen the barrel of the 12-pounder and install of them as the main battery on Scorpion? 

Doing this is not without design challenges for the ship designer. The long 12-pounder forces the ship designer to deal with six significant issues. The first is weight. Cast iron is heavy and the additional two feet of barrel adds between 500-800 pounds to the weight of each cannon. If a ship has 20 or 22 long twelves, that’s 10-11 tons more weight.

The solution for Scorpion was to reduce the main armament from 24 traditional 12-pounders to 20 long 12s. Later, in a refit during this novel, the main battery is increased to 22 long twelves. The traditional 6-pounders on the quarterdeck are replaced with lighter swivel guns, two on each masthead and two in the forecastle.

Gun crew size is issue two. The added weight of the cannon has to be hauled back in battery by the crew after reloading. This requires more men, i.e., 10 men vs. six or eight for an ordinary 12-pounder. 

The long 12-pounder has a third disadvantage caused by the longer barrel. The cannon has to be pulled farther back into the ship so the crew has the space to ram the powder charge and then the ball down its barrel.

On a narrow ship such as the Scorpion, this presents problem four: room for the gun to recoil. The solution was to offset the cannon so they are not directly opposite each other.

Number five is heavier guns require a stronger ship’s structure. Joshua Humphrey’s diagonal riders and heavier/stronger frame solves this problem and prevents hogging.

Problem six comes with the nature of the 18^th Century manufacturing process for cast iron guns. Liquid iron is poured into a mold and allowed to cool. The bigger the mass, the longer the molten iron takes to cool. The larger the mass of metal, the greater the chance a large bubble forms in the gun which, under the stress of firing, may cause the cannon to fail catastrophically.

With all these known disadvantages, why the long 12-pounder? The answer: accuracy and “stopping power.”

In the 18^th Century, the muzzle velocity of the average 12-pounder averaged between 900 and 1,100 feet/second. The variation was (and still is) caused by atmospherics—temperature and humidity—and inconsistencies in the gunpowder manufacturing process.

Aerodynamic drag begins slowing the ball as soon as the projectile exits the barrel. For the sake of argument, assume at 200 yards, the ball has slowed from 900 to 800 feet/second from the standard 12-pounder. Let’s hypothesize the muzzle velocity for the long 12-pounder is at the top of the 12-pounder muzzle velocity range 1,100 ft/sec and drops to 1,000 at 200 yards.

The formula for calculating kinetic energy (KE) is KE = Mass x velocity-squared divided by two. The following chart shows why the long 12-pounder is so devastating. The ball hits with 56.25% more force than a standard 12-pounder!

Conversion rate:1 Joule = .74 lbs./ft²

Ships in the Jaco Jacinto Age of Sail Series

What follows are high level specifications from the ships that appear in this series which will, when the last book is publish, consist of seven novels. As each book is published, this section, along with other parts of the web site will be updated. 

Ships on Which Jaco Jacinto Served as a Junior Officer

Ships Jaco Jacinto Commanded

Ships on which Darren Smythe

Served as a Junior Officer

Ships Darren Smythe Commanded