pirate book blog Archives - Sally Copus, Fantasy Author

Keys to Atlantis by Sally Copus book cover

Triremes – Warships of the Ancients

Posted by Sally Copus • November 14, 2015

An excerpt from the young adult fantasy book KEYS TO ATLANTIS, Book 2 of The Odyssey of Jon Sinclair trilogy: Struggling to shake the dazed feeling from his head, Jon wondered where on earth he could be. The sky was a strange pink color. He looked around and saw ropes curled in a circular manner, like those on […]

Corsario, a privateer, by artist Mauricio Garcia Vega

Privateers, Letters of Marque—Wars and Pirates

Posted by Sally Copus • November 03, 2015

Privateering in the late 1600’s and 1700’s was an exercise of economics for the British and other governments, as they watched the Spanish and, to a lesser degree, the Portuguese take home massive wealth from the New World. The era was a time before England firmly established a Royal Navy separate from a Merchant Navy. […]

Frigate: “Man-O-War” or Pirate Ship Chaser?

Posted by Sally Copus • October 23, 2015

In the late 17th and early 18th century Caribbean Sea, the Frigate was the “Man-O-War” of its time, weighing in at 360 tons and 110 feet. It took a crew of 195 men to man the 3 masts of sails; 26 big guns (cannon) on one level, and various other smaller guns scattered about the […]

The “Darling” Pirate Ship: A Sloop

Posted by Sally Copus • October 06, 2015

The two excerpts about sloops below are from the young adult fantasy book KEYS TO ATLANTIS, Book. 2, The Odyssey of Jon Sinclair, by Sally Copus: Advantages of a Sloop (Excerpt One): With his days as a privateer chasing down pirates being a thing of the past, Captain BlackHeart had put his well-merited earnings into a […]

The Brigantine Ship: Black Opal

Posted by Sally Copus • September 22, 2015

Jon and Captain BlackHeart walked toward the end of a long pier where a tall, imposing black ship was docked. Jon eyed the ship with admiration. The two tall masts had a crow’s nest atop each of them. Rolled white canvas sails, which were tied up at the yards on both masts, and the white […]

diving bell sketch | from The Odyssey of Jon Sinclair

YA Pirate Book Research: Author Sally Copus Talks Diving Bells

Posted by Sally Copus • August 31, 2015

Jon Sinclair, from the YA fantasy fiction series The Odyssey of Jon Sinclair, continues his interview with author Sally Copus.

The Odyssey of Jon Sinclair Trilogy