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The raft may have been purely quick thinking, and it may have been influenced by a knowledge of history. Thomas Cochrane was a celebrated Royal Navy captain dur

The raft may have been purely quick thinking, and it may have been influenced by a knowledge of history. Thomas Cochrane was a celebrated Royal Navy captain during the Napoleonic wars. Here's Cochrane from his autobiography [0]: "Before they had fairly renewed the chase night was rapidly setting in, and when quite dark, we lowered a ballasted cask overboard with a lantern, to induce them to believe that we had altered our course, though we held on in the same direction during the whole night. The trick was successful, for, as had been calculated, the next morning, to our great satisfaction, we saw nothing of them, and were all much relieved on finding our dollars and his Majesty’s ship once more in safety." Patrick O'Brian modeled his Jack Aubrey character after Cochrane, in part, and the raft decoy is woven in to the novel 'Master and Commander.' [0] Cochrane, Admiral Lord. The Autobiography of a Seaman

jmartrican 6y ago
The Brits storied history at sea must give them access to tons of tactics to pull from.
- noir_lord 6y ago
  British Naval History is fascinating - in a lot of ways the reform of the navy into a modern (for it's day) naval force has interesting lessons about people management and harnessing technological developments as a force multiplier. Things like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_sheathing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_sheathing gave the navy a marked advantage against it's peers.
  - kitd 6y ago
    Indeed. For the 18th and much of the 19th centuries, the Royal Navy was the organisation to join if you wanted to be at the bleeding edge of adventure and exploration. A bit like NASA today, but with a military mission.
    - noir_lord 6y ago
      Agreed. From taxi-ing Darwin all over the planet in HMS Beagle to encouraging truly accurate marine chronometers (the Harrison Watch), steam propulsion (and the maximisation of power from volume) through to research in health - 19th century equivalent of NASA is a good way to think look at it.
  - pjmorris 6y ago
    > British Naval History is fascinating Tell me more. I'm four volumes in to the Aubrey-Maturin series, and will read the remaining 16, but I'm curious about, say, the top two or three non-fiction books for the interested layman.
    - noir_lord 6y ago
      So many and over such a wide span to narrow it down to 2-3 definitively so I'll cover ground instead. 1) The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815[1] (actually book 2 but the first covers an earlier period this covers the period across the Act of Union - when England/Scotland became with Wales the United Kingdom and when the British navy went from "decent" to not just first but first by a hilarious margin - the only modern analogue that sorta fits is the US navy compared to everyone else post-WW2 up to well right now) 2) Dreadnought[2] which covers the late 19th early 20th (Birth of Queen Victoria to the start of WW1) - when the Dreadnought type-class battleship was considered the premier strategic weapon of it's day. For the rest it's a vast field (that I've barely scratched - history is a hobby for me part of the perpetual "why is the world the way it is" fascination with everything) as always wikipedia is your friend :- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_of_18th%E2%80%9319th_century_Royal_Naval_history#Royal_Navy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_of_18th%E2%80%931... For more modern naval stuff (where modern equals ~a century ago) I can heartily recommend the https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mftUX7apmV1vsVXZh7RTw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mftUX7apmV1vsVXZh7RTw Drachinifel - he has a way of providing information dense content in an entertaining way - his video on the technological arms race in metallurgy for ships armour for example is superb. [1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Command-Ocean-History-Britain-1649-1815/dp/0141026901/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Command+of+the+Ocean&qid=1618042757&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Command-Ocean-History-Britain-1649-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadnought_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadnought_(book)
      - pjmorris 6y ago
        Fantastic, thank you. I have the same "perpetual "why is the world the way it is" fascination with everything)"
      - 6y ago
cheaprentalyeti 6y ago
I feel I should add that one should be careful to not get him mixed up with Alexander Cochrane, who was also an admiral...

jmartrican 6y ago

The Brits storied history at sea must give them access to tons of tactics to pull from.

noir_lord 6y ago
British Naval History is fascinating - in a lot of ways the reform of the navy into a modern (for it's day) naval force has interesting lessons about people management and harnessing technological developments as a force multiplier. Things like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_sheathing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_sheathing gave the navy a marked advantage against it's peers.
- kitd 6y ago
  Indeed. For the 18th and much of the 19th centuries, the Royal Navy was the organisation to join if you wanted to be at the bleeding edge of adventure and exploration. A bit like NASA today, but with a military mission.
  - noir_lord 6y ago
    Agreed. From taxi-ing Darwin all over the planet in HMS Beagle to encouraging truly accurate marine chronometers (the Harrison Watch), steam propulsion (and the maximisation of power from volume) through to research in health - 19th century equivalent of NASA is a good way to think look at it.
- pjmorris 6y ago
  > British Naval History is fascinating Tell me more. I'm four volumes in to the Aubrey-Maturin series, and will read the remaining 16, but I'm curious about, say, the top two or three non-fiction books for the interested layman.
  - noir_lord 6y ago
    So many and over such a wide span to narrow it down to 2-3 definitively so I'll cover ground instead. 1) The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815[1] (actually book 2 but the first covers an earlier period this covers the period across the Act of Union - when England/Scotland became with Wales the United Kingdom and when the British navy went from "decent" to not just first but first by a hilarious margin - the only modern analogue that sorta fits is the US navy compared to everyone else post-WW2 up to well right now) 2) Dreadnought[2] which covers the late 19th early 20th (Birth of Queen Victoria to the start of WW1) - when the Dreadnought type-class battleship was considered the premier strategic weapon of it's day. For the rest it's a vast field (that I've barely scratched - history is a hobby for me part of the perpetual "why is the world the way it is" fascination with everything) as always wikipedia is your friend :- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_of_18th%E2%80%9319th_century_Royal_Naval_history#Royal_Navy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_of_18th%E2%80%931... For more modern naval stuff (where modern equals ~a century ago) I can heartily recommend the https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mftUX7apmV1vsVXZh7RTw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mftUX7apmV1vsVXZh7RTw Drachinifel - he has a way of providing information dense content in an entertaining way - his video on the technological arms race in metallurgy for ships armour for example is superb. [1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Command-Ocean-History-Britain-1649-1815/dp/0141026901/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Command+of+the+Ocean&qid=1618042757&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Command-Ocean-History-Britain-1649-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadnought_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadnought_(book)
    - pjmorris 6y ago
      Fantastic, thank you. I have the same "perpetual "why is the world the way it is" fascination with everything)"
    - 6y ago

cheaprentalyeti 6y ago

I feel I should add that one should be careful to not get him mixed up with Alexander Cochrane, who was also an admiral...