Kaboom

Thousands of years ago Great Britain's Royal Navy was still using tall ships to hunt down and destroy the bad guys. Now it was bad enough going about having to rely on all that canvas but to suffer for long spells at sea without women? The Royal Navy was too smart to let that happen. No it's not what you think. Someone would be needed to carry out one of the most dangerous jobs onboard so why not get a woman to do it? The job was non other than powder runner. It didn't require any special skills, training or talent. The job entailed getting your butt below decks into the magazine (that's where all the gunpowder was kept) and stuffing black powder cartridges which were made of cloth, into a metal container about the size of a half gallon of milk. Affectionately known a powder keg, this was then rushed up to the gunners deck to be popped into the guns. The dangers of running around a ship with enough black powder to propel a huge cannon ball several miles are self explanatory. The magazines were traditionally clad in copper-copper won't create sparks which are a very very bad thing. Not all ships however had such luxuries and simply carried the cartridges to the gun deck. There are more than a couple documented cases where the cartridges leaked and a spark or burning ember hit the trail of powder and burned like a fuse right back to the magazine. Adios! So this is my advice for all women boaters out there. Feel free to throw this back at your hubby when he loses his cool and yells at you for dropping a line or for not backing down the ramp as quickly as he wants. He'll get the hint!!
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