Jackdaw

"This country here is my best chance. This country called Jackdaw, where I know the names of all the citizens and they know mine, and we work together. Not always out of love, but to keep our country afloat."

―Adéwalé to Edward Kenway, 1717.

The Jackdaw docked in Great Inagua

The Jackdaw was a brig captained by the pirate and later Assassin Edward Kenway, which he obtained with the help of Adéwalé, during his time in the West Indies.

Before Kenway's captaincy, the ship was a part of a Spanish Treasure Fleet and named El Dorado. Upon securing it, Kenway renamed the vessel Jackdaw, after the bird of the same name.

History

Procurement

Adéwalé and Edward assessing the damage done to the El Dorado

After an imprisoned Edward Kenway was placed on a ship in the fleet bound for Spain, he met his future quartermaster, Adéwalé, who helped free Edward from their leg irons and assisted him in incapacitating the guards until the pirate retrieved his equipment.

Following this, the pair secured a crew by freeing other prisoners from their Spanish captors, before they set their sights on a brig in the fleet, El Dorado. Subsequently, Kenway used the pirates he freed to help sail the ship from the fleet under the cover of a severe storm, successfully escaping the natural disaster while the remaining ships were sunk. Kenway then renamed the ship the Jackdaw, after a small, swift bird from his home of Wales.

Piracy

Edward: "It's a shaky feeling, sailing around with this much stolen cargo."

Hornigold: "Get used to it. We'll need to take a few more prizes to make this a profitable day."

—Edward Kenway and Benjamin Hornigold, after the Jackdaw took its first brig, 1715.

The Jackdaw's first major act of piracy took place off of the coast of Nassau in 1715, when Captain Benjamin Hornigold showed Kenway how to successfully take a ship. It was after this voyage that the brig was given its very own black flag.

The Jackdaw tailing El Arca del Maestro

Soon after, it was used to transport Kenway to Cat Island to plunder a plantation, and eventually followed a Spanish Man O' War, El Arca del Maestro, through the Bahamas to its moorings at Great Inagua. Kenway then infiltrated the island, killed the French Templar Julien du Casse and took both the ship and the island. It was here that he would establish his own base of operations, and the Jackdaw could often be found moored at the docks in the cove.

The Jackdaw traveled across the West Indies Sea to the ancient city of Tulum, home of the Assassins, where the crew members were soon taken prisoner by Laurens Prins. Kenway freed his crew and they returned to sea. Soon after, the ship took its first fort, located at Punta Guarico, and made sail for Kingston. After Kenway killed Prins, the ship returned to Nassau.

Edward steering the Jackdaw through a bayou

However, the pirate city was suffering from disease, prompting Kenway to outfit the Jackdaw with a diving bell in search for medicines. When he came up empty, he followed his fellow pirate Edward Thatch to Charles-Towne to secure medicines before returning again to Nassau.

After the city was blockaded by the British, the Jackdaw, along with Charles Vane's ship, the Ranger, was able to escape and fled to Great Inagua. There, he made plans to find Thatch again and set sail for Ocracoke. When the pirates were ambushed by the Royal Navy, the Jackdaw was the only vessel to escape. 

The Jackdaw and the Ranger met up again off the coast of Jamaica, in pursuit of a ship that would lead them to Bartholomew Roberts. However, Vane's associate Jack Rackham had engineered a mutiny, taking the Jackdaw and leaving Kenway and Vane marooned on Isla Providencia. 

The Jackdaw approaching Príncipe

Kenway managed to make his way back to Great Inagua, where Adéwalé and Mary Read had taken the Jackdaw from Rackham. Kenway soon set sail again, returning to Kingston before continuing on to Príncipe, where Roberts had gone into hiding. After freeing Roberts, he followed him to the coast of Mexico, where the two infiltrated and battled a Portuguese fleet before sailing for the Observatory, Kenway's ultimate goal. 

Along the way, the Jackdaw chased Hornigold's ship through a fog bank before Kenway assassinated his former friend, clearing the way to the Observatory. When Roberts betrayed Edward deep inside the complex, Adéwalé and the crew quickly fled. It would be almost a year before Kenway would be reunited with his ship in Kingston, although Adéwalé chose not to join his captain, revealing his intentions to join the Assassin Order and suggesting that Edward do the same. 

An Assassin ship

Shortly thereafter, the vessel returned again to Tulum, where Edward became an Assassin as well and received his three targets: Woodes Rogers, Torres, and Roberts. The Jackdaw's flag was replaced with one bearing an Assassin insignia, and Anne Bonny took Adéwalé's place as quartermaster.

The Jackdaw pursuing the Royal Fortune

Edward sailed for Kingston to eliminate Rogers. In turn, the Templar revealed Roberts' location in Principe, where the Jackdaw sailed next. In a tremendous battle between the Jackdaw, Roberts' ship Royal Fortune, and a Spanish fleet, Kenway managed to kill Roberts and retrieve the Observatory's Crystal Skull.

The ship then carried its captain back to Havana, where Edward discovered Torres was already on his way to the Observatory. The Assassin followed in hot pursuit, making his way through the jungle and the complex before finally killing the Grand Master. The Jackdaw then made one final trip back to Great Inagua, where Edward finally retired from piracy, deciding to care for his newly discovered daughter Jennifer Scott. In 1722, he sailed his ship one last time across the ocean to London, where he would live for the rest of his life. 

It is unknown what happened to the Jackdaw in the intervening years, but at some point prior to 1735, the brig returned to the West Indies and sank off the coast of Hispaniola due to unknown circumstances. Its figurehead was later recovered from the wreckage by Adéwalé.

Schematics

Edward using the ship's diving bell

The Jackdaw was 60 meters long from her stern to the tip of her bowsprit, 48.5 meters high, had a width of 11.9 meters, and had twenty-six sails. Accompanying this, the Jackdaw was armed with forty-six broadside cannons, four chaser cannons and two swivel guns. Further, she could hold a sizable number of fire barrels, heated shot and mortar rounds, and was equipped with an iron plated naval ram.

At her strongest, the Jackdaw possessed a sizable amount of iron-plating reinforcement across her hull, which provided ample protection in combat against a number of Men O' War. The brig was able to disable and destroy any type of ship, given the proper strategy in battle.

She was also equipped with a diving bell for exploration of various underwater wrecks, as well as a whaling rowboat and harpoons, which allowed Edward to hunt for local sea life. Her masts featured pedal-activated lifts and hooks to allow for both ascension and descent. The Jackdaw also had cleverly placed swinging ropes secured both on deck and in the cross-masts which were used by the crew to swing from one ship to another when boarding.

Notable conflicts

The Jackdaw engaging Portugese ships

While the Jackdaw did not participate in any major historical battles of the era, she still had more than her fair share of legendary combat. Notable skirmishes, such as the battle which took Blackbeard's life near Ocracoke, and the later conflict off the coast of Príncipe – in which Bartholomew Roberts was killed – were fought on the Jackdaw's decks.

The ship was a formidable raider in the Caribbean, as it single-handedly outgunned and destroyed all of the naval forts around the Caribbean over time, and took down many ships, from gunboats to Men O' War, including the five legendary ships that roamed the Caribbean Sea: El Impoluto, the twin ships HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign, La Dama Negra, and HMS Prince.

Crew

• Edward Kenway - Captain (30 July 1715 - 23 November 1718, 1719 - 1722)
• Jack Rackham - Captain (23 November 1718 - c. 23 January 1719)
• Adéwalé - Quartermaster (1715 - 1721)
• Anne Bonny - Quartermaster (1721 - onward)
• Numerous unnamed pirates

Trivia

• Like many other references to the Assassin Order involving avians, a jackdaw is a small, black bird belonging to the crow family. Coincidentally, the color of the bird's feathers themselves could also be a reference to piracy often being symbolized by black.
• Darby McDevitt mentioned the Jackdaw's name was also a reference to the fable of the Eagle and the Jackdaw, which is recited during the "Delirium" memory.
• The former name of the ship, El Dorado, is Spanish for "the gilded one; the golden".
• In the captain's cabin, there was a statue of a vulture near the Jackdaw's rear window. There was also a bust of an unknown man in the right corner. Other cabin decorations included several flags, lanterns, a desk, and some chairs, along with the miniature model of the ship and the tailor's mannequin. 
• The Jackdaw flew a generic pirate flag for most of its time under Kenway's command. After Edward defended the Assassins from a Spanish raid, the flag changed to include the Assassin insignia around the skull.
• At elite level, most of the Jackdaw's equipment, including the swivel guns, broadside, and mortars, were plated gold. The elite hull upgrade also included liberal gold and iron plating on the ship's hull and deck.
• After defeating all legendary ships, the Jackdaw gained a charge attack, allowing it to inflict greater damage on an enemy ship.
• The Jackdaw's crew was composed of mixed races and ethnicities; sailors that joined Edward hailed from a variety of places, including Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, and several countries in Africa, among others. 

Gallery

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  Concept art of the Jackdaw
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  The Jackdaw sailing the Caribbean
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  Edward rallying his crew
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  The Jackdaw engaging a fort's defenses
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  The Jackdaw escaping the attack on Ocracoke
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  The Jackdaw's wreck