Hi Mark,
Good work on that research! Your threads are always fascinating because of course of your field of study, maritime weapons, which leads into the prime subjects of piracy, shipwrecks, Spanish treasure fleets.....and all adventure on the seas and colonies.
Actually the question about the use of the cuphilt at sea was, like the use of virtually any edged weapons at sea, a well placed thought but understandably tricky in categorizing broadly.
Naturally your perspective was on what was used by the officers and crews that manned the ships, but the presence of other than seagoing crew would be a factor relatively outside that denominator, so no need for the pointed hat!!
Thanks for keeping this thread going, and for always sharing the updates on your ever intriguing research!!!
Speaking of ongoing, we are about to get out of drydock here in Texas and this years expedition is planned eastward into Florida, and hopefully Carolina bound after that! Instead of barnacles, we are removing tumbleweeds from our vessel, the good ship Winnebago
Time to get out the shipwreck materials, yay!
All the best,
Jim
Jim