Ooh, thank you! I hadn't thought of those at all!

While, as davidklecha said, they're not so portable,

1) they would probably work pretty well as wepons on the pirates' ship once I get that far, and

2) this is fantasy, so I see no reason why the pirates couldn't have come up wit h a miniaturized version of it that would be handheld. Oh, the possibilities!

Thank you!