Notas del episodio
The Golden Hind was only 102 feet long and 20 feet wide, carrying 80 to 85 men and 22 guns at no more than about eight knots. Launched as the Pelican, a galleon modeled on the Nao Victoria, it left England in December 1577 with four other ships and 164 men on an expedition officially meant to find places meet to have traffic. In fact Queen Elizabeth I secretly backed Sir Francis Drake as a privateer against Spain. On August 20, 1578, before entering the Strait of Magellan, Drake renamed the ship for the golden hind on the crest of Sir Christopher Hatton, one of the voyage's principal investors. On March 1, 1579, off Ecuador, he took the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion, then the largest treasure ever captured at sea: over 360,000 pesos, including 26 tons of silver and half a ton of gold, transferred over six days.
Drake returned to Plymouth on September 26, 1580 with 56 of the 80 men aboard when he entered the Pacific. Elizabeth's share of at least 160,000 pounds paid off England's government debt, with 40,000 pounds left to invest in the Levant Company, and investors earned 47 pounds per pound. At Deptford she had the French ambassador knight Drake aboard the ship, which stayed on display as the first museum ship until it rotted and was broken up around 1650.
- The crew threw provisions and lower value loot overboard to make room, and later added six tons of cloves.
- The treasure was unloaded secretly at Trematon Castle under the Queen's guards.
- In 1668 John Davies had timber from the hull made into the Drake chair, now at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
- A 1963 replica built from a converted fishing boat for a TV series sank under tow in 1987.
- The 1973 Appledore replica has sailed more than 140,000 miles, appeared in Shogun, and has been moored at Bankside, London since 1996.