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Cannonballs vs. Shrapnel. It has long been rumored that the damage done by a cannonball can easily be outdone by the damage done by the shrapnel caused by the very same cannonball. After all, a massive steel ball hitting a wooden ship has to create a whole bunch of sharp pieces of wood flying around, so it's bound to be dangerous if you're standing in the midst of it all, doesn't it? With the help of Myth-wench Myth-tern Jess, a few tests are created to see if this myth is even plausible, before moving on to the full-size test.

First, since getting your hands on an actual cannon is really difficult, Adam builds an air cannon. Though the muzzle velocity is a bit lower than the real thing, it should be fast enough that it will at least prove if it's worth pursuing the myth further or not. Next, Jamie sets up three types of wood - pine, red oak and white oak - so that the "cannon ball" shot from Adam's cannon can be monitored to see what happens when it hits these varieties of wood. Apparently pirates weren't too picky about their ships, so testing the possible wood types allows the guys to see which one may splinter the best and go from there.

Though not much is expected, the ball heading out of the hole it makes in the wood actually produces some decent result, with wood splinters sticking not only in the foam backing, but some of them embedding themselves all the way into the wood placed behind the foam for support. It looks like this moves onto full-scale testing, and for that, they need some "human analogues". In other words, pigs.

First, Adam builds a piece of a ship, then the air cannon is scaled up, and finally the pigs are dressed up (you read that correctly), and finally the tests can begin. The first test is to line the pigs up and shoot at them. So if you were to have everyone on the other ship lined up in a row, it seems that even this weak air cannon could shoot straight through them (at least if there were only four people in the line). Time to move to the shrapnel test.

In this case, however, there is shrapnel, but none of it seems to do any damage at all, which is very disheartening. Time for the big guns. The guys bring in a not-completely-accurate cannon, which is big and has many times the power of their air cannon. But it still cannot create deadly shrapnel. Busted.

Eye Patch. This is actually a really interesting myth that I had never heard before. Apparently the reason some pirates wore their eye patches is to keep one eye ready for darkness. That way, if they're out in the light and have to go inside, they'll be able to see. Likewise, if they are inside in a lit room and have to go outside and battle at night, they can see. It's a bit odd, but it makes scientific sense.

Kari goes to have her eyes tested, and it seems that if you have your eyes exposed to light, it can take as long as 25 minutes to get adjusted to darker levels of light again. By covering your eye instead, it is almost instantaneous. That's just cool.

Along with Grant and Tory, Kari builds a pirate obstacle course for Adam and Jamie. The first time through, they are to go with their one light-adjusted eye, and they don't do so well, stumbling around in the dark. The course is adjusted, and then they flip the eye patch to uncover their dark-adjusted eye. The times drop (at least) in half. Impressive. Without adjusting the course at all, the guys run the course again with their light-adjusted eyes and their times go back up. While it could be argued that they did it on purpose, it looks good to me. That's just cool. Plausible.

Rum: Stain Remover? This is definitely one of the stranger myths, as I'd have to agree with Jamie. He mentioned while cleaning that a pirate is more likely to drink rum than clean with it, and another story I've heard is that since the water was typically so bad - if they even had any - rum may be the only thing to drink, I'd be likely to agree.

But for the sake of argument, let's assume that they tried. Adam created several possible pirate stains: Blood, pitch (tar) and sweat. Well, Adam is so clean that his sweat didn't stain or smell (sure). So he switched that out with citrus stains. Then Jamie tried cleaning with rum, period soap, stale urine (in other words, ammonia, but he actually used his own wee) and detergent. The end result is that none of it was particularly clean. The rum did the worst of the job, while the ammonia did a decent job on the blood. Busted.

Knife Sail. The final myth tested is the one that we've all seen but never had the chance to do. It involves getting up at the top of the sail and having to get down quick. The only way to do it? Stick your knife in the sail and slide on down. The first problem is that you better hope you're on someone else's boat and they're not waiting for you at the bottom, because they won't be happy that you just ruined their sail. Those things aren't cheap. The second problem is this thing called a "reef band". These are thick pleats in the sail, and can appear two to four times in a given sail.

Any blade which is sharp enough to slice the reef band probably will be too sharp to slow your descent in any meaningful way. But that's what tests are for, so let's see how it goes. First up is buster, to see what happens, and it seems that he's just a little too stiff. Any time he hits resistance, he falls out. So it's time to strap Tory into a rig over a net and see what happens.

Sure enough, if his blade is too sharp, he goes too fast and it would likely kill him (he has a net and safety gear, so we can't know for sure). If the blade is too dull, then it simply jars him loose when he hits the reef band, and he falls to his death that way (well, you know what I mean). It looks like this just isn't a practical way to get to the bottom of the mast. Busted.