Forum:Dauntless taken by 2? no way

I just wondered how Jack and Will could have even attempted to take the Dauntless when a ship like this was always crewed heavily even when laid up. This ship was apparently on its way to sea when these 2 took control of it, so it should have had at least 900 crew on board. Also interesting is the ship was commandeered by Barbossa's crew at the island without much of a fight. Granted, dead pirates can't really be killed and all but it would have been one hell of a battle scene with the entire armed crew and would have made the movie that much better. There were enough firearms and swords, knives, pikes, clubs, etc on board ships of this type for everyone to hold their own and then some. A 100 gun ship-of-the-line has 600 crew just to operate the guns alone (6 per gun, the minimum necessary to move the 3,000 lb gun back,load it and run it out on a rolling deck) Also on board would be a handling crew of 250-500 men to handle the sails and rigging and to maintain everything. Ships like this were generally crewed the way they were because of anticipated attrition from illness, shiftworks (3x8hours) and that during battles these ships could see savage and horrific casualties(in 1805 @Trafalgar, one French ship lost 800 men out of a crew of 950 in a space of 15 minutes. The ship was surrendered to the British and scuttled the next day.) Also, the wheel on the Dauntless is on the top of the poop. Who the hell would want to steer a warship from such an open position in battle? The wheel would be shot away in a heartbeat. Big target=suicide. The wheel of a ship of this type is positioned under the poop at the base of the mizzenmast and out of the way so it's more difficult to take it out. Obviously a ship without steering cannot be controlled and would be subject to capture rather quickly. Once the masts are shot down and the rudder is out, the ship would be unmanageable and pretty much worthless at that point.