There is also the theory that the British just had more practice at gunnery and sailhandling while blockading the French/Spanish in the various ports.
replies(3):
The Americans drilled daily with live cannon, while the British drilled less often, and without live fire (presumably to conserve powder and balls).
As an unsurprising result, American crews were more experienced at reloading under the duress of cannonade. The sound on the gun decks was so great it would burst eardrums. The smoke made it too hard to see anything a few feet from the portals.
If you've never been near a gunpowder cannon fire, it's hard to comprehend the surreal rupture of reality it causes in your perception. I was to the side, but in front, of one. My world went black, then lightening values of gray. Sound returned. Then people appeared in the fog, moving with their arms out trying to get away blindly from the threat they perceived (that was already over).
Without proper training, new sailors will stumble badly in their first firefight, and each man on the gundeck is crucial to a team. The officers were outside the deck, so they could receive orders. If you can't load your cannon while blind and deaf, your cannon sits quiet a long time.
Archer kinda gets this more-right than most things, LOL. "MAWP! MAWP!"
Instead of a silly overacted action sequence where the hero darts around killing everyone with miraculous hip-fired headshots, instead you hear a sudden jarring crack-FWOOMP followed by an intensely loud tinnitus ringing. It takes half the scene for the ringing to slowly clear while the hero somewhat realistically tries to escape without harming anyone or blowing his cover, while also staying out of the line of fire.
It was so against the norm for action sequences that it nearly broke the immersion for me until it settled in how well put together that scene was.