John Paul Jones

He of the famous, "I have not yet begun to fight quote," supposedly shouted to the captain of the British vessel Serapis right before serious hardcore boarding action began between the French-crewed, American-commanded ship Bonhomme Richard. His real name was John Paul, but he added the Jones when he fled from Tobago to America because there was a price on his head (maybe unjustly). 

I seem to recall seeing in some coverage of the new Assassin's Creed 3 game (which takes place during the American Revolution) that there's a way to board ships and throw down explosives into the hold and blow them up. This, it turns out, really happened in the engagement between the Serapis and the Bonhomme Richard. One William Hamilton, according to The Glorious Cause by Robert Middlekauff, "dropped a grenade through one of her hatches into the loose powder cartridges. The explosion that followed killed at least twenty men and wounded meny others."

I found this naval-combat centric trailer for the game - it shows the main character shooting a pistol into the hold and causing an explosion, which probably wouldn't really work even a little bit, but it does make naval warfare look pretty thrilling.