Archive for the 'Pirate' Category
On May 18, 2008 history will be made when up to 1,000,000 pirates will march forth toward the sea in San Francisco, California. This is a time to affirm our love of pirates, parrots and even wooden peg legs.
Never before have pirates joined together peacefully in such large numbers to celebrate… well… being pirates.
This momentous occasion also happens to coincide with the annual Bay to Breakers event which will be held on the same day, at the same time and on the same route as us pirates will take on our journey to the ocean. This means we will probably blend in with all the other regular folks who might happen to be dressed as pirates anyway.
Father who flew Jolly Roger for daughter’s birthday prosecuted by council
A fireman is facing legal action for flying a £5 Jolly Roger outside his house. David Waterman, 41, is being threatened with court proceedings after a neighbour complained about the skull and crossbones. The father of four erected the 5ft by 3ft flag for his daughter’s pirate-themed eighth birthday party and is determined to keep it. He says pursuing him to remove it is a “disgraceful” waste of taxpayers’ money.
Mr Waterman is now paying £95 to apply for advertising consent for the flag in Purcells Close, Ashtead, Surrey but a senior officer from Mole Valley council has warned him it is unlikely to be granted.
In a letter dated 21 April, seven weeks after the flag was unfurled, the official said he had seven days to remove it.
Mr Waterman, who works at Battersea fire station, said: “I find it ridiculous that the council are fighting me over this.
“It’s a £5 flag, not hurting anyone, and they’re probably spending hundreds of pounds of our cash getting me to take it down. That could be spent on improving the local area — it’s disgraceful.”
He said other residents’ complaints about the flag were the latest salvo in a dispute over his children playing outside. [full story]
All this in the U.K. while treating real pirates with kid gloves? The mind reels.
Gerard Heidgerken of Bilgemunky.com and Bilgemunky Radio will be delivering a multi-media presentation at the Chicago History Museum on Saturday, February 23rd as part of the 2008 Chicago Maritime Festival. The presentation is titled “Pirate-Core: Sea Shanties in the 21st Century”, and will cover the evolution and current state of this contemporary spin on the the traditional sea shanty.
Gerard is one of many presenters at the 2008 Chicago Maritime Festival. Tickets to attend the festival are $10 (free for kids 12 and under) and may be purchased online or at the door. The festival is open from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The exact time for “Pirate-Core: Sea Shanties in the 21st Century” is not yet scheduled.
For more information, please visit www.chicagomaritimefestival.org
BRITAIN has suffered its first PIRATE attack in nearly 200 years — on the Mersey in Liverpool.
A cargo ship was boarded by two Scousers disguised as deck hands.
But they left with nothing after crew rumbled the pair and chased them off.
The ship’s foreign owner reported the raid to the International Chamber of Commerce’s Maritime Bureau.
Officials logged it as an “attempted pirate attack”, making it the first recorded incident to hit our coastline since the 1820s.
It means Britain joins notorious piracy hotspots around the world on the ICC’s map of 2007 attacks.
The Liverpool raid — among 110 across the globe this year — was rumbled when the moored ship’s lookout officer saw two men acting suspiciously on the dockside.
When the pair tried to board they were confronted and asked for ID. After failing to produce any, they made off down the gangplank. One was arrested, but his partner escaped.
An ICC source said: “The last real act of piracy on Britain’s shores was so long ago that records are very sketchy.
“In the heyday of piracy — during the late 1700s and early 1800s — it was known for merchant ships to be attacked by particularly daring brigands. But I doubt if anyone would have tried what these two chaps did at that time in history given the reputation of our Royal Navy back then.
“If a pirate was caught there was very little mercy shown.” The source added: “These guys were hardly from the Captain Blackbeard school of piracy — in fact they were more like Captain Pugwash. They were dressed up as stevedores — deck hands — but the disguises weren’t great and they got rumbled before they’d barely set foot on deck.
Full story via Fark
Divers believe they have discovered the 300-year-old remains of a ship once captained by the notorious British pirate Captain Kidd.
Complete with cannons and anchors, the wreckage of the 400-ton Quedagh Merchant has lain untouched and undiscovered off the coast of Catalina Island in the Dominican Republic.For centuries treasure hunters have sought the ship, but it has now been stumbled across by a local scuba diver.
The wreckage, found in shallow waters only 10ft from the surface and only 70ft from the coastline, is likely to provide vital clues and information about the notorious Kidd, who was hanged in London for piracy in 1701.
Researchers from Indiana University have been sent down to protect the remains from scavengers and turn the area into an underwater preserve.
Charles Beeker, a scuba-diving archaeologist who teaches at Indiana University, said: “When I first looked down and saw it, I couldn’t believe everybody missed it for 300 years. I’ve been on thousands of wrecks and this is one of the first where it’s been untouched by looters.
Captain Kidd was one of the most notorious pirates of his generation“We’ve got a shipwreck in crystal clear, pristine water that’s amazingly untouched. We want to keep it that way.”
Full story, via Spluch
You’ve probably seen this video before. What I didn’t know was that this song is available in so many different variations. There’s the backwards version, the karaoke version, versions in Icelandic, German, French, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish, an anime version, a slow version, a fast version, a World of Warcraft version, Taupins version, a Rogue Gallery version, and a Phoenix Wright version, plus many more once you get to YouTube.
Shamelessly lifted from the Presurfer
The “Admiral Benbow”, Penzance, Cornwall, U.K.
Admiral Benbow is remembered in pubs scattered throughout the English speaking world, and in literature in the opening scene of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. The Admiral Benbow Inn, Penzance, is one of the most interesting.
And, as you will learn from the very comprehensive Brave Benbow site, there are at least a half-dozen pubs and inns in the UK that commemerate the great sailor and sea-fighter. The Admiral is also the topic of a very stirring eponymous song, of which my favorite interpretation was done by Paul Clayton.
There is an interesting discussion thread running now in Sailing Anarchy on a recent report on the ‘truth’ about piracy in SE Asia, often regarded as one of the worst places in the world for this sort of thing. The report is described as “A tourism and yacht industry report”, and it is unclear who commissioned it — so you may want to read with a grain of (sea) salt.
3.2 A tourism and yacht industry report - Part 1
Imagine ghosting along at sunset far from civilization on an extended cruise of Southeast Asia and the tranquility of twilight is shattered by the distant whirr of a powerful outboard engine. Within moments a high-speed boat emerges from the shadows of a hidden cove on an intercept course with your own hopelessly becalmed yacht. As the vessel closes in, you see the silhouette of a group of men and they’re holding what look like assault rifles. It’s every cruiser’s worst nightmare. But how real is the threat?3.3 Piracy in modern Southeast Asia, Setting the record straight. Part 2 & 3
Bianca Hein and Scott Neuman are both sailors and journalists - who are addressing the piracy issue in Southeast Asian waters. An ambitious report that covers all aspects of piracy as it relates to the modern day tourism and yachting industry. The ancient mariner Warren Blake who has sailed throughout the archipelago for over 40 years provides an interpretation of their findings in Piracy Against Yachts…an Overblown Fear is worth a read at the end of Part II as it contains some good advice for yacht skippers and crew worried about cruising through the region. This three part report is the definitive word on the subject. It is available for reading online at: http://www.biancahein.com/projects.html
- Links to report (three parts in .pdf and online reader)
- Asian Yachting newsletter for November 2007
- Related thread on Sailing Anarchy
- Totally unrelated: Curse of the Butt Pirates
A U.S. Navy destroyer helped sailors who retook control of their vessel Tuesday in a deadly battle with pirates after the North Korean-flagged ship was hijacked in the piracy-plagued waters off Somalia, the American military said. The Navy also confirmed that other American warships sank two pirate skiffs late Sunday after answering a distress call from a hijacked Japanese chemical tanker and said U.S. ships were still monitoring that vessel.
In Tuesday’s incident, a helicopter flew from the destroyer USS James E. Williams to investigate a phoned-in tip of a hijacked ship and demanded by radio that the pirates give up their weapons, the military said in a statement.
The crew of the Dai Hong Dan then overwhelmed the hijackers, leaving two pirates dead, according to preliminary reports, and five captured, the military said.
Three seriously injured crew members were taken aboard the Williams, the statement said. The captured pirates remained on the Dai Hong Dan, which the crew was returning to the port of Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital.
See also this good post on contemporary piracy at tugster. I haven’t blogged some of the recent pirates-in-Somalia stories, because there are no pictures!
Yarr, a fine gallery of 68 wenches awaits ye. This post dedicated to me mate Bilgemunky, whose radio show has been such a great inspiration during the boat-building project.
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