The Panther Bay
Pirate Blog

Paul and Rachel Chandler's harrowing experience as pirate captives is also revealing just how complex pirating has become in the modern world. According to Britain's newspaper The Mail , two of the Somali gang leaders have direct family ties to the U.K. The wife of one of the leaders is actually seeking political asylum in the UK. In telephone conversations during the ransom negotiations, the gang leaders seemingly talked casually about how they would visit the UK to be with their families. From The Mail:

In satellite calls, the pirates have alluded to links with Britain and a man named as Hassan, 32 – said to be one of the ringleaders of the Chandler abduction – was quoted as saying he had a wife and family in the UK and was planning to join them.

He claimed his family had moved to London three years ago, applying for political asylum.

‘She is putting me under pressure to join her and the children, so I will come to the UK soon,’ he said in one telephone call.

‘I am not looking forward to the cold weather, though, and I am worried that women are more powerful in the UK – I don’t know how long I will stay.’

Hassan has also admitted to being involved in the hijacking of tankers and commercial ships which were boarded at gunpoint and released only after multi-million pound ransoms were paid.

It's clear (at least to me) that piracy has become so routine and "normal" that the act was considered just any other business enterprise. And, of course, successful pirating does require organizing. These are, however, criminal enterprises and they depend on their ability to steal, threaten, intimidate and even destroy the fruits of human productivity.

Piracy, like robbery, burglary, and other forms of theft, is a zero sum game; it doesn't add to wealth creation or economic productivity.

Finally, the US has prosecuted and convicted its first pirates in 200 years . According to the Los Angeles Times:

The conviction on all counts, the first such verdict in an American court in nearly 200 years, carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison plus 80 years. Defence lawyers said they will appeal.

The five defendants listened to an interpreter through earphones as the court clerk pronounced them each guilty on 14 counts, including attempts to plunder a vessel and assault with a deadly weapon.

''Today's conviction demonstrates that armed attacks on US-flagged vessels are crimes against the international community and that pirates will face severe consequences in US courts,'' the attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Neil MacBride, said.

These were the pirates that attacked a US frigate last April (2010) thinking that the the warship was a merchant freighter.

The Pirate of Panther Bay has been added to OnLine Novels blog  under the category of Adventure/Historical. I like the fact the novel is speaking to a broader audience, something the review by John Lehman at Bookreview.com brought out earlier. The layered characters and story lines seem to lend the story to a broad audience.

Now, for some good light hearted news! A new pirate museum has opened in St. Augustine, Florida . The museum is called the St. Augustine Pirate and Treasure Museum and will include artifacts from the Golden Age of Piracy (1600s and 1700s). According to a report at Jacksonville.com:

The museum is owned by Pat Croce, former president of the Philadelphia 76ers as well as an author, reality TV judge, sports commentator and motivational speaker. He is bringing many of the exhibits from the Pirate Soul museum he previously owned in Key West, but there will be additions.

St. Augustine has such a documented and colorful pirate history, and "we're right at the bay where [Sir Francis] Drake sailed in," Croce said in a written statement. "They raided this town, they raided this exact location. We're really bringing history to life."

Pirates first captured Croce's interest when he saw the movie "Captain Blood," starring Errol Flynn, as a child, said museum spokeswoman Kari Cobham.

Featured collections will include authentic pirate artifacts dating back to 1563, the only surviving treasure chest in the world, one of only two Jolly Roger flags still in existence, Captain Kidd's original journal and some of Blackbeard's gold. Large exhibits will feature a recreated ship deck; Rogue's Tavern, a pirate hangout; and Port Royal, Jamaica, a 17th century lawless pirate stronghold.

An exhibit on Hollywood pirates is also included "to differentiate between what is real in the rest of the museum," Cobham said. It will include the sword of Jack Sparrow, played by Johnny Depp, from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" film.

Sounds like an excuse for a pilgramage!

I was watching (yet again!) the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie (The Curse of the Black Pearl) when I caught a bird's eye shot of the HMS Interceptor. The Interceptor, you might recall, was the ship Jack Sparrow and Will commandeered to chase down Elizabeth after she had been captured by pirate Captain Barbossa.

Well, it turns out, the Interceptor is a brig--a two-masted, squared rigged vessel known for its speed and maneuverability. Brigs were a staple of the Royal Navy during the 18th and early 19th centuries for these reasons. In fact, they were perfect for pirate hunting in the shallow and hazardous waters of the Caribbean Sea. And, of course, Isabella's pirate ship, the Maree Rouge, is a brig, too. So, if you're looking for a connection, there it is.

The Interceptor was a fictional ship played by a real, working brig called the Lady Washington which sails out of Aberdeen, Washington. Many of the vessels in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were actually sets, in some cases barges with facades to look like warships. For a fighting brig similar to what the Maree Rouge might have been like, take a look at the HMS Badger and our virtual tour of the USS Niagara on the Panther Bay web site. We also have a guide to fighting ships and vessels that travelled about on the high seas during this period.

Fair warning: the HMS Badger is set to make a cameo in one of the future books in the Panther Bay series. A real-world captain of the Badger has a run in with Isabella in a pub in the Caribbean, although I take some literary license with the timeline.

Robert Fowke, a columnist at the Gaurdian newspaper in the U.K., has an article comparing modern Somali pirates to their 18th century forerunners (18 November 2010). Fowke writes:

The sufferings of Paul and Rachel Chandler and others have demonstrated that the Somali pirates are remarkably similar to their classic forebears, despite being of a different religion. The ransoms, the feasts, the anarchic style of living are all from the same stable.

Their victims can perhaps be mildly grateful that their captors are Muslims rather than rum-swilling Christians. Back in their pirate nests, Somali pirates appear to carouse on spaghetti and camel meat washed down with water rather than rum and gunpowder. A sober pirate must surely be preferable to a drunken pirate (though not quite always: in 1677 John Coxon captured the bishop and governor of Santa Marta but was too drunk to demand a ransom).

In addition, the Somalis try to avoid killing their victims because they know it could lead to savage reprisals. This compares favourably with the behaviour of such as L'Olonnais who would hack his victims to death with a cutlass and then lick the blood.

Unfortunately, I think Mr. Fowke has bought more into the myth of the pirates of the Golden years than the reality. As Peter Leeson points out in his book The Invisible Hook, pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries tended to embellish their reputations for a vareity of reasons. We need to be careful in ascribing more brutality than necessary. This is particularly important if the result ends up creating a greater moral justification for current piratical activity, as I think Fowke's column does.

Thus, what I really object to is a tone that tends to ratioanlize Somali piratatic activity based on a general belief that pirates were simply common men, down on their luck, trying to make it in a world rigged against them, a sort of Robin Hood on water justification. As Fowke writes:

Absence of rum notwithstanding, the anarchic Somali pirates are far closer to the Christian prototypes than they are to the Muslim Barbary corsairs, and they have similar opportunities to garner public support – from a Muslim perspective. After all, their victims are mainly infidel sailors (substitute Catholic/Spanish) and the Somali pirates, like the buccaneers, are certainly common men making good. Many are fishermen who took to piracy after foreign fishing fleets began to destroy their livelihood. The heroic narrative could serve them well.


On the one hand, I agree that modern Somali pirating tends to be less ruthless than the 18th century kind. But that is a matter of degree. Their use of rifle grenades, automatic rifles, and other weapons are certainly intended to do more than intimidate. They are willing to kill on site or coerce ransom under a very real threat of killing people and destroying or selling other people's property.

Humble backgrounds do not justify their acts, nor their callousness toward human life. Mr. Fowke may think humble economic circumstances justify leniency in a court of law, but I do not. Bad behavior is bad behavior. Murder is murder. Assault is assult. And piratical activities are unprovoked, violent, and a direct threat to innocent life and property. Pirates should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Of course, these ethical dimensions to pirating activity are important to the key themes in the Pirate of Panther Bay.

Forbes magazine is reporting that Somali pirates are holding captives and cargo significantly longer in 2010 than a year ago. An Associated Press article (18 Nov 2010) reports that ships and crew taken in 2009 were held an average of 55 days in 2009. In 2010, according to Cyrus Moody at the International Maritime Bureau (see also the link to the right under finding pirate statistics), the average length of captivity is 100 days. As of mid-November 2010, 22 vessels and 508 crew are being held.

Moreover, the tactic seems too be lucrative. Roger Middleton, a pirate expert interviewed for the AP article, believes the pirates are recieving ransoms of between $7 million and $9.5 million.

The rescue of American and French citizens from pirates last year appeared to send the pirates into a bit of a frenzy. An attack on a U.S. merchant ship  (the 738 foot Liberty Sun) with small arms and rocket propelled grenades was repulsed. But what caught my eye was the attitude of the pirates. They seem truly incensed that someone might really start to fight them.

According to the Wall Street Journal (15 April 2009):

A pirate whose gang attacked the aid ship told the Associated Press Wednesday that his group was targeting American ships and sailors.

"We will seek out the Americans and if we capture them we will slaughter them," said a 25-year-old pirate based in the Somali port of Harardhere who gave only his first name, Ismail.

"We will target their ships because we know their flags. Last night, an American-flagged ship escaped us by a whisker. We have showered them with rocket-propelled grenades," said Ismail, who did not take part in the attack on the Liberty Sun.

And it's not just the U.S. The French have become more active as well. After rescuing french yahtsmen from pirates, they detained 11 pirates after intercepting their 30-foot "mother ship." The captives are held on board a French frigate.

I find the scale of the vessels interesting. The pirate "mother ship" is just 30 feet long and they attack using small boats (sometimes pontoon skiffs). They are light and fast--not so much different from the boats their 18th century predecessors used. The major nations are using destroyers and frigates, not that much different from the brigs, schooners, and frigates. Of course, now the ships are much faster. The tactics don't seem to have changed that much.

If you don't subscribe to Cindy Vallar's newsletter Pirates & Privateers , you should (click on the link on the right). She's has the most comprehensive archive of book reviews on pirates and pirating themes. Here are the most recent reviews according to her November newsletter:

Reviews:
Pirates, Ports, and Coasts in Asia edited by John Kleinen and Manon Osseweijer
Pirates never work in a vacuum, and this volume explores various connections among pirates, ports, and coastal waters and trade in East and Southeast Asia.

Pirate State by Peter Eichstaedt
Written by a veteran journalist, this book provides an up-close-and-personal look at the pirates of Somalia.

Maritime Maryland: A History by William S. Dudley
A maritime historian, Dudley explores the history of Maryland's waterways from colonial times through the present.

First Rate by Rif Winfield
This coffee table-sized book examines the history and development of Britain's largest and most powerful warships during the Age of Sail.

Terra Vonnel & the Skulls of Aries by D. C. Akers
On this voyage into the realm of fantasy, a female pirate and her crew search for the second Skull of Aries. Finding it will permit her to travel back in time to save her mother from whoever killed her when Terra was five years old.

The Dread Crew by Kate Inglis
These fiercesome pirates terrorize the Maritime woods of Canada in search of junk. A young lad is on their trail, but before he finds them, they vanish. How do stinking, rumbling, disgusting pirates just disappear?

Captain Kidd by Craig Cabell, Graham A. Thomas, and Allan Richards
Sifting through fact and legend, the authors reassess the life and career of William Kidd.

The other night, I caught the 48 Hours mystery on CBS. The episode was on the so-called Barefoot Bandit, Colton Harris-Moore. Moore was 19 when he was finally caught in the Bahamas after two years of burglaries, robberies and threats to human life. He allegedly stole several planes (including the one he flew to the Bahamas) and tens of thousands of dollars during some 60 thefts. He destroyed or permanently scarred dozens, perhaps hundreds, of lives in the process.

Harris-Moore was more Jesse James than pirate, but he had one thing in common with most historical pirates: His career didn't last long. In fact, his career as a fugutive lasted about two years. That "career" is about as long as many of the most notorious pirates during the Golden Age of piracy in the Caribbean.

While Harris-Moore may have enjoyed the chase and the challenge of eluding authorities, like most criminals, he'll spend most of his time on this planet in jail (or prison).