TalesOfTheSevenSeas

Pirates actually developed an early form of medical insurance. They were to first to provide a set rate of monitary compensation for injuries. This was later picked up on by the Royal Navy and eventually developed into the current medical insurance we have today. Although pirates treated slaves as a commodity when they captured them, if a black male could get himself on the crew of a pirate ship, it was one of the most empowering situations he could be in, as he was treated as an equal by his shipmates. That was not the case anywhere on land or sea for another hundred+ years.

I had a couple of photos fail in the transfer, so check back tomorrow morning and you'll see all the photos, but here they are so far: Auburn's Pirate Adventure

Captain Jack just sent me some video captures from during this sail... no, he didn't take any o' me pukin' me guts up, LOL but thar be plenty o' finer sights !! This large red sail made for some of the sweetest sailing you can imagine A black dolphin leaping from the sea along side the Royaliste The setting sun from the deck of the ship Captain Gary takes down one of the sails Two of the SF skyline at night as the ship comes into the bay at last...

I would suggest ye' instant message "Royaliste" or visit his website if sailing aboard a tall ship in San Francisco be yer pleasure: www.theroyaliste.com

Ack! Ye' pirates be missin' me point! These be donations and free o' charge. (and no worries Captain Wm, they be plastic!) I was hopin' to provide a possible idea fer ye' to pick up yer own cast-off Billy Bones. They be right plentiful on Ebay, as are all things weird n' wonderful. Here be the latest findings: Ebay skeletons At this time, thar be one at $44 whot goes in 3 hours an' 182 o' his breathren followin' shortly thereafter.

So Cap'n... ye' be a-sayin' that size doesn't matter?!!!

The college where I teach has a medical department. In a meeting yesterday, the medical director said that the old worn-out medical skeletons needed to be replaced. Now that be a virtual gold mine for a wench with a pirate guild!! So I quickly offered to adopt her old skeletons and give them a good home. She agreed and if all goes as planned, they will soon have shiney new skeletons and I'll have the old ones, plus some miscellaneous bits and pieces of bones! It occurred to me that other medical colleges probably replace their skeletons after a few years or if a school closes down... I wonder if the rest of the pirates out there might be able to acquire them? Any ideas?

On the question of how many hands it takes to sail the Royaliste- it's all relative. Gary has actually sailed her single-handedly, which is quite a feat! So technically I guess you could say 1, but obviously, that is less than ideal. Usually Gary likes to have at least 3 experienced hands at a minimum. More is better though. Generally if the weather is good, the issue isn't sailing per say, but getting her in and out of her slip. Coming back in, it requires that we bring all 70 feet of her in through a narrow opening in the sea wall at a very awkward angle, because we have to make a hard and immediate turn starboard into the slip, without hitting the sea wall or the dock, or catching things like the dock's satelite dish or their lines with the bowsprit! Then, the second that turn is made, we have to halt 30 tons of ship in motion, before she hits the Orca, Gary's other ship. Getting out of the slip requires us to back out and "snap" her straight to make the sharp angle, using the stern line. (Captain, please make whatever corrections you have to the above descriptions.)

Here is the list of crews to sign on with on the No Quarter Given website. A lot of pirates find my CA based guild through this listing. NQG Crews Listings

I'm with the Captain on this one. The larger ships we battle bog down in the water and the Royaliste (she's a gaff-rigged ketch) zips around them, stinging them like a little hornet! About the only time we are at a disadvantage is if they are motoring, as the larger commercial charter tall ships are equipped with much more powerful motors. If we're going historic, my dubloons are on the Royaliste (or the equivalent) every time. She's very similar in her proportions to the Black Prince, the privateer that was commissioned by Benjamin Franklin and who had a near legendary record for taking British prizes. And the more swivel guns on deck, the better. The Black Prince had 30 swivels and 4 deck guns. By the by, I did an article on Ben Franklin and his 3 privateer ships, which should be in the next issue of No Quarter Given.

Good point on playing vs ability. I played piano for years, from about age 8 through high school. But I never had a teacher who taught music theory. I learned to read music, learned to play the piece, memorized some and then moved on to the next one. I never learned to play by ear or how to improvise even the simplest chords from a given melody line. Consequently, it wasn't a whole lot of fun and although I love the piano, I'm not good at it and most of the pieces I knew back then, I can only play badly now. My hands remember more about where to go than I do. My first piano teacher was very old school. She had one of those pianos with a little shelf at each end of the keyboard. She used to keep a pair of scissors sitting there as I played and would rap me across the knuckles when I made a mistake. Although now-a-days we see the problems in her teaching method, LOL, I truly can't blame her for my musical inadequacies. I was young, undisciplined and didn't usually devote the time I should have to practicing. The violin is utterly new. I'm in only my second week and absolutely love it and am practicing about 2 hours daily, even if it means practicing in my truck on lunch breaks from work. Although it is very difficult to play initially, and it takes about 1-3 months to get past the screeching stage, the payoff is great.

Here is an on-line full text account of pirates Ward and Danseker Ward and Danseker Account There are other on-line journals and accounts, as well as books on sailing and rigging and a ship-board medical journal.

Boy have I got a goldmine for you!! I did a huge amount of research over the course of a year, transcribing or copying old pirate, privateer and nautical documentation to form a collection of nearly three hundred old documents. I have some absolute GEMS and I would be happy to share them. These come from a variety of sources, all original sources are more than 70 years old, so they are public domain and OK to reproduce. They are from naval records, ship's logs, excerpts from pirate survivor's narratives, military records, prison records, newspaper articles, personal letters, eye-witness accounts at hangings, descriptions of keel hauling and much more. There is some truly amazing stuff in here. They are all stored on Pan Historia. In order to access them you will need to register (it's free) and create a character. http://www.panhistoria.com/addnewlogin.php After your character is created, you can access part one of the documentation here: http://www.panhistoria.com/Stacks/Novels/r...181&i=192&t=192 ....and part two of the documentation here: http://www.panhistoria.com/Stacks/Novels/r...181&i=932&t=932 I started compiling the 50 juciest of these into a hard-copy resource book, along with brief narrations of my own to suppliment the original documents. After you've seen some of the stuff in here, let me know if you think this book would be a worthwhile project to continue. I've been so busy I'd kinda shelved it for a while. Here are just a few of the titles of the documents I have on file- Statement Made on the Gallows by Pirate Charles Gibbs, April 22nd 1831 How to Manage a Fight at Sea" - 1627 Necessary Instructions for a Sea-Gunner -1691 Ransom Note of Richard Glasspoole Humorous Note on 1800 Marriage At Sea of Man(80) to Girl (13)! How to Make Grenadoes By Hand" -1691 Newspaper Account of the Death of Jean Lefitte -1823 Excerpt From the Log of the Schooner "Economy" Recounting a Pirate Chase - 1828 Lt. Maynard's Letter About Blackbeard's Death, Insults, Beheading ....and His Beard - Pub. 1719 Amazing Account of Accused Pirates Found Not Guilty - 1847 Account of a Mermaid Sighting by Christopher Columbus' Crewman - 1493 Court Martial At Sea of Sailors Accused of Sodomy - 1761 Excerpt From a Privateering Journal 1785 - 1782 The Articles of Agreement of the Sloop "Revenge" - 1778 Excerpt from the Narrative of Phillip Ashton - Pirate Partying - 722 Young Man on the Endeavor Crew Buys a Virgin for 3 Nails and a Knife How to Deliver a Baby on Board - 1884 Pirate Poem from a Ship's Log 1809 Record of the Plight of Women Captives of Chinese Pirates Royal Pirate Pardon - 1717 Humorous Statement by Pirate John Walden aka 'Miss Nanney' - 1720 Description of Incarcerated Pirates Joking About Their Own Hanging in 1722 Description of Granuaile (Grace) O'Malley When She Appeared Before the Queen At Court Description of Keel-Hauling - 1780

I just got this photo from Jennifer and Scott, which they took on last Sunday's sail- Da quartermaster in shades!

What was it that lured you to piracy? I'm guessing that every pirate here has a tale to tell of how they joined "the sweet trade" I started out writing in a cyber novel on Pan Historia. In order to write with some level of respectability, I started researching pirates and their history. I was fascinated by the contradictions- The advanced level of democracy and disregard for race and social class standing among shipmates, coupled with absolute brutality and disregard for human life and suffering. I started reading and reading and reading. Pretty soon I was hooked. Years before, I'd been involved in a wild west gunfighters reenactment group and wanted to do something like that again. But there were no guilds remaining in northern CA that I could find. They were all in southern CA or defunct. So I organized some friends at Pan Historia and arranged a pirate gathering for the Goldcoast Pirate Faire 2002 in Ojai. All our pirates had a blast and on the second day I looked at Sasha and said, "Ya know, this is fun. We ought to start our own pirate guild!" Sasha agreed that it was a great idea. During the course of that afternoon, I got to talking with Dianne, one of the pirates at the Guild of St Gregory encampment. She encouraged us to go for it and offered to help us get started. Dianne became my mentor. Via email, she coached me and offered advice and help to get us going in the early stages of developing Tales of the Seven Seas. Then it grew... and grew! It soon had developed into far more than I ever dreamed it would. A year and change later, we've participated in more than 25 events, worked with and battled with some of the most amazing tall ships in the world, are learning to sail thanks to Gary and the Royaliste, taught a few people about pirate history, did some performing, some sword fights, I have a pirate ship in my driveway- ...and best of all, I have about 150+ new friends and we've put untold thousands of smiles on the faces of people of all ages. At the 2003 Pirate Faire, I saw Dianne again and I thanked her and told her just how much all her help and support had meant to me. If not for her, it might never have made it past the dreamin' stages. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! T'is a damn good life says I !!!!

Great idea Ryanne.... I recently found out about a quaint rustic British tavern/inn with a fireside room you can rent for parties just outside of San Francisco- I had been thinking it might be fun to do something like there: Pelican Inn Wolfy, Becky's wench outfits rock- You'll love it! I truly can't say enough about how good her stuff is. She's also great to work with.

Last year Gold Coast Productions almost held it at a harbor, but the location was changed back to the old one at almost the last minute. If they end up doing it at the harbor this coming year, that would be ideal. The Pirate Faire is in late September- Would you be heading south that early or more likely November after the prime sailing in October is over?

T'was no offense Nigel m'dear, just a curiosity as it didn't quite mesh with me shades o' unreality. Piracy is a funny goth cross-over. If ye' think Seattle be Goth Central, we gotta have ye' out to Santa Cruz one o' these witchin' hours n' compare notes. We' got pink "Candy Goth" pirates, an the "Maroon n' Black Crushed Velvet Blood Drinkers" an then there be th' silver n' black "Studs n' Leather With Piercings Pirates"... Oh wait, me mistake, the latter be relocated Raider's Fans!! LOL!!!

I have a few entertainers which might be of interest- Our own Captain Jack here at pub, along with Nyre the Black Rose do a piratical magic act. His website be here: Pirate Magic We frequently work with the Highlander Warriors when we have a client who needs high-end swordsmen for hire. They are fantastic and they do pirates in addition to thier Celtic warriors. Pirate Sword Fighters My violin teacher and her husband do seafaring music on violin and mandolin, but it is not reflected in their website. If you're interested, I'd suggest emailing them and they can be set up with costumes through Tales of the Seven Seas. If you want to hear them first, they are sailing with us on Feb 15th and will be playing on the sail. Fiddle n' Mandolin Pirates I'm afraid I don't have a contact for Caribbean music.

I have a few entertainers which might be of interest- Our own Captain Jack here at pub, along with Nyre the Black Rose do a piratical magic act. His website be here: Pirate Magic We frequently work with the Highlander Warriors when we have a client who needs high-end swordsmen for hire. They are fantastic and they do pirates in addition to thier Celtic warriors. Pirate Sword Fighters

CT Ben, we enjoyed yer fife playin' too!! T'was a highly effective follow-up after blastin' the Kualani!

So Elizabeth, in otherwords, ye' be sayin' that yer bloomin' crazy fer Bloom and that ye' want Bloom in yer bloomin' bloomers, deflowerin' the bloomin' blossom o' yer womanhood... right?

Here is the piano book a few dollars cheaper...

Here is a series of POTC sheet music sets put out by Hal Leonard for purchase: POTC Sheet Music Sets

He's A Pirate Here is someone's unofficial transcription, created from the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack. This one is intended for violin, so it just gives the treble clef and includes bowing and fingering notations.