I need your coordinates for the orbital impact, please.
When I saw the thread title, my first thought was “the leader of those Somali pirates who accidentally tried to capture the French anti-piracy command ship”. Seriously though, there isn’t a GQ answer to this without some parameters. Fairly recent pirates who were also slavers would have to come close to the top of the list if you include their activities as piracy.
“Buccaneer” these days is pretty much synonymous with pirate. Although many buccaneers were privateers (if that’s the distinction you’re making), others were not. I could be wrong, but as far as I am aware L’Olonnais was usually not sailing under letters of marque, and hence an ordinary pirate and not a privateer.
In the Special Edition, Greyishbeard (Blackbeard’s director friend) added special effects to make it look like Israel shot first.
Thread win.
No, the distinction I’m making is that Buccaneers were motivated by nationalism, and faith. They didnt necessearily have letters of marque, but they were focusing on particular targets, according to nationalities and hostilities between nations. Besides the age of Buccaneers happens when Spain dominates the game, that of pirates is when Britain takes over. As I said I think Buccaneers were crueler than pirates, the latters fought to plunder and live a dream of liberty, Buccaneers fought as privateers, more or less for their nation or their faith. Somehow you’ll always be crueler if you have a centuries old grudge against your captives.
Johnny Depp.
Please, a 5 year old could beat him up.
Capt. Henry Morgan used torture several times to get the inhabitants of various seaports to tell him where they were hiding their valuables. Not nice.
That could be almost any player on Pittsburgh’s roster.
He sold the ears he cut off for a dollar apiece ,thereby becoming Americas first Buccaneer.
:smack:
The worst pirate was the one who never stole anything, killed anybody, or committed any other acts of piracy. Everybody in this thread seems to be arguing about who the* best *pirate was.
I think you are referring to “Calico Jack” Rackham, though he never forced anyone to “walk the plank”, which was a much later addition of fiction writers as far as I know.
However, Calico Jackbelongs in any discussion of pirates because, despite his own utter incompetence, his name will forever be linked with Anne Bonneyand Mary Read.
This article doesn’t mention a specific pirate leader, and the article isn’t well sourced, but to me, the actions of Thai pirates during the Vietnamese Boat People diaspora are worse than the crimes of Teach, Roberts, et al that you all have already ably mentioned. Perhaps Siam Sam can chime in, but I was told it was not uncommon in the early 80s for bodies to frequently wash ashore in Thailand/Malaysia from the actions of these pirates.
You are absolutely correct. The Vietnamese boat people were horribly victimized by all sorts of pirates in this region. No one knows how many were killed after being robbed of their meager possessions. Vietnamese boat people were always washing up on the shore down South on the peninsula. An American friend of mine who lived down South at the time, an author, wrote a fictional novel called Boat People with this theme.
Pirates remain active. The problem with catching them is that none is a full-time professional pirate, like the movie pirates who spend their off hours in the pirate lair drinking rum and going “Yo ho ho!” They’re generally all fishermen who freelance as pirates as the opportunity arises. Even cruise ships are not immune from attacks. A common technique is to stretch a long rope between two boats in the path of a big liner at night. The liner will catch the rope, pulling the boats along in its wake. The pirates will climb aboard the liner via the rope, overpower the few crewmen on watch, plunder a bit, then take off.
The area between the Indonesian island of Sumatra and peninsular Malaysi is especially a hotbed of piracy.
I’ve said it for years: time to bring back Q-ships for anti-piracy work.
Since nobody else has said it yet:
“You are absolutely the worst pirate I have ever heard of.”
“Ah, but you have heard of me.”
Important safety warning: NEVER insert Q-ships into the ear canal itself.
Do, however, insert them into the Straits of Malacca.
I think it is strange that there is actually sea piracy going on now, in the 21st Century. I thought for some reason that piracy more or less died out over a 100 years ago due basically to the design of the ships and improvements in defense and weapons on board otherwise targeted ships.
Did pirates ever use the Jolly Roger? Did any of them own a parrot? How many pirates to a boat? Who owned the boat? How many of the things that is stereotypical about pirates, and which were fantasies?