The Voice of America reports that the Indian navy freed the hijacked MV Ruen cargo ship in Somalia’s Puntland region Saturday after a 24-hour standoff and shootout, and it has detained 35 pirates, according to Puntland Ports Minister Ahmed Yasin Salah. … Continue reading
Search Results for: "pirates"
Last February, archaeologists in Cape Cod recovered six skeletons from the ruins of the Whydah, a British pirate ship that sank during a 1717 storm with 146 men—and a trove of treasure—on board. A team led by Barry Clifford, who discovered … Continue reading
The story goes that somewhere around the year 400 AD, a lad of 16, named Maewyn Succat, was kidnapped by pirates from his home in what is now Wales and was taken as a slave to Ireland. He was enslaved … Continue reading
Suspected Niger River Delta pirates operating in the Gulf of Guinea have kidnapped 13 sailors from two ships in the last several days. The first abductions took place early Saturday morning at the port of Cotonou in Benin. Pirates kidnapped … Continue reading
What is it about the pirates of the so-called “Golden Age” that holds our attention over the centuries? The period has been romanticized and fictionalized in books, British musicals, Hollywood movies, and cable TV shows. Where do the legend and lore … Continue reading
The southern Caribbean has seen a significant increase in piracy of late, at least partially related to the economic and political turmoil in nearby Venezuela. Commerical ships, local fishermen and visiting yachts have all fallen prey to attacks from pirates. Oceans Beyond Piracy (OBP), a … Continue reading
My latest novel, Evening Gray Morning Red, has received not one, but two, wonderful reviews on the Pirates and Privateers blog, by Cindy Vallar and Irwin Bryan, respectively. Excerpts from Cindy Vallar’s review: “Gripping nautical and historical fiction at its best… Spilman deftly brings … Continue reading
A lump of paper wadding found in a cannon from the pirate Blackbeard‘s ship Queen Anne’s Revenge has been identified as containing scraps of paper from a book by Captain Edward Cooke written in 1712. Researchers were able to identify … Continue reading
“Captains, Pirates and Ghosts,” from the documentary series, Secrets of New York, hosted by Kelly Choi. It includes some nice shots of the South Street Seaport Museum‘s schooner Pioneer, with commentary by the museum’s Executive Director, Captain Johnathon Boulware. Segments from the Bridge Cafe, … Continue reading
My younger son, a senior in high school, mentioned to me a few mornings ago that the newest version of the historical action-adventure video game, Assassins Creed, which is Assassins Creed IV – Black Flag, has a feature that lets … Continue reading
Pirates are reported to have seized the captain and chief engineer from the US Flag offshore supply vessel, C-Retriever, which was attacked in the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of Nigeria early Wednesday. Both the captain and chief engineer are … Continue reading
Are Somali pirates and their affiliates using Facebook to organize and support ship hijackings? Experts at the United Nations say that this is the case and complain that Facebook has been ignoring their requests for information on Facebook accounts belonging to … Continue reading
We recently posted about the Michigan State Senate passing a resolution which officially recognized “International Talk Like a Pirate Day”. (It appears that they nothing better to do, in a state with a gaping budget deficit, collapsing cities and failing schools. … Continue reading
The North Devon Women’s Institute branch recently hosted former sea captain Colin Darch, who was to speak on the topic of piracy. A number of women in the organization thought that the captain would speak about historical buccaneering, and so … Continue reading
An April Fool’s post that is no joke. At 12:27 a.m. on April 1, 2010, in the Indian Ocean west of the Seychelles, three Somali pirates in a small skiff attacked what they thought was a merchant vessel. It wasn’t. They … Continue reading
Wonderful news. Forces of Somalia’s semiautonomous Puntland region are reported to have raided the MV Iceberg I on Sunday and to have rescued 22 officers and crew who had been held hostage by Somali pirates for 33 months. The Puntland forces had … Continue reading
Simply trying to keep up with what is going on the battle against piracy is not as easy as it might appear. For example, Maersk Texas, a US flag cargo ship came under attack by pirates in the Gulf of … Continue reading
Aargh. Once again, the junk food of maritime events, another “pirate” festival. This one is being sponsored by one of my favorite museums, the Maritime Museum of San Diego — home to the 1863 iron windjammer, Star of India, the world’s oldest active … Continue reading
Today, on the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic with the loss of 1,514 lives, it would be appropriate for a learned historian at an august university to sit down to ponder the commercialization of history and to consider how our consumer culture … Continue reading
We posted previously about “Pirates and Privateers,” a documentary on CBC’s Land and Sea. The 20 minute documentary is now available on-line. It presents a distinctive view of piracy and privateering from the perspective of the Canadian Maritimes, not often seen by those of us … Continue reading