Pirate Ships of No Consequence

Littoral Pirate Projection Platforms (LPPP) (coastal / brown water pirate ships)

Return to Pirate Corvettes

These are smaller pirate ships. They don’t get much out from coastal waters, and they don’t do well against Spanish Galleons, East Indiamen, or Royal warships. Entry-level positions may be available on these, but, really, all pirates want to go pro in the heavies above.

Alton Towers Pirate Ship LOA 75′ / 22.9 m

This small coastal pirate ship, located in Mutiny Bay in Alton Towers amusement park, has two things going for it: it is pretty scary, and it has a whole host of smaller pirate barges that mount an effective guard detail around it, and that can be used to conduct pirate amphibious landings.

Alton_towers_mutiny_bay_pirate_ship
Alton Towers Mutiny Bay pirate ship, ca. 2008 Credit: roger blake, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Alton Towers pirate ship staffordshire 2013

Valcartier Pirate ship LOA 66′ / 20.1 m

Marooned at the Village de Vacances near Valcartier, Quebec. In satellite imagery, this small pirate ship presents an excellent shadow. It is maybe a brig, and also is heavily armed for crowd control, with water-blasting cannon and swivel guns.

Valcartier QC Pirate_ship2
The Valcartier pirate ship, ca. 2012. Credit: Captain Henry Morgan, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

water park pirate ship Valcartier QC 2018

Buccaneer Pirate Cruise Ship LOA 100′ / 30.5 m, Destin, FL. A fairly substantial pirate cruiser, with two levels of stern galleries and painting for about 10 cannon on the broadside. This one is the comfort cruiser option for the pirate captain.

Buccaneer Pirate Cruise Ship Destin, FL

Captain Memo’s Pirate Cruise Ship LOA 65′ / 19.8 m raiding out of a home base of Clearwater FL, for the last 40 years! Captain Memo's pirate ship cruise CLearwater FL 2017

Jolly Roger Pirate show boats, Cancun. LOA ca. 120-140′ / 36.6-42.7 m.

If you’re ever up old Cancun town way, beware the booze barkies! It is difficult to express how sad these fat little pirate ships make us. This flotilla was built to hold a small complement of pirates, and an enormous group of captives/hostages/adventurers, and ply them with alcohol until they surrender their valuable coin. Their lines are so slovenly and their rig so abbreviated, they couldn’t catch a mishandled fishing smack with fairest winds and most following seas.

Pirates_of_the_Caribbean_(2657120043)
The sad little fleet of Cancun tourist ships. No grace, little sheer, and a rig that would make a prison hulk look over-canvassed. To quote from the wiki contributor’s description “These are the drunk tourists ships” Credit: Serge Melki from Indianapolis, USA, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Jolly Roger tourist ships cancun 2020

Grey Ghost (Pirate Life, formerly Pirate Adventures Ottawa) LOA 53′ / 16.1 m TDISP unknown. This small riverine pirate ship terrorizes Mooney’s Bay and some stretches of the Rideau Canal in the Canadian capital of Ottawa. It is the main impediment to vital trade coming up the canal system from Lake Ontario, and this forced the Canadian Government to build a railway system and 4-lane highways. It has a very minimal brig rig, and appears to be the questionable offspring of a pontoon boat and a canal barge.

img_4561
Grey Ghost,  Sep. 2021. Credit: Warsearcher
img_4521
Grey Ghost, Sep. 2021. Credit: Warsearcher

Pirate's life ship Ottawa 2016Pirate's life ship Ottawa 2018

%d bloggers like this: