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How Pirates Work · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com? Are and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast, etcetera. I am Josh Clark with me to
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Speaker 1: be laughy? Who is that a little laugh? I just
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Speaker 1: I was joking. I thought who was going to be
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Speaker 1: the first one to do it? And I didn't know
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Speaker 1: you were going to literally lead in with that. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I like to surprise you. Boom. Well that's a good one.
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Speaker 1: It's hard to amaze me. I'm glad you did it.
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Speaker 1: Chuck study wasn't going to do I know, and what
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Speaker 1: I last like thirty seconds? Such a pushover. I haven't
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Speaker 1: announced you yet. That's Chuck Bryant, right, Sara, etcetera. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know. The Pirate edition. Um,
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Speaker 1: I think we should be done with the pirate talking. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that could get really annoying. Yeah, you want to know
0:55
Speaker 1: what is probably the most annoying day of the year,
1:00
Speaker 1: some kind of pirate day? September nineteenth, talk like a
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Speaker 1: pirate day? Really, I think I remember that because Strickland
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Speaker 1: came was like slinging ours all over the Austine Tricklin
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Speaker 1: Anti dub are being into pirates stuff, Tracy, she wrote
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Speaker 1: this right, Yeah, it's a great article. Yeah, she's the
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Speaker 1: keeper of the house stuff works voice. She is indeed
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Speaker 1: like the old sage on that led Zeppelin poster with
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Speaker 1: the lantern. Yeah, that's that's why I think of a tracy.
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Speaker 1: Except when Star Trek Earrings speaking of off comes your head.
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Speaker 1: We're going to get into that, chuck, because we're talking
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Speaker 1: about pirates, and whenever pirates got caught, people love to
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Speaker 1: cut off their head and post it as a warning
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Speaker 1: to other pirates. Yeah that's gross, Yeah it is. You
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Speaker 1: mean to define pirate, Gosh, can you really define pirate? Sure,
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Speaker 1: a pirate is someone who uses a boat to attack
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Speaker 1: another boat with the intent to kidnap, steel or otherwise
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Speaker 1: do harm. Being bang boom end of podcasts. But that's
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Speaker 1: not all there are. There are a few of criteria.
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Speaker 1: I can't do that, please stop. There are a few
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Speaker 1: other criteria. Um, it must be for private gain using
2:07
Speaker 1: a private vessel, and it's for gain like it can
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Speaker 1: be um like green Peace coming up on like a
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Speaker 1: whaling ship or something not pirates um, and they operate
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Speaker 1: outside of a government authority, because back in the day
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Speaker 1: they used to governments use things people called privateers. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and a lot of pirates started out as privateers, which
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Speaker 1: are basically pirates, government licensed pirates. They had like a
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Speaker 1: letter of mark that said this guy is allowed to go. Um, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I'll do whatever to say the French or the Dutch.
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Speaker 1: But the problem is or maybe the Spanish during not
2:44
Speaker 1: times of not war, peace I think is the way
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Speaker 1: that most people put it. Peace, peace, thank you. During
2:52
Speaker 1: times of peace. Uh, these privateers would be out of
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Speaker 1: work and they'd be like, well, I have one skill
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Speaker 1: and so then they turned to piracy, right, or they
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Speaker 1: could have just gone and been like regular seamen and
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Speaker 1: um not gotten paid all that much? Yea, And who
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Speaker 1: wants to do that, right when you can plunder and
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Speaker 1: get the loot. Right. One of the reasons that people
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Speaker 1: engaged in piracy from early on is the same reason
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Speaker 1: that they do now. Uh. The economy a lot of
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Speaker 1: times when things are down, just like anything else with theft,
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Speaker 1: and we we talked about shoplifting and stuff like that
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Speaker 1: another podcast, UM one hour ago, the crime rate goes up.
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Speaker 1: So poverty led to an increase of in piracy over
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Speaker 1: the years, and not just it's not only when times
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Speaker 1: are tough, when times are really good too, and there's
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Speaker 1: a lot of trade on the high seas that the
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Speaker 1: opposite will attract pirates as well. Yeah, the golden nature piracy,
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Speaker 1: which we'll get into and uh piracy actually has a
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Speaker 1: very long, hearty tradition that dates back at least to
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Speaker 1: the fourth century BC. Yeah, the Luca Yeah, I've never
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Speaker 1: heard of that. I hadn't either, man. They attacked boats
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Speaker 1: off of the coast of uh what is now Turkey
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Speaker 1: in the fourteenth century. Yeah, a long time ago. Yeah,
4:04
Speaker 1: that's a very long time ago. That's as many as
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Speaker 1: thirty four years ago. It seems like almost since there
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Speaker 1: were boats on the high seas, there was piracy. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Tracy makes that point too. As long as people were
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Speaker 1: applying the high seas with goods that were worth stealing,
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Speaker 1: people stole them in boats piracy. Um, you might have
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Speaker 1: heard of the Corsairs, famous pirates. That was fifteenth and
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Speaker 1: sixteenth century, and of course the they were the Barbary Pirates,
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Speaker 1: the Barbary Pirates, which actually I wrote an article on
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Speaker 1: the Barbary Pirates. They were America's first terrorist threat. Really, huh.
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Speaker 1: It was Jefferson was the one that had to deal
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Speaker 1: with them. And they actually got their start from the
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Speaker 1: Red Beard brothers who were Turks. But they went down
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Speaker 1: to North Africa and I think converted to Islam and
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Speaker 1: they used to kidnap and torture and murder Spaniards and
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Speaker 1: Spaniards did the the opposite. But these two brothers, but
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Speaker 1: brothers Barbarosa, which means red Beard, gave the start to
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Speaker 1: the Barbary Pirates. They were very successful for I think
5:07
Speaker 1: over a century did not know that. Yeah, and then
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Speaker 1: of course the buccaneers, the lousy, stinking Tampa Bay Buccaneers
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Speaker 1: are named after the pirate buccaneers of the seventeenth century.
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Speaker 1: So that's just a I mean, there's a lot more
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Speaker 1: history in this article, but that's an overview, if you will.
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Speaker 1: It is an overview, uh, And it's it's not just
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Speaker 1: European or African. The Chinese used to like to pillage
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Speaker 1: in pirate after the Han dynasty around to twenty BC.
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Speaker 1: They used to like the pirate. Yeah, I'm trying to
5:39
Speaker 1: get this word out as a verb now too. Like that.
5:41
Speaker 1: And also I decided the new Rick role is Dion
5:44
Speaker 1: Warwick performing do you know the way to San Jose. Yeah,
5:48
Speaker 1: I've been. I've been. It's worked so far. Did it
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Speaker 1: to Robert Lamb and he was like, that's good. Where
5:53
Speaker 1: was that going anywhere? Okay? So, Josh, what do you
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Speaker 1: think of when you think of a pirate? What comes
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Speaker 1: to mind? What mental image do you get? I think
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Speaker 1: of a guy with maybe a tricornered hat, a tricorn,
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Speaker 1: it's called a tricorn. Okay, some hoop ear rings. What
6:10
Speaker 1: are those called hoop ear rings? Okay? Parrot that says
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Speaker 1: things like pieces of eight and dead men tell no
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Speaker 1: tales and stuff like that. Um, a peg leg usually
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Speaker 1: or a hook for a hand. Um. I think of, um,
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Speaker 1: very weathered, scarred skin, tattoos. I think of Johnny Depp.
6:30
Speaker 1: What about the clothes. The clothes, um, you know, a
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Speaker 1: ruffled shirt and a little fruity long coat. Um, yeah,
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Speaker 1: a long coat leather probably, um and uh I also
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Speaker 1: think of, um, a nice long sword, maybe a sure
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Speaker 1: flint lock pistol and uh. Furies also come to mind,
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Speaker 1: because usually if you run into a furry, there's someone
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Speaker 1: dress as a pirate nearby. Well, Josh, you want to
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Speaker 1: talk about if that's real or not? That stuff you
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Speaker 1: just named in the Golden Age of piracy, which is
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Speaker 1: this is the when we think of all those things.
7:07
Speaker 1: You're thinking of the Golden age of piracy, right, And
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Speaker 1: actually I was surprised after reading this article how short
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Speaker 1: it was, but I guess we'll get to that. It
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Speaker 1: was like fifty years or so, between sixteen ninety and
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Speaker 1: seventeen thirty. Okay, yeah, forty years, and that's when you
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Speaker 1: might have heard of people called black Beard. Yeah, Calico Jack.
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Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of him? Yeah? He was you know,
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Speaker 1: he was controversial, and I know it was because you know,
7:33
Speaker 1: I do know why, but I know you because he
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Speaker 1: allowed women pirates. Not only did he allow women pirates,
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Speaker 1: he had a pretty torrid affair on the high seas
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Speaker 1: with one and Bonnie. It seems like a good reason
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Speaker 1: to have a woman pirate. Yeah, they had a kid together,
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Speaker 1: which was born in Cuba. Um he stole her away
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Speaker 1: from her husband and she basically was this housewife who
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Speaker 1: went into a life of piracy. And she and another
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Speaker 1: mean named Mary Reid. We're aboard Calico jack ship. Right.
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Speaker 1: Once the crew found out that they were women, they
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Speaker 1: accepted them because I think Calico Jack was like, if
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Speaker 1: you don't cut your hat off, but don't accept them
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Speaker 1: too much, as I'll cut your head off. So they
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Speaker 1: dressed as women, um when they were just sailing, and
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Speaker 1: then when they were about to start fighting, they would
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Speaker 1: dress up as men, and apparently they killed as many people.
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Speaker 1: So if there's anybody else on that ship and a
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Speaker 1: witness for when they were both caught later on um,
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Speaker 1: a witness who testified against them said that they swore
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Speaker 1: and cursed with the best of them. Good for them,
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Speaker 1: women's lib way back in the golden age of piracy. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So one of the reasons it was the golden age
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Speaker 1: back then, Josh, is from what you just said, that
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Speaker 1: was when the seas were really flying around between Africa
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Speaker 1: and America and Europe. Have you heard the theory that
8:55
Speaker 1: African slaves Africa was tapped for slavery simply because of
9:00
Speaker 1: a trade wind. Really. Yeah, that went from the east
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Speaker 1: coast of the United States right down to um, what
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Speaker 1: is that western Africa? Interesting? Yeah, it just took your
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Speaker 1: right down and that's where that's why Africans became slaves
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Speaker 1: because it was so easy to get there. Interesting. Yeah,
9:16
Speaker 1: although the Portuguese already had a lock on the slave
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Speaker 1: trade by the time you know the colonists started or
9:21
Speaker 1: the English very true, we didn't make that up. Uh.
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Speaker 1: So lots of boats with like sugar and rum and startlingly,
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Speaker 1: it wasn't like big trunks full of gold coins usually, right,
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Speaker 1: that did happen, but it was more like goods. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: There was one specific ship that that that went down actually,
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Speaker 1: uh and the pirates treasure that you hear of a
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Speaker 1: lot um, it's pretty much personified or emblematic of this
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Speaker 1: one called the Wide Ah. Yeah, it was like pirate
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Speaker 1: Captain Sam Bellamy's ship, and it went down in seventeen
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Speaker 1: seventeen off the coast of Cape Comb, Massage usits and
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Speaker 1: it had literally chests of gold and jewels and things
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Speaker 1: in it when it went down. But normally they pillage sugar, frum, molasses,
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Speaker 1: stuff that you could turn around and sell in bulk
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Speaker 1: to somebody and say like Port Royal or whatever. So
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Speaker 1: the Golden Age, I mentioned it was big for two reasons.
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Speaker 1: One or that's what we think of when we think
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Speaker 1: of the traditional pirates, because the Golden Age was so big,
10:28
Speaker 1: and because of books like Treasure Island and Peter Pan Right,
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Speaker 1: that's why we think of the pirates is is what
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Speaker 1: you described earlier. It's like Santa Claus being our conception
10:39
Speaker 1: of Santa Claus comes from a illustration exactly from a
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Speaker 1: guy who is paid by Coca Cola. So let's go
10:45
Speaker 1: over those real quick. The flag that you often think of,
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Speaker 1: the Jolly Roger. Did you do any additional research on this?
10:52
Speaker 1: Tracy kind of traps around that one. It's a little sticky,
10:56
Speaker 1: is it? And this is definitely a family friendly article. Okay,
11:00
Speaker 1: can we mention it? No, we can't, But anybody can
11:03
Speaker 1: type in origins of Jolly Roger in Google and find
11:08
Speaker 1: it themselves, and we would bear no responsibility whatsoever for that. Well,
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Speaker 1: that flag made its first appearance in the early eighteenth century, Josh,
11:15
Speaker 1: and before that there is a little non fact by
11:17
Speaker 1: me at least, uh, you would and this makes total sense.
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Speaker 1: Pirates would fly up miss false colors basically to mislead
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Speaker 1: other ships that they were dangerous. Yeah, and total sense. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's the smart thing to do, right, smart. It's just
11:32
Speaker 1: like the Jolly Roger, which I also found out from
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Speaker 1: this one often had a skeleton, not just the skull
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Speaker 1: and cross. Sometimes it was a black um flag with
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Speaker 1: a white skeleton UM. So it always struck me as
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Speaker 1: weird because you're like, hey, I'm a pirate and I'm
11:48
Speaker 1: coming after you. But it turns out they did do
11:50
Speaker 1: that purposely because in a lot of um, a lot
11:54
Speaker 1: of ways, pirates were so feared that, um, the ship
11:57
Speaker 1: would just be like, Okay, you're a pirate here to
11:59
Speaker 1: take our stuff. Well, yeah, that's best case scenario. What
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Speaker 1: they want is for the ship to immediately surrender. So
12:05
Speaker 1: that's what the pirates really looking for because then you
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Speaker 1: get the you get the cargo, you get whatever stuff
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Speaker 1: is on board, money maybe, um, and you get the ship. Yeah,
12:15
Speaker 1: and a lot. Apparently it wasn't hard to flip a
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Speaker 1: crew over to piracy. I think there's a really thin
12:21
Speaker 1: line between you know, legitimate semen and a pirate. Uh
12:27
Speaker 1: during the golden age of piracy. And you know, if
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Speaker 1: you captured a crew and said I need you guys,
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Speaker 1: they'd say okay, or what they probably said was, you
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Speaker 1: have a couple of choices. You can become a pirate,
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Speaker 1: or we can shoot you in the face or maroon
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Speaker 1: you on this island. Yeah. I love that word. What maroon?
12:41
Speaker 1: Yes really, yeah, I just think it's a great word.
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Speaker 1: And of course that means to strand on an island
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Speaker 1: or deserted island. Doesn't really work if you drop them
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Speaker 1: off in Haiti. Um, but you find a deserted island
12:53
Speaker 1: drop off the crew. Sometimes they would leave them with
12:55
Speaker 1: supplies and other times they leave them with nothing and
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Speaker 1: you just leave, and it's pretty much a sentence pretty much. Uh.
13:02
Speaker 1: Their clothes Josh, that you described are you know it
13:05
Speaker 1: could have been real because they basically wore what people
13:07
Speaker 1: wore at the time. But a lot of times they
13:09
Speaker 1: would get the clothes from that We're maybe being shipped
13:12
Speaker 1: to rich, wealthy people or so they would have like
13:16
Speaker 1: fine clothes, like the ruffled churts and all that. Parents true,
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Speaker 1: We're not true. I don't think it's true. Not necessarily,
13:24
Speaker 1: she says. Um, they did capture parents to sell them.
13:28
Speaker 1: But um, that's that's from Treasure Island. Yeah, basically hooks
13:34
Speaker 1: and pegs legs. Yeah, that happened. Do you know why
13:39
Speaker 1: because being a fire it was dangerous. You get your
13:42
Speaker 1: arms and your legs blown off many times. So there
13:44
Speaker 1: were probably some peg legs walking around stumping around. And
13:49
Speaker 1: but that was also from Captain Hook and Treasure Island.
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Speaker 1: So a lot of these things are fictional but may
13:55
Speaker 1: or may not have happened. And um, flintlock pistols, I
13:59
Speaker 1: had those it then, that's true. But they didn't work
14:02
Speaker 1: very well at sea, yeah, because of the saltwater. Right,
14:05
Speaker 1: but they still used them when they could the very
14:08
Speaker 1: at least you can club somebody in the head with it.
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Speaker 1: They're big. Um. And then along with obviously the swords
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Speaker 1: and daggers and all that stuff that you're familiar with,
14:14
Speaker 1: right uh and chuck, we we are focusing on the
14:17
Speaker 1: Golden Age of piracy. I think we should say. One
14:20
Speaker 1: of the reasons that gave rise to it was the
14:22
Speaker 1: War of Spanish Secession. Alright, what I was talking about
14:25
Speaker 1: about the privateers, right, yeah, and that happened many, many times. Um.
14:30
Speaker 1: The War of Spanish Secession gave rise to the Golden
14:33
Speaker 1: Age of piracy because there were so many privateers. But
14:35
Speaker 1: the United States used to give letters of mark pirates
14:39
Speaker 1: that actually, uh are privateers that turned pirate. Um, the
14:43
Speaker 1: British did it it. It happened, I think, um, well
14:46
Speaker 1: into the nineteenth century there were privateers turned pirates. Yeah,
14:52
Speaker 1: another falsehood. They are often depicted as steering these huge galleons.
14:58
Speaker 1: They would often attack these galleons. But a galleon isn't
15:01
Speaker 1: great if you're going to be in a a pirate
15:03
Speaker 1: because you want to get in and out. It's all
15:05
Speaker 1: about speed. In fact, modern pirates use speed boats mainly,
15:08
Speaker 1: which we'll get too in a minute, but they usually
15:11
Speaker 1: used um smaller uh sloops and schooners, so so they
15:16
Speaker 1: get in and out quicker, but no less cool. Or
15:19
Speaker 1: they could have also used a brigantine, which um what
15:23
Speaker 1: it was. It's like a larger version of the schooner.
15:27
Speaker 1: It could hold about a hundred and fifty men, uh
15:30
Speaker 1: and probably about thirty cannons. Not bad, No, you could
15:35
Speaker 1: do some real damage with that. So what's lifelike on
15:38
Speaker 1: a boat, Josh? It's it is, indeed, because they're not
15:43
Speaker 1: feasting on like fine meals and drinking fine wines. They
15:48
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess if they pillage some than they could.
15:51
Speaker 1: But when that's gone, dude, they're eating spoiled meat. They
15:54
Speaker 1: are eating water tainted with algae, which you could eat actually,
16:00
Speaker 1: and they drank it and uh they ate their water
16:02
Speaker 1: with a fork, that's how bad it was. And they
16:05
Speaker 1: ate something called hard tack. Yes, I've never heard of that.
16:08
Speaker 1: You know what another word for hard tech is what
16:10
Speaker 1: sea biscuit? Really is that where that comes from. I'm
16:13
Speaker 1: learning all kinds of things. That's like a really hard cracker.
16:16
Speaker 1: And they took that out to see because it didn't
16:18
Speaker 1: spoil is fast, but I'll bet it was hell on teeth.
16:21
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and they also said that it was you know,
16:24
Speaker 1: when you're out to see for that long, it's like
16:26
Speaker 1: weevils like crawling around and that's gross. Yeah, so you're
16:31
Speaker 1: not exactly happy, and probably after a couple of days
16:35
Speaker 1: of eating hard tack and spoiled meat, you are really
16:38
Speaker 1: really ready to go butcher a crew to get your
16:41
Speaker 1: hands on their food. Yeah. I imagine that you had
16:44
Speaker 1: no trouble persuading your crew to go after each and
16:46
Speaker 1: every ship you came upon. I would think, So, you know,
16:49
Speaker 1: you know how they did that, how they came up,
16:50
Speaker 1: and you want to talk about how that they did
16:52
Speaker 1: their thing. Yeah, let's let's talk about that. Usually at
16:55
Speaker 1: night they would sneak up on the stern side and
16:59
Speaker 1: they would uh throw up the grappling hooks and they
17:01
Speaker 1: would climb aboard and try and get them to surrender
17:05
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. Right, Like you said that The
17:08
Speaker 1: ideal confrontation was one where the other ship just gave
17:12
Speaker 1: up immediately without a fight. Right. Sometimes that didn't help
17:16
Speaker 1: or it didn't work, um, so they would have to fight,
17:19
Speaker 1: and they would what did you say, grappling hooks. Yeah,
17:21
Speaker 1: the grappling hooks to get up so they board, sure, right,
17:24
Speaker 1: and that you'd want to actually keep your um, your
17:27
Speaker 1: ship out of cannon fire range. Um, so that you
17:31
Speaker 1: would just get in a few boats and swim over
17:34
Speaker 1: to it or row over to it, and then climb aboard,
17:37
Speaker 1: and then the massacre would begin, right, or if not
17:40
Speaker 1: a surrender, then the masket would be and they would
17:42
Speaker 1: disable the rudder to which I didn't know, which is
17:44
Speaker 1: pretty smart. Yeah, straightaway, so they couldn't steer away or anything, right,
17:48
Speaker 1: but you could still toe what I imagine, Yeah, I
17:51
Speaker 1: guess because the ideal situations to get the boat. That's
17:54
Speaker 1: why they didn't want to bombard them with cannon fire,
17:57
Speaker 1: because you want to take the boat and everything that's
17:59
Speaker 1: got on it in one piece. And plus, even if
18:02
Speaker 1: you don't intend to take the boat, you don't want
18:05
Speaker 1: to sink it before you can get to the cargo. Right.
18:08
Speaker 1: So there was cannon fire that did happen when all
18:11
Speaker 1: outs failed. And I think Tracy said they also fired
18:15
Speaker 1: a grape shot. Have you ever heard of that? Huh?
18:17
Speaker 1: Whell those like small little cannonballs. It looks like a
18:20
Speaker 1: little bunch of grapes actually, and they would spit like
18:23
Speaker 1: spew out like a shotgun. Yeah, I think somewhere else
18:26
Speaker 1: they're they're molded together. I think they do spit out
18:30
Speaker 1: like a shotgun, but they're like that bigger around the spray.
18:32
Speaker 1: You're in trouble if somebody hits you a grape shot
18:35
Speaker 1: and actually they would go for the guy at the
18:37
Speaker 1: wheel was their first shot if they shot sure at
18:40
Speaker 1: the other ship and the guy steering. Apparently when they
18:44
Speaker 1: did capture crew, if they weren't in the mood to
18:47
Speaker 1: um turn them. There were several things they could do
18:51
Speaker 1: aboard the high season. One thing I read about was
18:54
Speaker 1: um they would tie tie somebody to the mast and
18:58
Speaker 1: just throw broken bottles at them until they got bored
19:01
Speaker 1: with that. That was one thing. Hauling so this sounds awful. Yeah.
19:07
Speaker 1: Keel hauling is when they tied a rope. They're big
19:10
Speaker 1: on the rope and they would throw you overboard and
19:12
Speaker 1: drag you under the keel of the boat, which pretty
19:15
Speaker 1: much means you you drowned. Yeah, or and along the
19:17
Speaker 1: way we're cut up by the barnacles that were stuck
19:20
Speaker 1: to the ship. And they would do this to their
19:21
Speaker 1: own guys. Apparently there was a strict code on the
19:24
Speaker 1: boat with the crew, and if you disobeyed the code,
19:28
Speaker 1: you would be treated just like the enemy would be. Uh.
19:31
Speaker 1: One thing that is fiction is walking the plank. Chuck,
19:36
Speaker 1: I did not know that either. Yeah, this is like
19:38
Speaker 1: the totem pole. I'm just I'm learning. Apparently, right, that
19:43
Speaker 1: was all. That's all just made up for books, right,
19:46
Speaker 1: walking the plank. Yep, that's disappointing. Um, so let's see
19:50
Speaker 1: what else, chuck. Oh Uh, Tracy made a really excellent
19:54
Speaker 1: point that I hadn't thought of. But if you have
19:57
Speaker 1: two ships and they're the same same type of ship,
20:01
Speaker 1: how does one catch the other? If you're using sales
20:03
Speaker 1: and oars, right, the same number of oars, same wind. Um. Apparently,
20:08
Speaker 1: if you were a decent pirate, you would beat your
20:11
Speaker 1: ship every once in a while and then clean off
20:13
Speaker 1: the hole and the barnacles off the hole to make
20:16
Speaker 1: it slide through a lot faster. Remember we were talking
20:18
Speaker 1: about ships that are being outfitted with that ouze that
20:22
Speaker 1: resembles a pilot whale skin. Um, the pilot whales keep
20:27
Speaker 1: barnacles off, and this ouze is the aim of the
20:29
Speaker 1: ouze is to keep um barnacles off of these ships
20:32
Speaker 1: to go fat or more efficiently at least, and go faster.
20:35
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think it was gonna cut fuel consumption
20:38
Speaker 1: by like twenty percentage of consumption consumption. So that is
20:44
Speaker 1: how you would catch up to somebody else. You could
20:45
Speaker 1: also offload cargo, store it, maybe bury it in North
20:48
Speaker 1: Carolina and um, yeah, that is an interesting point. I
20:53
Speaker 1: ever thought about that because they they have the same wind.
20:57
Speaker 1: That's right. Are we done with old pirates? Seems like okay,
21:02
Speaker 1: modern modern times. Yeah, there was like there was a
21:04
Speaker 1: lull between the nineteenth century and the twenty first century really,
21:08
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, we have pirates again. Yeah.
21:11
Speaker 1: I mean there's probably little pirateing here, and they're not
21:13
Speaker 1: like we've been seeing lately. Yeah, this one could almost
21:16
Speaker 1: call this the second Golden Age of piracy. Josh, if
21:20
Speaker 1: one were so inclined. Do you know why that is
21:22
Speaker 1: flourishing again? Economy much for the same reasons that it
21:25
Speaker 1: flourished back then. Economy is bad. Um, ship masters have
21:31
Speaker 1: been reluctant to report them who ship masters? Ship masters
21:35
Speaker 1: are reluctant to report the attacks because it can take
21:38
Speaker 1: a long time and be expensive and hold them up,
21:40
Speaker 1: so they'll just let it go undone. And they because
21:43
Speaker 1: of the economy, their staffing crews with smaller, smaller crews,
21:48
Speaker 1: ships of smaller cruise and the vast majority of modern
21:50
Speaker 1: pirate attacks are happening in the Gulf of Aiden, and
21:54
Speaker 1: they are being undertaken by Somali pirates. And one of
21:57
Speaker 1: the reasons why the pirates are getting away from it
21:59
Speaker 1: is because some only is as far as I know,
22:01
Speaker 1: the one nation on the entire planet that doesn't have
22:04
Speaker 1: a functioning central government. It's truly lawless, great place for
22:09
Speaker 1: pirates to hang out, right, Um, we're land based these days.
22:13
Speaker 1: Well they're hugging shore more right, but they have their
22:16
Speaker 1: operations based on land all right. Well, I mean they
22:18
Speaker 1: did that. They did the same thing during other ages
22:21
Speaker 1: of piracy, like the buccaneers all hung out in Port Royal. Yeah. Um.
22:26
Speaker 1: So the other reason the Gulf of Aiden is such
22:31
Speaker 1: a hotspot for piracy. Apparently ten or eleven percent of
22:34
Speaker 1: all of the world's oil goes through the Gulf of Aden,
22:38
Speaker 1: which is a relatively relatively narrow stretch UM between the
22:43
Speaker 1: Middle East and North Africa, northeastern Africa, UM, And it's
22:48
Speaker 1: two fifty miles wide, and it's like that for nine miles,
22:51
Speaker 1: so it's like a bottleneck. And then you're going right
22:54
Speaker 1: alongside the only country on the planet without a functioning
22:57
Speaker 1: central government. And I think eight percent of all of
23:01
Speaker 1: the goods shipped UM globally go through the Gulf of
23:06
Speaker 1: Aiden as well. Really yeah, so there's a lot of
23:08
Speaker 1: cash that flows through that that goalf. So you know
23:12
Speaker 1: how they operate nowadays, I do kind of just like
23:15
Speaker 1: they used to, except with rocket propelled grenade. They have RPGs.
23:21
Speaker 1: But they will do the same thing. They'll get a
23:22
Speaker 1: smaller boat, it's faster boat. They will sneak up on
23:25
Speaker 1: the stern and the dead of night with their grappling
23:28
Speaker 1: hooks and board the ship. And of course now they
23:31
Speaker 1: have you know, a crew of like that one incident
23:33
Speaker 1: earlier this year was like six or eight guys, wouldn't it. Yeah,
23:36
Speaker 1: So not as hard to overtake a ship these days
23:38
Speaker 1: when you have machine guns and RPGs and a crew
23:40
Speaker 1: of six that you have to overtake. Are you talking
23:42
Speaker 1: about the Maresk, Alabama one where the Navy came in
23:45
Speaker 1: and the snipers killed the guy he did a little
23:48
Speaker 1: two tap. I would demend it. So yeah, but they're
23:51
Speaker 1: not after cargo, which I didn't know. I thought, like,
23:53
Speaker 1: it depends, well, I guess it does. But Tracy made
23:56
Speaker 1: the point that they can't overtake these huge cargo ships
24:00
Speaker 1: is they don't have the means to get rid of
24:02
Speaker 1: all that stuff. So they're usually after uh like smaller
24:05
Speaker 1: equipment on the boat in personal loot and sometimes they
24:09
Speaker 1: carry a lot of money in safe And I found
24:11
Speaker 1: it interesting because I think she wrote this in like
24:13
Speaker 1: two thousand five, maybe two thousand six, and it seems
24:16
Speaker 1: like two thousand seven or eight was when things really changed.
24:19
Speaker 1: Remember the the cargo ship filled with Russian tanks that
24:25
Speaker 1: was held, the cargo, the tanker filled with oil that
24:29
Speaker 1: was held. So so they are going after the cargo
24:31
Speaker 1: now they're just holding it for ransom. They're not trying
24:33
Speaker 1: to fence it. Like you can't fence a hundred Russian
24:36
Speaker 1: tanks or a container ship full of oil, but you
24:41
Speaker 1: can't hold the hostage and get money. You can hold
24:45
Speaker 1: it ransom and get money for you know, to to
24:47
Speaker 1: release it. And that's what they've been doing successfully. Yeah.
24:49
Speaker 1: I never followed up, but I did remember hearing about
24:52
Speaker 1: a couple that was sailing around the world and they
24:55
Speaker 1: were um kidnapped by pirates. I read something in the
24:59
Speaker 1: New York Times that was this year, I think, but
25:00
Speaker 1: I never found out what happened to them. Like a
25:02
Speaker 1: wealthy couple. Do you remember that guy who um was
25:05
Speaker 1: He had like a walk on part as and I
25:09
Speaker 1: think is like, uh, I don't remember what he was,
25:11
Speaker 1: but it was on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and he
25:15
Speaker 1: killed some couple for their yacht. But this wasn't him. No, okay,
25:19
Speaker 1: he wasn't a pirate. He's a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger Chuck. Yes,
25:23
Speaker 1: Let's say we are aboard a cargo ship filled with
25:27
Speaker 1: oil and pirates are heading our way with RPGs um
25:31
Speaker 1: rocket launchers a K forty seven's what do we do? Well,
25:35
Speaker 1: if you see them headed, I'm not really sure. I
25:37
Speaker 1: know you can do beforehand. You cannot discuss your route
25:41
Speaker 1: while you're in port. Yeah, like you don't don't go
25:43
Speaker 1: to the bar and say, yeah, we got a shipment
25:45
Speaker 1: of diamonds. We're gonna be taken to the Straits of
25:47
Speaker 1: horror muth And I'll bet that guy that was good.
25:52
Speaker 1: Actually that was the jackass shipmate who has a loud mouth.
25:57
Speaker 1: That was a perfect impression. And you know what, I'll
25:59
Speaker 1: bet that rule of thumb is this. It goes back
26:02
Speaker 1: to the Luca. Yeah, I bet, I bet so. Yeah,
26:04
Speaker 1: you just keep your mouth shut. Yeah, we've learned that
26:06
Speaker 1: a lot on the show. Kind of if only we could,
26:09
Speaker 1: um keep constant watch obviously to have someone up and
26:13
Speaker 1: what's it called the crow's nest looking out avoid bottlenecks, which,
26:17
Speaker 1: unfortunately with that one route you're talking about, it sounds
26:20
Speaker 1: like it's kind of hard to do, if not impossible,
26:24
Speaker 1: and uh, search your ship, you know, make sure no
26:26
Speaker 1: one's stowing away. Sometimes pirates will already be there as stowaways.
26:30
Speaker 1: It's like surprise call for help. I think there's uh
26:34
Speaker 1: their systems now that monitor where your boats are. If
26:37
Speaker 1: you're a cargo boat, shiplock, shiplock, there you go. What
26:40
Speaker 1: do they do? It's like low jack for your ship. Okay, yeah,
26:43
Speaker 1: well there you have it. Um, But yeah, if we
26:45
Speaker 1: if you do see some pirates coming aboard. If you
26:47
Speaker 1: ever happen to find yourself commanding an oil tanker and
26:51
Speaker 1: you see, uh, you see pirates coming towards you, you
26:55
Speaker 1: do call for help. As Chuck said, you also want
26:58
Speaker 1: to sound your alarm, turn on your lights. You want
27:02
Speaker 1: the pirates to know that you've seen them, so there's
27:04
Speaker 1: no element of surprise. Yeah, it may actually deter their
27:07
Speaker 1: attacks because you know, you're a huge cargo ship and
27:10
Speaker 1: they're like five guys. Um. A lot of ships, especially tankers,
27:14
Speaker 1: have their own fire hoses, like the big kind um,
27:18
Speaker 1: and you can spray guys as they try to come
27:20
Speaker 1: up the side of the ship. Kind Yeah, well you
27:22
Speaker 1: know it's like yeah, um and uh, if you aren't
27:29
Speaker 1: transporting oil or any kind of flamable material, there's actually,
27:32
Speaker 1: um a new kind of technology that electrifies the whole
27:36
Speaker 1: I heard about that. So the guy tries to climb up,
27:38
Speaker 1: he's like surprise, Yeah, exactly. That'd be awesome. Oh it
27:42
Speaker 1: would be dude. If I had that system, I would
27:43
Speaker 1: go through that shipping channeling you're talking about, and I
27:46
Speaker 1: would just like camp out the donuts in the Gulf
27:49
Speaker 1: of Aiden. Yeah, just to smoke a cigar and crack
27:51
Speaker 1: of beer and be like, can I get it? So
27:53
Speaker 1: that's pirates that I that I'm sure that it's not
27:58
Speaker 1: at all. It's the tip of the ice. Or even
28:00
Speaker 1: as far as Tracy's article goes, there's still more that
28:03
Speaker 1: we didn't touch on. But yeah, it's such a rich,
28:05
Speaker 1: beautiful history films and corsairs and swashbuckling, etcetera. And we're
28:10
Speaker 1: not touching on film and TV at all, because if
28:13
Speaker 1: we mentioned a hundred pirate things, we would get an
28:16
Speaker 1: email saying, I can't believe you didn't mention Pirate X
28:20
Speaker 1: from movie X y Z. And actually there's a little
28:23
Speaker 1: graph that Tracy had made for this article that it's
28:26
Speaker 1: it's our ten favorite pirates. But we're just gonna go
28:29
Speaker 1: ahead and break the news that this is Tracy's ten
28:31
Speaker 1: favorite pirates. Is your favorite? I didn't see that black
28:33
Speaker 1: Beard black Beards number one for historical pirates, and then
28:36
Speaker 1: in fiction tread Pirate Roberts, the guy from Prince's Pride,
28:40
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah yeah, and the guy from Fireflies in
28:43
Speaker 1: there too. I like Jack Sparrow. I didn't like those
28:46
Speaker 1: movies weren't the best ever, but he was pretty awesome.
28:48
Speaker 1: We just fell into what you said we weren't going
28:50
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, but come on, all right, Well we
28:54
Speaker 1: welcome your emails. We'll give you the email address you
28:56
Speaker 1: can send your angry pirate emails too. And this second, um,
29:02
Speaker 1: let me say this, so no email with multiple ours
29:04
Speaker 1: will be read or answered to. As a matter of fact,
29:07
Speaker 1: I think we set up a spam filter that if
29:09
Speaker 1: our appears in the email, it's just automatically deletes. We
29:12
Speaker 1: can see okay, um, if you want to learn more
29:15
Speaker 1: about pirates, type that word in pirates, pirate, um, something
29:19
Speaker 1: like that into the handy search bar at how stuff
29:21
Speaker 1: works dot com, which means it's time for a listener
29:23
Speaker 1: May is indeed, Josh, today we have a listener mail.
29:29
Speaker 1: I am going to call uh. Jerry was amazed by
29:32
Speaker 1: this email. Awesome and I was too. Hey, guys, I
29:36
Speaker 1: was listening to your podcast on hostage negotiation and you
29:40
Speaker 1: had a little back and forth at about the ten
29:43
Speaker 1: minute mark that made me laugh a little bit. This
29:45
Speaker 1: isn't the one? Isn't this is the one? So should
29:48
Speaker 1: we play that now? Yes? Let's I love doing that.
29:53
Speaker 1: It's usually just a regular domestic scene and the worst ones, man,
29:57
Speaker 1: the worst ones of those you see on the New
30:00
Speaker 1: is where you see some dudes got a baby acting
30:03
Speaker 1: as a human shield. Who does that? You've never seen that? No, oh, man,
30:08
Speaker 1: it's it's the worst watching those cop shows. A baby
30:10
Speaker 1: is a human shields. It's like the dad is out
30:14
Speaker 1: of his mind and uh on drugs or something and
30:17
Speaker 1: he'll have his baby and it's just it's the worst
30:19
Speaker 1: thing in the world to watch unfold. Okay, Josh, this
30:23
Speaker 1: from Danny, And here's what Danny has to say about that.
30:25
Speaker 1: Except this is the one. I was one of those babies.
30:30
Speaker 1: We were living in Queens, New York at the time,
30:32
Speaker 1: and my father barricaded himself on our top floor apartment
30:36
Speaker 1: for hours. He was holding me and threatening to jump
30:39
Speaker 1: out of the window with me in his arms if
30:41
Speaker 1: the police got too close. He didn't have any elaborate
30:44
Speaker 1: demands other than wanting my mother to not take me
30:47
Speaker 1: away from him in a custody dispute. The police used
30:50
Speaker 1: a negotiator to try and distract him so the swat
30:53
Speaker 1: team could do their own thing. Could do their thing,
30:56
Speaker 1: but they deemed it too risky to try an assault
30:58
Speaker 1: with him dangling me out the window like Michael Jackson did.
31:02
Speaker 1: That's not in there. I just threw that in. Eventually,
31:05
Speaker 1: the negotiators started playing to his religious beliefs, good tactic,
31:09
Speaker 1: and got him to let a priest come into the apartment.
31:12
Speaker 1: They were finally able to take him down without brute force.
31:15
Speaker 1: You can imagine how much I appreciate the art of
31:17
Speaker 1: obstage negotiations. No kidding, Danny. Uh. The story made the
31:21
Speaker 1: cover of every New York newspaper that day, and I
31:24
Speaker 1: have all of them saved odd souvenirs. I guess, thanks
31:28
Speaker 1: for the great show. I know. So I couldn't believe
31:31
Speaker 1: this happened in Danny, and I wrote him back and
31:33
Speaker 1: I asked what happened to his dad? And um, I
31:35
Speaker 1: have not heard back from him, so I'm not really sure.
31:37
Speaker 1: But dude, Danny, glad you're around. Man. I know I
31:41
Speaker 1: am too. That's just mind boggling. Actually, Uh, it turns
31:45
Speaker 1: out people do use babies as human shields, and they
31:48
Speaker 1: listen to stuff you should know twenty years on. If
31:51
Speaker 1: you have an absolutely nutty, mind boggling real life story, Chuck,
31:56
Speaker 1: Jerry and I are always interested in those. If you're Somalipoe,
32:00
Speaker 1: then you listen to the show. Why not let us know.
32:02
Speaker 1: Let us see your view. We we don't hear your
32:04
Speaker 1: view very often here in the West, So let us
32:07
Speaker 1: know what life is like for you, uh Somali pirate,
32:11
Speaker 1: human shield or anything else. Let us know. Send in
32:14
Speaker 1: an email to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot
32:19
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics
32:25
Speaker 1: because it how stuff works dot com. Want more how
32:28
Speaker 1: stuff works, check out our blogs on the house. Stuff
32:31
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