Tales of Pirates and Blue Water


Book Description

Tales of Pirates and Blue Water is a collection of adventurous maritime short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle was a British writer and physician. Excerpt: "Left to themselves, the captain and mate made the best preparations which they could for their illustrious passenger. The largest cabin was turned out and adorned in his honour, and orders were given by which barrels of fruit and some cases of wine should be brought off to vary the plain food of an ocean-going trader. In the evening the Governor's baggage began to arrive--great ironbound ant-proof trunks, and official tin packing-cases, with other strange-shaped packages, which suggested the cocked hat or the sword within. And then there came a note, with a heraldic device upon the big red seal, to say that Sir Charles Ewan made his compliments to Captain Scarrow, and that he hoped to be with him in the morning as early as his duties and his infirmities would permit."




Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America's Most Notorious Pirates


Book Description

With surprising tales of vicious mutineers, imperial riches, and high-seas intrigue, Black Flags, Blue Waters is “rumbustious enough for the adventure-hungry” (Peter Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle). Set against the backdrop of the Age of Exploration, Black Flags, Blue Waters reveals the surprising history of American piracy’s “Golden Age” - spanning the late 1600s through the early 1700s - when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of North America and beyond. “Deftly blending scholarship and drama” (Richard Zacks), best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin illustrates how American colonists at first supported these outrageous pirates in an early display of solidarity against the Crown, and then violently opposed them. Through engrossing episodes of roguish glamour and extreme brutality, Dolin depicts the star pirates of this period, among them the towering Blackbeard, the ill-fated Captain Kidd, and sadistic Edward Low, who delighted in torturing his prey. Upending popular misconceptions and cartoonish stereotypes, Black Flags, Blue Waters is a “tour de force history” (Michael Pierce, Midwestern Rewind) of the seafaring outlaws whose raids reflect the precarious nature of American colonial life.




The Pirate Cruncher


Book Description

A mysterious old pirate lures a group of rowdy sailors to an island with buried treasure, but there is a surprise awaiting them when they get there.




Empire of Blue Water


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Talty’s vigorous history of seventeenth-century pirates of the Caribbean [is] a pleasure to read from bow to stern.”—Entertainment Weekly “In Stephan Talty’s hands, the brilliant Captain Morgan, wicked and cutthroat though he was, proves an irresistible hero. . . . A thrilling and fascinating adventure.”—Caroline Alexander, author of The Endurance and The Bounty The passion and violence of the age of exploration and empire come to vivid life in this story of the legendary pirate who took on the greatest military power on earth with a ragtag bunch of renegades. Awash with bloody battles, political intrigues, natural disaster, and a cast of characters more compelling, bizarre, and memorable than any found in a Hollywood swashbuckler, Empire of Blue Water brilliantly re-creates the life and times of Henry Morgan and the real pirates of the Caribbean.




The Art of Sea of Thieves


Book Description

A high-quality collectible art book featuring over 200 pages of behind-the-scenes content from the hotly anticipated, shared-world video game Sea of Thieves! With Rare's new high seas multiplayer adventure Sea of Thieves, players will crew up in search of fortune and glory on their quest to become pirate legends. Now, with The Art of Sea of Thieves, Dark Horse Books is pleased to offer an unprecedented look at the ships, characters, and loot of this revolutionary online gaming experience! Featuring hundreds of pieces of art with commentary from the game's creators, this gorgeous volume explores the creation and development of a fantastical pirate world.




Crimson Waters


Book Description

A New York Times bestsellling author separates history from myth from the Pharaohs to Blackbeard and Captain Kidd to today. Soon after the first maritime trade routes became operational, seafaring bandits appeared to prey upon the cargo, crews, and ships of others. Crimson Waters traces the history of piracy around the globe, stretching back from its roots in 2500 BCE, through the Golden Age of Piracy in the 17th and 18th centuries, and up to the modern-day pirates who still threaten boats along coastlines and on the open seas. This journey through history includes: Evidence of "Sea People" during the reigns of Egyptian Pharaohs The raids and pillaging of seafaring Vikings The tales of Blackbeard, the Barbarossa Brothers, Calico Jack, Captain Kidd, Sir Francis Drake, and Madam Cheng A historical account of the real pirates of the Caribbean Pirates of the modern age and why the occupation has persevered And more! Crimson Waters satisfies all the armchair swashbucklers who long for a sense of adventure and the history buffs looking to spruce up their knowledge of maritime exploits.




Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution


Book Description

Winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature Winner of the Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award A Massachusetts Center for the Book "Must-Read" Finalist for the New England Society Book Award Finalist for the Boston Authors Club Julia Ward Howe Book Award The bestselling author of Black Flags, Blue Waters reclaims the daring freelance sailors who proved essential to the winning of the Revolutionary War. The heroic story of the founding of the U.S. Navy during the Revolution has been told many times, yet largely missing from maritime histories of America’s first war is the ragtag fleet of private vessels that truly revealed the new nation’s character—above all, its ambition and entrepreneurial ethos. In Rebels at Sea, best-selling historian Eric Jay Dolin corrects that significant omission, and contends that privateers, as they were called, were in fact critical to the American victory. Privateers were privately owned vessels, mostly refitted merchant ships, that were granted permission by the new government to seize British merchantmen and men of war. As Dolin stirringly demonstrates, at a time when the young Continental Navy numbered no more than about sixty vessels all told, privateers rushed to fill the gaps. Nearly 2,000 set sail over the course of the war, with tens of thousands of Americans serving on them and capturing some 1,800 British ships. Privateers came in all shapes and sizes, from twenty-five foot long whaleboats to full-rigged ships more than 100 feet long. Bristling with cannons, swivel guns, muskets, and pikes, they tormented their foes on the broad Atlantic and in bays and harbors on both sides of the ocean. The men who owned the ships, as well as their captains and crew, would divide the profits of a successful cruise—and suffer all the more if their ship was captured or sunk, with privateersmen facing hellish conditions on British prison hulks, where they were treated not as enemy combatants but as pirates. Some Americans viewed them similarly, as cynical opportunists whose only aim was loot. Yet Dolin shows that privateersmen were as patriotic as their fellow Americans, and moreover that they greatly contributed to the war’s success: diverting critical British resources to protecting their shipping, playing a key role in bringing France into the war on the side of the United States, providing much-needed supplies at home, and bolstering the new nation’s confidence that it might actually defeat the most powerful military force in the world. Creating an entirely new pantheon of Revolutionary heroes, Dolin reclaims such forgotten privateersmen as Captain Jonathan Haraden and Offin Boardman, putting their exploits, and sacrifices, at the very center of the conflict. Abounding in tales of daring maneuvers and deadly encounters, Rebels at Sea presents this nation’s first war as we have rarely seen it before.




Desperate Voyage


Book Description

In May 1946 John Caldwell set out to sail from Panama to Sydney to reunite with his wife who he hadn't seen for more than a year. Eager to reach his destination and unable to secure any other form of transport, he had to resort to singlehanded seamanship. After an ignominious scene in the harbor, where a tangled anchor led him to take an early dip, he spent ten days learning the rudiments of navigation and sailing from a book, before embarking on the 9,000 mile journey aboard the 20-foot Pagan. Ahead lay a mission that was to reveal in him elements not only of astounding courage and determination, but also of incredible foolhardiness. Within 500 miles of Panama John Caldwell had already been shipwrecked once and had his boat's engine and cockpit destroyed by an angry shark. Indefatigable, he decided to press on towards his goal.He endured the terrors and discomforts of life on the high seas and enjoyed the triumphs of fighting and winning against the elements. This is more than an exciting tale of sea-adventure. It is as compelling and unpredictable as a thriller. It is the story, witty and moving, of a man, motivated initially by love, and ultimately by his own fierce determination to survive.




Seized!


Book Description

Outpirating the pirates with one of the most interesting men alive: Max Hardberger recounts his adventures repossessing ships and sneaking them out of lawless, third-world countries, often under threat of death or imprisonment. His journeys lead him from corrupt ports in the Caribbean to the ice-bound docks of Vladivostok. His adventures in rescuing ships pit him against a rogue's gallery of antagonists, including Haitian rebels, modern-day Caribbean pirates and Russian mobsters. • Capt. Max Hardberger uses every trick, tool and tactic at his disposal to right wrongs and out-pirate pirates in this action-packed expose of the seedy underworld of international shipping. As a professional ship extractor, he risks death and imprisonment in dangerous third-world ports to steal ships from modern buccaneers and corrupt governments and deliver them back to their rightful owners. In the course of his adventures, he's had to outwit resourceful crime families, subdue armed soldiers, and turn the tables on clever con artists. He's escaped imprisonment in Venezuela and avoided death at the hands of the Russian mafia. Because Max shuns the use of force, the ingenious methods he must use to accomplish his missions are the stuff of legend he's employed a witch doctor in Haiti, tricked armed guards off a ship in Honduras, and rented a brothel in Mexico, all to thwart the designs of ship-thieves. Seized! is an intense, fast-paced window on the underbelly of ocean shipping, where all power comes from the barrel of a gun, and the only law is the law of survival. -- "Max Hardberger, maritime repo man extraordinaire ... Using a combination of ingenuity, stealth and good old-fashioned derring-do, he has made his name retaking vessels which have been hijacked or which, through local corruption, are impounded by authorities hungry for bribes." • -- Sunday Express • "With most people, the longer you spend talking to them, the more normal they appear. With Hardberger, the reverse applies. Just when you think you've heard it all, he comes up with something wilder ... Over the years, he's distracted crews with prostitutes and witch doctors, bribed officials to look the other way, conned Russian mobsters and hidden from naval radar by riding out thunderstorms at sea; he's even taken a 10,000-tonne freighter out of Haiti while the 2004 revolution was going on around him." • -- Guardian • "Required reading, fascinating. Maritime Repo Man Hardberger does it tough; his life is flown by the seat of his pants, or shipped, much like his profession ... This book delivers." • -- Paul Carter, bestselling author of Don't Tell Mum I Work On The Rigs and This Is Not A Drill • "In this heart-stopping account of his work recovering stolen (or otherwise illegally-seized) ships from 'hellhole' ports, commercial captain Hardberger proves himself tough as a tank and articulate as a poet ... [He] has a seafarer's gift for atmospheric storytelling, layering details to create a sense of place, history, and foreboding ... Hardberger's escapades make undeniably fun reading." • -- Publishers Weekly • "One of the strengths of Hardberger's book is his prose, which is lucid, entertaining and dramatic." • -- Daniel Sekulich, author of Terror on the Seas: True Tales of Modern Day Pirates