I recently read Robert Kurson’s “Pirate Hunters,” while on vacation. It was an engaging account of The Golden Age of Piracy of the late 1600s and centered upon the effort to locate a one of a kind ship from that era.....MORE
Kurson’s “Shadow Divers” and “Rocket Men” have also gotten very positive reviews. However, I chose the pirate book during our annual family beach trip to North Carolina’s Outerbanks. Thinking about pirates often crosses my mind while there staring out at the ocean imaging a one hundred plus foot frigate passing by the island.
The book rekindled my interest in pirates that I nostalgically trace back to the tween adventure of piracy and treasure hunting in 1985’s The Goonies. There’s a book the boys consult when planning their hunt and its amazing that the imagery is still vivid in my mind.
***Some of the images are taken from the illustrations in Howard Pyle’s “Book of Pirates,” which I remember clearly from childhood visits to the school library.
***In “Pirate Hunters,” Kurson details the methods used to determine where to begin the physical exploration of the waters of an island in the Dominican Republic. The lease-holder entitled to search a specific area of water provided the hunters with a few historical data points. Some of them were unsubstantiated handed-down heirloom stories. So the hunters, acting as part historian and part archeologist with a gift for deep water diving, research nautical archives of manuscripts that are several centuries old to supplement their magnetometer physical survey.
A critical moment in the story occurs when a book is published about Jamaica in 1687 that contains a first-hand account of the battle that led to the sinking of the pirate ship sought after. The importance of documenting what seems like an arbitrary fact today played a major part of discovering one of the only pirate ships ever located.
The hunters were clearly impressed with the pirate captain Joseph Bannister. They learned he,
While the pirate hunters utilize an evidence-based approach to target where to deploy resources they also use emotional intelligence to guide their analysis....had stolen his own ship, outmaneuvered two governors of Jamaica, evaded an international manhunt, and then, despite being outmanned and outgunned, defeated the Royal Navy in battle. To do any one of those things, a man had to plan meticulously, prepare relentlessly, and demand the highest level of excellence of those around him. To do them all, he had to be great.
Related:
A couple posts from '08:
The WSJ's Deal Journal has a comparison of Piracy and Private Equity:Somali pirates set up "agencies" on three continents
...Geographical investment thesisPrivate equity: Bullish on China.
Piracy: Opportunities on the coast of Africa.
Start-up costs
Piracy: Gun, boats, a handful of men, rocket-propelled grenades.
Private equity: Office on Park Avenue.
Jargon
Private equity: “Internal rate of return,” called IRR.
Piracy: Eerily similar: “Aaar.”>>>MUCH MORE
2009
"Somali sea gangs lure investors at pirate lair"
From Reuters:
In Somalia's main pirate lair of Haradheere, the sea gangs have set up a cooperative to fund their hijackings offshore, a sort of stock exchange meets criminal syndicate. Heavily armed pirates from the lawless Horn of Africa nation have terrorized shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean and strategic Gulf of Aden, which links Europe to Asia through the Red Sea.
The gangs have made tens of millions of dollars from ransoms and a deployment by foreign navies in the area has only appeared to drive the attackers to hunt further from shore.
It is a lucrative business that has drawn financiers from the Somali diaspora and other nations -- and now the gangs in Haradheere have set up an exchange to manage their investments.
One wealthy former pirate named Mohammed took Reuters around the small facility and said it had proved to be an important way for the pirates to win support from the local community for their operations, despite the dangers involved.
"Four months ago, during the monsoon rains, we decided to set up this stock exchange. We started with 15 'maritime companies' and now we are hosting 72. Ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking," Mohammed said....MOREObama Reaches Out to 'Moderate' Pirate Community (and we plan to make a buck-o, or two)
Somali Jihadi's Put a Price on Obama's, Hillary's Heads
..."Anyone who helps the Mujahideen find the whereabouts of Obama and Hillary Clinton will be rewarded with 10 Camels to the information leading to Obama and 10 hens and 10 cocks for Hillary," said senior Shabaab commander Fuad Mohamed Khalaf in a statement reported on numerous websites....And five years later:
Who's Who In Active Somali Pirate Clans and Militias
Despite being deadly serious there is something Le Théâtre de l'Absurde ridiculous about piracy being a viable career option in 2017.
Who said a grenade launcher could not be a perfect financial asset?"
A new form of finance on the coast of Somalia.
I particularly enjoyed this part:
Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel.
“I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation,” she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband in alimony.
“I am really happy and lucky. I have made $75,000 in only 38 days since I joined the ‘company’.”Big Money: Somali Pirates' Rich Returns
And more seriously:
...If interested here's an approach slightly different from the U.N./EU tactics:
"Dealing with Pirates (and terrorists) Russian Style
