There's no romance in piracy.

[substitute]

Does anyone have a good reference for Indonesian and Malaysian dialect and pidgin? I want my Talk like a Pirate Day experience to be authentic. Ideally I should sound like real pirates: boatloads of emaciated Malay drug addicts who swarm freighters in the Malacca Straits and hack up the crew with dull machetes, shrieking happily.

Or maybe Somali. Ships are supposed to stay > 100 miles off the coast of Somalia to avoid the local industry there, too.

Comments

[maps-or-guitars.livejournal.com]

The Weekly Piracy Report is enlightening, isn't it?

I think it depends whether you want it to be "Pirates with Swords (okay, machetes)" or "Pirates with Guns (and the odd RPG for good measure.)"

As I understand it, the Somalis tend to hold ships & crews for ransom; apparently this works pretty well. The shipowners pay up to save their crews (fifty thousand USD usually does it) and neglect to report the incident so as to avoid negative impact on their insurance.

From The Weekly Piracy Report

[mrhinelander.livejournal.com]

*ahem*

JESUS CHRIST!

16.09.2006 at 0200 LT in posn: 22:16.94N - 091:43.08E, Chittagong
Anchorage 'a', Bangladesh. Four robbers in a small motorboat approached a bulk carrier at stern during cargo operations. Three robbers jumped off the boat and clung themselves down the rudder/propeller while the boat moved away. Alert crew mustered and master turned the propeller. Robbers jumped off from the rudder post and were picked by their boat. Master called port control but received no response.

Re: From The Weekly Piracy Report

[maps-or-guitars.livejournal.com]

So to speak, yeah. A fine example of Piratical Miscalculation, Quick Thinking Captaincy, and Port Control Bribed To Look The Other Way (I've seen a lot of these "received no response" reports out of Bangladeshi anchorages.)

[brianenigma.livejournal.com]

Earlier today, I was asking if anyone knows of any audio courses in conversational pirate.

[dr-strych9.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Uncle Substitute. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who has a low threshold of tolerance for pirates and the pinheads who want to be like them.

[hyniof.livejournal.com]

As with most things:

     I blame Robert Newton.

                     Mike