The Pirate Code

[MarshCappa]

Watching this show on the National Geographic Channell tonight and it's pretty good. I never heard of the Whydah before tonight. The mother load of gold right off the coast of Nauset. Very interesting show. Anybody watching this or heard of this wreck before?

[Rick Ackley]

Actually, I thought the Whydah sunk in the Bay? Google it up, interesting read.

[Swimmer]

Barry Clifford who found the Whydah, just after a mysterious dispappearence of the Captain's log from the Boston Public Library, where it was kept under lock and key, off of Wellfleet, on the ocean side, is a Hanson, Mass. native. He still controls the entire area where the ship was found and in fact this year was going back to the location, because he found a couple of other areas nearby the original search and find zone that supposedly could yield a tremendous amount of gold from the Whydah that has yet to be located. There has to be on the shore in that area a tremendous amount of booty from the ship. The Whyday where it sunk is a quarter mile from shore or less. I know the Clifford family from high school and after. Most of the work getting the rust and crustaceans off of all that was recovered was done in a facilty in Plympton, Mass. I am not sure if it is done there still, but I would imagine it is.

[Flaptail]

Pirates, though you could swing easily from the rope, it actually was the first true democracy in the new world, even racial equality waas assured as there were black pirate captains who were duly elected by majority vote of people of all ethnic backgrounds.

Prizes were shared equally, and voting was always done on any question involving the crew. "Parley" was always offered to work things out in a dispute before guns and swords were put in to action.

I like the drinking and womanizing aspect as well. Those guys knew how to party!

[MarshCappa]

If you guys have On Demand on your cable service look up this show on the National Geographic Channel. I was hooked last night. Billy Clifford's crew was the whole show. They showed how long and the process of decrusting the artifacts. In some cases it has taken over a year to restore items. I missed the first part of the show but Billy has been working this site for 24 years and is restricted to how many dives he can do because of a diving season regulation off that coast. He feels that they have only scratched the surface on this wreck and it will take decades more to possibly find the majority of the gold. They estimate at the time of the sinking that the ship had the booty of 52 ships they boarded and transferred the contents of in the year before the sinking. The ship flipped over and the treasure is buried and spread out under the main hull and structure of the ship. This is the only confirmed Pirate wreck ever found in North America. Really cool stuff.

[Grapenuts]

First thing in the mornin we all grab a cup o joe at the corner store as did the pickup truck they used to cart the cannons an junk they dug up from the day before..fun stuff to look at..they were renting a place in comm. park just down the street where they had tanks set up to desalt /crust some stuff but that was a few years ago..they use to keep the boat in stage harba.

[Jenn]

http://whydah.com/pages/our_work_pag...ibitions2.html

If your out that way its worth time......very cool stuff

[Backbeach Jake]

Visit the Wydah Museum on MacMillan Wharf in P-town.

And then I click Jenn's link, Jake's a doof....

[Swimmer]

Originally Posted by Karl F

Swimmer... whatever happened to Billy clifford????

Without saying too much for two reasons, one I dealt with him professionally and two I was aquainted with the family through school and sports. But Billy had some pretty severe emotional issues and the family had to have him hospitalized for his own good about sevens years ago.

Brother Steve just got arrested in Plymouth, Mass. for scamming people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus he was rendited to Conneticut to faces rape charges at Foxwoods (I know this from reading the paper). I remember him lifting weights at Pearson's Gym, skinny as hell but benching 400 to 450 pounds. It is amazing what steroids can do.

Barry was a christer also. He didn't think anything of sucker punching somebody at a party. He has lost weight/bulk from when he was in high school. He was on a real good varsity squad at Whitman-Hanson. We had mutual friends. I don't know that he stole the Whydah's log, but I do know someone who was in the Boston Public Library a week after he was and the book was missing when my friend went looking for it, and Clifford was the last person supposedly who used it. My friend dove on the Atocha for Mel Fisher and his family for several months. Made quite a bit of money. They let all the divers pick something out when they left. My buddy brought home a pure gold link chain 18" long. They were body cavity checked everyday when they stopped diving. Barry spent years and years researching this wreck. I hope he finds every bit of booty that went down with the ship.

[Jimbo]

The Heritage Museum in Sandwich has a pretty good pirate display going on right now. Quite a few things having to do with the Whydah and quite abit about pirates in the NE area, their code, lifestyle, etc.

[Slipknot]

that show is on again tom. (tuesday) at 4 pm BTW

[likwid]

Originally Posted by Flaptail

Pirates, though you could swing easily from the rope, it actually was the first true democracy in the new world, even racial equality waas assured as there were black pirate captains who were duly elected by majority vote of people of all ethnic backgrounds.

Prizes were shared equally, and voting was always done on any question involving the crew. "Parley" was always offered to work things out in a dispute before guns and swords were put in to action.

I like the drinking and womanizing aspect as well. Those guys knew how to party!

There is a modern day version.
Its called the Bowmans Union.