Re-enactors walk nautical mile in pirates' shoes during Seafarers Weekend
Post by (louis vuitton taschen) Aug 2010
The best thing about re-enacting pirate battles is that you don’t have to wear those hot, wool uniforms the Civil War guys have to wear. Heck, Frank Barulli was walking around in his underwear.
“This is actual underwear, 1720s style,” said Barulli, aka Lord Bennett. “It’s ‘functional shipwear.’”
Brigands and seadogs of all stripes gathered Saturday at Historic Cold Spring Village for Seafarers Weekend, an event celebrating all things piratical that continues today.
Among the different groups that met under a flag of truce were the Sea Rats, the Half-Moon Marauders, the Mad Dutchmen and the Valhalla Pirates — some focused on authentic, down-to-last-detail re-enacting, while others were more geared toward educational entertainment, Cold Spring public relations and programming director Sydney Perkins said.
“It’s the best of both worlds,”said Perkins, herself dressed like a colonial woman who might find herself surprised to see buccaneers marauding through her fair town — although in reality, most pirates did not dress like outright “pirates” off the ship.
“They were trying to blend in, so they didn’t get hanged,” explained Dave Atlas, aka Sebastian Nodding.
“You didn’t advertise you were a pirate,” said Ashley Brower — not that buccaneers didn’t like to show off, of course.
“Pirates appreciated going into town,” Brower said. “They wanted to keep up airs. ‘Yes, (they said), I may have been nothing, but now I have money, clothes, nice coins and wenches!’ ... It’s interesting that social dress rules were more important to the lower classes — especially women, who had to be modest and virtuous. A pure white rose, if you will.”
Brower, who sewed her own handmade 1720s-era dress, as well as the clothing for many of her compatriots, said that even men would feel indecent without a proper outfit of waistcoat/weskit/vest, a decent neckcloth or cravat, hat or sailor’s cap or even the occasional jacket or coat.
But for Ray Mueller, the important thing was that pirate re-enactors could wear different outfits on different days — free from the tyranny of military uniforms. A pirate’s life is a wonderful life, you could say.
“One day you could wear something fancy, the next day you could wear work clothes,” said Mueller, who added that there were other hazards to pseudo-soldiering he doesn’t miss.
“Moving those cannons around? That’s rough,” he said, pointing to an indentation on his shoe from a rogue artillery piece. Also: more toys.
“Here we have more muskets and pistols and swords,” Mueller said.
Joe Ruggiero showed off some of the different weapons a pirate would be familiar with, mostly 1680s-era English muskets — “Some state-of-the-art, some outdated,” he said. “Pretty much a mercenary’s way of life that continues to this day. ... It was just stuff they’d pick up along the way, through capture, trade — even buying it.”
Charles Waldron, the piratest-looking pirate, goes by the moniker Capt. Charles W. Black when he’s out piratin’ and not at his weekday job of chiropractin’.
“I always had an interest in pirates and pirate history,” said Waldron, of the Valhalla Pirates of Point Pleasant. “One Halloween 10 to 12 years ago, I dressed up as a pirate — not a Halloween pirate, but with real clothes and real weapons and real everything — and I had such a good time, I decided to start a crew.”
That may be how Blackbeard himself got started.
“We’re doing shows every weekend and having a great time,” he said. “I just enjoy the hell out of it.”
Waldron greeted two of the smallest buccaneers at the event, Zach and Jacob Smolanoff, 5 and 3, of Cape May.
“You are pirates, right?” he asked of the boys, each with striped shirts, eyepatches and headscarves. “Nice belt, by the way! It matches the hat. You’re one of those coordinated pirates.”
Waldron stressed the best way to stay strong and avoid scurvy: eat your vegetables. What’s a pirate’s favorite vegetable, by the way?
“Arrr-ugula!” said Barulli, to many a groan.
“Shoot him!” came a voice from the crowd.
As for the visitors themselves, many gave the same answer when asked why they came down — people just like pirates.
“I like to watch them fight,” said 6-year-old Matthew Cioletti of Wayne, Passaic County — well, actually, his father Mike said that, but his son probably felt the same way.
Barbara Black, of Cape May brought her grandchildren, Dakota, Jasmine and Keaton Black, and Katelyn and Jordan McCullough — true pirate names all — while 7-year-old Nicholas Lucena, visiting with grandparents Frank and Marie Yacobelli, of Cape May, admitted his lack of piracy knowledge.
“All I know is that they fight with swords,” he said.
Still, those small bands of marauders have overshadowed even some of the biggest events of their time. Even most history buffs could barely tell you anything about the War of the Spanish Succession, a bloody, cataclysmic 13-year war that began in 1701 — if they had even heard of it in the first place — but even a kid knows about Captain Kidd, who was hanged that same year.
It’s a testimony to pirates’ hold on the imagination that 300 years later, people are still fascinated enough to dress up every weekend and hit the road.
“We do travel quite a bit,” said Mueller, a New York resident. “A couple of years ago, we were in Maryland five times.”
“We’re a small ship, but we’re very mobile,” Brower said. “Though sometimes, we’re distracted by food. Blown off course by lobster bisque.”
“But most of the time,” Mueller concluded, “we sail straight and true.”
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