Seafair Pirates
Encyclopedia
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
, Washington Seafair Pirates are a voluntary group of people started in 1949 by the members of the Washington State Press Club. They joined together with other community leaders to create Seattle's first Seafair
Seafair
Seafair is a summer festival in Seattle, Washington, USA that encompasses a wide variety of small neighborhood events leading up to several major city-wide celebrations...
Festival in 1950.
The Seafair Pirates was founded in 1949 by some of the younger members of the Ale & Quail Society. The group was created to help provide some entertainment and to promote the Seafair festival in Seattle, Washington. The Seafair Pirates are a dedicated group who take their roles as pirates seriously. There is a rigorous process to even being considered when joining the group, as they only want individuals who will dedicate themselves. They are present at the Seafair parades during the summer months, and the boom of their cannons warn the crowd that they are coming.
Charity
The group entertains and raise funds for different charities all year. The Pirates charities include their own Holiday Treasure Chest Fund, which provides food, toys and good cheer to families in need. Every Christmas thousands of toys are delivered to families along with food for the holidays.Pirates and Seattle community events
The SeafairSeafair
Seafair is a summer festival in Seattle, Washington, USA that encompasses a wide variety of small neighborhood events leading up to several major city-wide celebrations...
festival is a month long festival that starts with the Seafair Pirates Landing at Alki Beach in Seattle, usually during the first Saturday of July. Throughout the summer the Seafair Pirates participate in approximately 40 local festivals as well as several hundred private appearances. The grand finale is the Seattle Seafair Torchlight Parade that occurs in August. "Seafair has become a home town jewel that reaches nearly 2 million Puget Sound residents each summer."
The Seafair Torchlight Parade
Torchlight Parade
The Torchlight Parade is the finale in a long series of parades around the greater Seattle area under the auspices of Seafair, a Seattle summertime celebration. The parade is one of the original Seafair events dating to the 1951 centennial celebration...
is a regular highlight of the Seafair summer festival. In 1999, the parade featured 4,000 participants on more than 100 floats and in bands and dance and entertainment acts. This parade is ranked the largest nighttime parade in the Northwest, with drill teams, community floats, regional and international bands, equestrian units, giant helium balloons, clowns and pirates.
The Pirates outside Seattle
The Seafair Pirates are goodwill ambassadors for the city of Seattle, and have traveled across the United States and Canada, as well as to Grand CaymanGrand Cayman
Grand Cayman is the largest of the three Cayman Islands and the location of the nation's capital, George Town. In relation to the other two Cayman Islands, it is approximately 75 miles southwest of Little Cayman and 90 miles southwest of Cayman Brac.-Geography:Grand Cayman encompasses 76% of...
, Mazatlán
Mazatlán
Mazatlán is a city in the Mexican state of Sinaloa; the surrounding municipio for which the city serves as the municipal seat is Mazatlán Municipality. It is located at on the Pacific coast, across from the southernmost tip of the Baja California peninsula.Mazatlán is a Nahuatl word meaning...
, Kobe
Kobe
, pronounced , is the fifth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture on the southern side of the main island of Honshū, approximately west of Osaka...
, and Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. Each year they also travel to the Cayman Islands
Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory and overseas territory of the European Union located in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman, located south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica...
for Pirate Week. In 2007, Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
was shooting its Swimsuit Issue for 2008 and the pirates appeared in full uniform with model Melissa Haro
Melissa Haro
Melissa Rose Haro is an American model who appeared in the 2008 & 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Her 2008 photo shoot was set in the Cayman Islands during the Pirate Week festival and included many photos in keeping with its motif...
.
History
In 1949 the younger members of the Washington State Press Club's action committee, the Ale & Quail Society, founded the Seattle Seafair Pirates. The members of the Society then joined together with other community leaders to create Seattle's first Seafair festival in 1950. Since that time the Seattle Seafair Pirates have directed their energies and talents toward the promotion and production of Seattle's annual Seafair festivities.Every summer since 1950 the Seafair festivities have begun with the annual proclamation of Davy Jones' renewed warfare upon the upstart, so-called "King" Neptune. In due course the city falls and the Mayor hands over the keys to the city at the Pirate's Landing. The Seafair Pirates have triumphed again!
In early days the Seafair Pirates' triumph often included the burning of Neptune's flagship, complete with fire-works. That stopped when the supply of derelict ships became depleted.
The Seafair Pirates are led by Captain Kidd and Davy Jones. Captain Kidd is elected by the Ale & Quail Society to lead their pirate operations. Davy Jones, an honorary Seafair Pirate, is chosen from the Seattle community to sail with the Pirates for one year.
Always seeking to promote Seattle and Seafair, the Seafair Pirates have had many adventures over the years. According to the Pirates' website, in 1953 the Seafair Pirates heard of a fund that had been established to ransom British subjects captured by pirates. By then the fund was worth well over a million dollars. In an attempt to collect this treasure the Seafair Pirates "kidnapped" the British consul and vice-consul, informing the government of Britain that the pirates of old were still in business. While they were mentioned in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
(of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
), they did not receive any payment.
Pirate ships
The Seafair Pirates command two ships.The Moby Duck is a former DUKW
DUKW
The DUKW is a six-wheel-drive amphibious truck that was designed by a partnership under military auspices of Sparkman & Stephens and General Motors Corporation during World War II for transporting goods and troops over land and water and for use approaching and crossing beaches in amphibious...
from World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
which has been highly modified to resemble an old Spanish galleon
Galleon
A galleon was a large, multi-decked sailing ship used primarily by European states from the 16th to 18th centuries. Whether used for war or commerce, they were generally armed with the demi-culverin type of cannon.-Etymology:...
. The Moby Duck has a siren in the front to warn the ladies and children of their approach. There are also real cannons to ward off those who might give chase. The Moby Duck was formerly amphibious but now sails only on dry land.
In 2006, the pirates acquired themselves a hydroplane, the U-37, better known as the Miss Seattle. The boat had a previous existence as the U-8 Llumar Window Film, and has won the 2005 Seafair Chevrolet Cup (and two other races outside Seattle) and also won the 2006 Seafair Cheverolet Cup. Jean Theoret will continue to pilot the boat in races. The boat's official owner is Billy Schumacher, a boat racing celebrity.