Facts about
pirates
Vocabulary
 On board
ombord
 Gambling
spelande
 Cards and dice
kort och tärning
 Weapons
vapen
 Be ready for battle
vara redo
för strid
 equal amounts
lika mängd
 crew
 improve their
eyesight
 a safe haven
 protect
 revolting
besättning
förbättra deras
syn
en trygg hamn
skydda
hemsk
 scurvy
lumpna, slitna
 stale
gammal, unken
Pirate’s Code
 Pirate’s Code Of Conduct
 No fighting on board the ship.
 No gambling with cards and dice on
board ship.
 No women on board ship.
 All weapons and pirates are to be
ready for battle at all time.
 Every pirate gets equal amounts of
food and drink.
 Every pirate gets equal amounts of all
loot captured.
 The Captain and the Quartermaster
get twice as much.
 Any pirate, who loses an arm or leg in
a fight, gets an extra half.
 Every pirate gets to vote on where the
ship goes and what the crew does.
 Every pirate does what the Captain or
Quartermaster says.
True Pirate Facts
 The Jolly Roger flag, with its black
background and white skull and
crossbones, was designed to be scary.
 All pirates did not use this flag; only
those sailing in the Spanish Main did.
 Pirates believed that wearing pierced
earrings would improve their eyesight.
 Pirates believed that having
women on board their ship was
bad luck. They also believed that
whistling on a ship would cause
the weather to turn stormy.
 Pirates would take over island
ports and make them a safe haven
for pirates.
 Almost all pirates stole their ships
because they couldn’t buy ships in
case they got caught and sent to
jail.
 Once they had taken over a ship
they had to convert it for pirate life,
this usually meant making more
room for sailors to live on board
and make the decks stronger to
 Ships, sailing on their own, often
sailed close to warships or joined
other convoys of ships to protect
themselves from pirates.
 Pirates could only attack one ship
at a time, so if the sailors travelled
in groups there was less chance of
their boat being the one that was
 Although pirates have been
around since the 15th century,
most pirating happened
between 1690 and 1720. On
the Caribbean island of St
Thomas you will find a place
called ‘Black Beard’s Castle’.
 Pirates probably didn’t have
Scurvy & Scary Facts About
Being A Pirate
 The life of a pirate wasn’t always full
of adventure and partying.
 Sailing is a slow way to get around
so pirates could be at sea for many
months.
 Life was sometimes really, really
boring, plus the food they ate was
often revolting.
 Pirates would collect fresh food
and drink when they landed.
 They didn’t have fridges, freezers,
or even cans of Baked Beans, so
the food had to be eaten quickly
before it would go stale and
mouldy.
 After a few months at sea all the
pirates had to eat were stale, dry
 Not eating enough good food often
made the pirates sick. Scurvy was
caused by a lack of vitamin C. Pirates
knew they had it when their teeth
started falling out and their skin went
pale.
 If they only had a stomach–ache and
spent all their time going to the toilet,
they probably had Dysentery.
 Another common disease on a
pirate ship was Gangrene. If a
pirate got a cut on his arms or legs
sometimes it got infected and the
skin started to die - this is
Gangrene. The only way to keep
the pirate alive was to saw off the
arm or leg.
 Or what about Yellow Fever? That
was caught from mosquitoes and
gave the pirate a high fever. Some
people just got better from it,
others died.
 A pirate’s life wasn’t always fun!
The other revolting bit is what
happened to them when they got
caught. But I don’t want you to get
nightmares so I will leave this bit
out.