Pirate weekend on the Santa Maria

How it started

I'm not certain who exactly lit the match that set the fuse that became this series of events, but it started with Mark G and his wife Jennie. Mark and Jennie were long time volunteers at the Santa Maria, and also long time 17th century re-enactors. They had gotten it in their heads to have a pirate event on board the Santa Maria in the downtown of Columbus Ohio as a small special event in July of 2008. Mark was put into contact with me by Thomas, who had been referred to me via a member of the Pirate Brethren forum, a pirate re-enactor group centered in Maryland and the surrounding areas. Thomas, Mark and Jennie, Jennie's brother Dan, my wife and I, along with a handful of other people spent the day adding some pirate flair to the ship's normal tours.

One of the slightly ironic and personal notes to this story is, that days before I was contacted by Mark, I had been having a bad day, and for some reason I was venting about all the travel I was having to do related to the hobby. I enjoy the travel, but like I said, I was having a bad day and venting about things I normally would look forward to. One of the big parts of my rants was the seeming futility of finding similar minded folks within the same state that would be interested in working together on a more local level. My wife patiently let me vent my frustrations and get it out of my system, trying the whole time to encourage me, and reassure me that we would eventually find some locals, or other folks within the state that would be similarly interested in a more historical approach to pirate re-enacting. She was also kind enough to tell me "I told you so" once I got off the phone with Mark and explained what our conversation was about and that we had found nearby folks of similar interests.

With the excitement of the collection of pirate enthusiast, we scheduled another pirate day on board the ship on Saturday September the 20th, in honour of Talk Like A Pirate Day which was on Friday Septemeber 19th, but the Sautday (the 20th) was close enough, and more likely to draw an audience. This gathering brought out a few new faces, and a bit more momentum. Another addition to the September gathering was that in thanks for working all day and helping draw bigger audiences to the ship, the participants who performed throughout the day were allowed to "camp" overnight on the ship to gain a better feeling of the life on a ship. An account of the day from Mission's (who portrays a sea surgeon) can be found be found and read on this link.

Over the winter, a spring gathering was devised, and heavily pushed via our various networking outlets (mostly internet forums), we set a date to try and make a whole weekend out of one of these gatherings. The director of the ship was on board (pardon the pun) with this plan, so we arranged to have a pirate weekend over the weekend of May 9th and 10th 2009. This time we managed to get the best turnout of re-enactors, spectators, and acheived the most fund raising for the ship we had managed to accomplish yet. With over 30 re-enactors participating this time, including guests from pirate re-enactment groups the locals had worked with at various times, and an Revolutionary War era artillery crew joining us for some extra bang (again pardon the pun), this event was a huge success!

Somewhere along the lines, the collective of similarly interested folks started referring to themselves as the "Scioto Pirates" (or sometimes the "Pirates of the Scioto") in reference to the river that the Ship we all gather on (that would be the Santa Maria for those of you not paying attention). To date we have decided to keep the affiliation a loose collective and not a formal group with any sort of registration or membership requirements. This has worked well for us, and will not likely change any time in the future. I've been asked in the past how many members the group has, and to be honest, while I have estimated, in all honesty I am not sure. How does one draw a line in the sand between a person who comes to work with us reasonably regularly and someone who actually considers themself a member of a group that doesn't keep a membership roster? Regardless, the Scioto Pirates have a fun great cause to work on, and that is to keep providing historical educational entertainment on a historic landmark that really could use the help with the additional and occasional attraction.

We hope to keep the tradition of these rather fun and educational events going on and in doing so help to raise awareness and draw attention to the city of Columbus greatest attraction. Hope to see you there!