Pirates & Privateers: Richard Rutherford-Moore's Books

How do pirates and other mariners go from Point A to Point B? We take navigation, be it at sea or on land, for granted, but seafarers of the past don’t have that luxury. When they sail, navigating involves art and experience far more than it does science. Within the pages of this small tome, Rutherford-Moore takes the reader on a journey back in time to learn what it is like to sail without modern devices or being able to compute longitude.

Divided into three parts, the book first discusses the problem, theory, and solution mariners face. The second and third sections recreate practical seamanship specific to the golden age of piracy and navigational developments between 1492 and 1800. Also included are three appendices that provide answers to the problems set forth in the main text, instruction on the use of the cross-staff, and recipes for making duff. Illustrations of instruments, maps, and diagrams are interspersed throughout the book.

A living history interpreter, the author takes practical seamanship and interweaves it with history, science, and specific examples to create a readable and fascinating exploration into the art of navigation of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The inclusion of examples and quotations from history’s adventurers brings theory into practical focus. While sailors are superstitious, the persistence in the belief that the world is flat in 1700 doesn’t ring true. Drake, Magellan, and Dampier (among others) have circumnavigated the world by then, and their deeds are known by seafarers and landlubbers alike. Rutherford-Moore sets forth to provide readers with “an understandable, educational and entertaining form and answer the questions I posed myself . . . when standing on the deck of the square-rigged pirate ship. . . .” He achieves this goal admirably. That he does so in conjunction with introducing us to men often looked upon by history as villains, but who “boldly performed some astounding feats of navigation, some of them voyaging deep into uncharted oceans,” makes our journey all the richer, for as dastardly as those men may be, they also open the door to exotic places, world travel, and commerce. The Pirate Round is a rare gem amongst pirate treasures, for not only does it examine the period from a different perspective, it also teaches us how they do it.