Myth, Maritime Law, and Mystery.
🫡 Are private parties chivalrous on the high seas?
In the age of sail, chivalry among privateers—state-sanctioned pirates—was a romanticized ideal, but reality was more pragmatic:
- Privateers operated under letters of marque, meaning they were legal pirates targeting enemy nations’ ships during wartime.
- Some followed codes of conduct, especially among European powers, treating captured crews with relative civility.
- But profit trumped honor—if a ship resisted or carried valuable cargo, mercy often gave way to cannon fire.
Today, “private parties” on the seas are more likely to be yacht clubs, cruise charters, or corporate events, not cutlass-wielding rogues. So yes, they’re chivalrous—mostly because they’re sipping cocktails, not firing broadsides.
⚔️ How often do they sink each other?
In modern times:
- Private vessels rarely engage in combat. Maritime law and international treaties prohibit such behavior.
- Incidents of piracy still occur (e.g., off the Horn of Africa), but these are criminal acts, not duels between rival parties.
- In the golden age of piracy (17th–18th centuries), ship-to-ship combat was common, but even then, many surrendered without a fight to avoid damage and death.
So unless you’re playing Sid Meier’s Pirates! or watching Our Flag Means Death, ship-sinking duels are mostly a thing of the past.
🌊 Was the Bermuda Triangle due to enemy naval activity?
The Bermuda Triangle—stretching roughly between Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico—has long been blamed for mysterious disappearances. But:
- No credible evidence links these losses to enemy naval activity.
- Many incidents, like Flight 19 in 1945, involved navigational errors, bad weather, or mechanical failure.
- Some ships, like the USS Cyclops, vanished without a trace, but wartime records and postwar analysis suggest structural issues or storms—not enemy action.
In short, the Bermuda Triangle’s reputation is more myth and media than military mystery. But it sure makes for a good campfire tale.
Want to dive deeper into naval codes, rogue waves, or the psychology of maritime legends? I’ve got plenty of wind in my sails. ⛵
https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/disasters-and-phenomena/flight-19.html
https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/bermuda-triangle-disappearances-mystery-2670455804
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bermuda_Triangle_incidents