Thames Pirates

The Thames Pirates were a force to be reckoned with on the low seas running through Central London.

Let me show you my tail...

Real pirates were fierce. And I mean fierce. Like ultra fierce. You couldn't just learn to be a pirate, although details on how people actually became pirates aren't known. But i'm guessing you had to be mighty fierce. So this means you could either be a mighty, fierce pirate, or a sad, pathetic landlubber. But what for those inbetween? Fierceness is a continuum. And so the simply fierce, accompanied by the simply mighty, took up lives as pirates of the so-called "low seas", the bodies of water smaller and lower in salt content than those conquered by their more mighty and fierce rivals. While not very renowned at all, these pirates supplied a minimal amount of terror to those easily scared. The most mighty of these bands of semi-pirates were the infamous pirates of the River Thames.

Yaaarrr...

The warring factions of the Thames pirates consisted of the crew led by Captain Nobeard, a man who suffered from an unfortunate bout of alopecia, thus rendering him hairless and therefore not very fierce looking, and the crew led by Captain Fullbeard, a man who suffered from rapid hair growth, of which the burden and constant shaving resulted in a distinct lack of mightiness. Nobody knows why the two captains had to suffer opposing conditions. The main theory is that the captains had to have opposing characteristics for the classic "good vs. evil" comic book rights. But this makes no sense. There are no good pirates. And they can't be evil because they're just too awesome.

Grog me!

The two captains led equally not as mighty/ferocious crews up and down the River Thames, attempting to plunder and pillage, but actually just causing annoyance to passers-by exposed to their constant cries of "yarrr", "arrrg" and other generic pirate phrases.

The Thames pirates reigned from June 2nd, 1790 to June 3rd, 1790, when both captains saw each other as a threat and attempted to settle the score of who reigned the river via a mighty pirate sea battle. Unfortunately, when the two ships pulled alongside each other, cannons primed, they realised the Thames wasn't wide enough, and the two ships promptly became stuck against each other and the shore. While normal pirates would have continued the battle, the Thames pirates were neither that fierce or mighty, so decided to settle their differences, chop up the ships for firewood to donate to the homeless, and retire from their seafaring lives to become quite overly fierce and mighty landlubbers.