- There are records and tales of piracy going back to the Phoenicians and Greco-Roman times. The Vikings were also notorious pirates, terrorizing vessels in the North Atlantic. The "Golden Age" of piracy occurred about 100 years between the mid-1600s to the mid-1700s. This was the time when nations employed privateers, flying the country's flag, to plunder enemy ships during wartime. Many privateers would later turn pirate, including Capt. William Kidd, one of the more notorious figures of the time.
- The three most common types of pirate ships in the golden age of piracy were the sloop, schooner and three-masted square-rigger. This last type is the one most commonly associated with pirates in the popular imagination, having been a staple of books and films at least since Robert Louis Stevenson wrote "Treasure Island." The sloop and the schooner were both fast ships with shallow drafts, whereas the square rigger was more suited for the open ocean. This meant that the first two were often the ships of choice in the coastal, shallower waters of the Caribbean, while the third was often used along the coasts of the Americas.
- Sloops were smaller ships, but what they lacked in size they made up for in speed. One of the fastest types of ships in its day was the cutter. It had a single mast, unlike the usually double-masted schooner. Schooners were mostly an American maritime invention and well-suited for coastal waters. They had triangular sails and a long, narrow look. They were also able to sail in shallower waters than the cargo-laden galleons they often preyed upon. This meant they could wait in coves and shallow bays. As its name suggests, the three-masted square rigger had three masts and square sails. Better suited for deeper seas and oceanic voyages, square riggers could also carry more treasure and more canons than the smaller ships.
- Not all pirates relied on the power of their ships. From the 16th to the early 19th centuries, one of the more notorious regions for piracy was the Mediterranean. There, along the coast of North Africa, the Barbary pirates preyed on merchant vessels. Their ships were much simpler than their American and European counterparts. The ships were most often single-sailed, with oars for close maneuvering and a small number of cannons. The Barbary pirates relied more on the fighting prowess of their crews than the firepower of their ships to overtake vessels. Thus the kind of ship a pirate needed depended a great deal on the waters in which they sailed, and how they attacked their targets.
- Contrary to their portrayals in popular media, pirate captains were not always particular about having a certain ship. Pirate ships were a tool of the trade, and while some pirates might have had a "flagship," they were not above trading up when the need arose. For example, Kidd had several vessels under his command. Another staple of the pirate movie is the Jolly Roger, the skull and crossbones on a black field, flown as the pirate flag. In reality, there were many variations upon this theme, and individual captains often flew a flag of their own design. Sometimes the pirate's flag had no design at all and was simply a plain black or red flag.
