1:32 Pirates Of The Caribbean

The golden age of Caribbean piracy

Between roughly 1650 and 1730 the Caribbean was the busiest hunting ground for robbery in the world. The first to operate here were the buccaneers, that is the hunters of feral cattle from Hispaniola, who let themselves be hired against the Spanish silver convoys. Hired service gradually turned into a trade carried on for its own account, and ports such as Tortuga or Port Royal lived on what the crews brought back. The end came when the European powers stopped issuing letters of marque and began hanging their former allies.

What such a crew looked like

The reality differs from the image in the films more than one would expect. The men mostly went barefoot, because that gives a better grip on a wet deck. The shirt was of linen and the trousers reached above the ankle. A flintlock pistol took a long time to load, so a sailor took several of them into a fight, hung on straps across the chest. For close quarters there was a short cutlass with a broad blade, which could also be used when working with the rigging. The tricorn hat belonged to an officer's outfit rather than to the crew.

Building advice

In 1:32 size the beards, the belts and the gathers of the cloth can all be worked up. Bright colors are not overdone here, because the ready-made clothing of the day was merrier than the uniforms of later times. The figures stand out on a wooden deck or among crates on the quay; a few barrels are enough and the scene holds together. Anyone who wants to go further can paint a coiled rope or a folded map into the palm of one of the figures; a detail like that is legible at first glance here and it gives the scene a story.