The Whydah Gally

The Whydah Gally was built in London in 1715 as a transport for the slave trade. Having made two voyages under the command of veteran slave-trader Lawrence Prince, it was pursued and captured homeward-bound in the central Bahamas by the pirate Black Sam Bellamy during January or February of 1717, thus beginning the Whydah’s far better-known career as a pirate ship.

Turning his new prize into his flagship, Bellamy tormented the Atlantic coast of America, capturing smaller vessels and assembling a multi-national pirate crew consisting of nearly two hundred men who were a brotherhood of poor sailors, former slaves, and political exiles. They sailed the seas, capturing dozens of British, French, Spanish, and Dutch merchant ships throughout the Caribbean.

During its passage up the North American seaboard, the pirates' new flagship was wrecked on April 26, 1717, off the coast of Cape Cod, in one of the most severe "nor’easters" in New England history. Only two men are known to have survived, making it the worst shipwreck ever to occur on the shores of Cape Cod. Three other vessels in Sam Bellamy’s pirate flotilla were either wrecked or seriously damaged, and a number of pirates from these vessels were captured by the authorities and eventually tried and convicted of piracy.

The Whydah’s wreckage was discovered in 1984 and has been in a state of perpetual recovery ever since. The recovery of the ship’s bell, stamped with "THE WHYDAH GALLY 1716," positively identified the wreck and made it the only fully authenticated sunken pirate ship ever to be rediscovered. Among the artefacts recovered from the wreck site are the bell, cannons and pistols, buttons and buckles ….. and, of course, pirate treasure: gold, silver, and pieces of eight.

Sourced from Discover Pirates and an article by Rui Betencourt.