N.S. PIRATES AT WAR OVER FLOGGER.
TWO GROUPS DISAGREE ON FLOGGER
Afeud between two rival groups of pirate re-enactors has flared yet again after an incident — or non-incident depending on one’s pirate perspective — involving some photographs, a pirate “flogger” and a famous scallop festival in the picturesque seaside town of Digby, N.S.
Dwight Parker, a.k.a. Captain Blacktoe, is the proprietor of a group he calls the Pirates of Halifax, a troupe available for hire at various events including kids birthday parties and tall ship festivals. Parker published a Facebook post on his group’s page on Aug. 14 in response to photos showing his former pirating partner, Dave Renshaw, a.k.a. Davy Jones, in full pirate garb with his arm around a Digby scallop festival beauty queen’s shoulder and with a flogger in his left hand.
“Due to messages I have received regarding these photos I need to immediately clarify that the pirates in the photos are NOT associated in any way with my pirate re-enactor group Pirates of Halifax,” Parker wrote. “They call themselves the Maritime Pirate Alliance. The Pirates of Halifax respect all genders and are a family-friendly entertainment group.
“We DO NOT carry or use floggers. As with all pirate reenactor groups around the world we find the use of floggers offensive and degrading to women and will NEVER employ their use.”
Renshaw, Lee Perrin and Robert Hood — also former partners of Parker’s — are founding members of the Maritime Pirate Alliance. MPA was hired to appear at the four-day event in Digby. A second photo posted by Parker captured a similar scene with Renshaw, the flogger, his pirate colleagues and two other women at the festival. The pirates are smiling in both photos, as are the women pictured, save for one stifling a laugh.
Renshaw is currently in the Cayman Islands and preparing to sail a replica pirate ship to Halifax for MPA’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day event on Sept. 19. But he joined a conference call with Perrin (a.k.a. Captain Jack Sparrow) and the National Post to discuss the flogger flap.
He described the controversy as being “manufactured” by Parker, adding that while floggers in 2018 might be associated with Fifty Shades of Grey and sexual kink, in the pirating days of yore they were sometimes referred to as “starters.” An instrument, employed by pirates and the British Royal Navy alike, either to give laggards a good lash of encouragement or to dispense more severe punishment for a shipboard offence.
“When I am talking to people at events, I call (the flogger) a starter,” Renshaw said. “It has been part of my costume since I started pirating back in 2008.”
Brian Dugas is not a pirate, but he is involved with the Digby Scallop Days organizing committee. He hired MPA for this year’s event. “The locals loved the pirates,” he said. "I’d hire them again.”
Parker treats his pirating as method acting. He doesn’t start a gig with a script, but becomes a character, improvising as he goes. The point is making people happy. But Renshaw’s flogger isn’t a laughing matter, nor is it historically accurate, Parker said.
“We have all seen Mutiny on the Bounty, and things like that, where discipline was engaged on ships,” he said. “If they broke the rules they got the cat o’ nine tails, and that’s what I thought this thing was, and that it was period correct.” But Renshaw’s flogger isn’t a cat o’ nine tails, or period correct, said Parker, unless the period in question is a 21st Century sadomasochist’s studio.
Renshaw was initially drawn to pirating after years of enjoying late-night laughs with his buddies at his cottage where they would talk like pirates. Perrin fell in love with playing dress-up for pay after going as a pirate one Halloween. Renshaw, Perrin, Hood and a fourth pirate, Shaun Allen, participated in Digby’s scallop festival parade. They held a pirate story time, a scavenger hunt for kids, posed for photos and hosted a special breakfast with two small fans at a local eatery.
“No one got hit (with the flogger),” Dugas said. “What has been going on here is a childish drama.”
Pirates, once upon a time, swore an oath of allegiance — often on a Bible — committing to their pirating ways. The so-called pirate code governed how a crew and its captain divided plunder, meted out discipline and determined financial compensation, should a pirate lose a limb while engaged in battle. The code was a crude, necessary tool for preventing mutinous behaviour. In its ideal, it created an all-for-one and all-for-the-rum-and-money ethos that, among presentday pirate re-enactors in Nova Scotia, has fallen into disrepair.
In lieu of a code, the spat between Renshaw, Perrin, Hood and Parker sailed into Nova Scotia small claims court some months back for four lengthy hearings. At issue were lots of issues, chiefly the use of the name Pirates of Halifax. Renshaw and Co. argued that Parker was expelled from the troupe in 2016, but was still using the name; Parker argued that he was the group’s founder and the name was his alone to use.
“The Claimants and the Defendant are all grown men who, in their spare time, dress up as pirates for fun and profit,” adjudicator Eric K. Slone wrote in a 15-page decision rendered March 23, 2018. He found that none of the pirates had “the right to use the name Pirates of Halifax.”
Perrin said that by forming the MPA he and his friends were trying to move forward, but Parker, who continues to use the Pirates of Halifax name, keeps trying to pick online fights. Parker said Renshaw’s flogger was a flagrant pirate faux pas and had to be called out. Renshaw said the flogger is in fact a starter, and the town of Digby had no complaints.
In the words of the adjudicator: “Suffice it to say that what began as an enthusiastic hobby with the bonus of financial reward, descended into a relationship of considerable discord, mistrust and aggravation.”