 Pirate Hunters: Treasure, Obsession and the Search For a Legendary Pirate ShipBy Robert Kurson There had only been one pirate ship wreck ever positively identified, at least until the legendary diver John Chatterton started looking for the legendary pirate ship Golden Fleece. This was the ship captained by the equally legendary pirate Joseph Bannister. Bannister had been a respected merchant ship captain in the 1680s, a job that would have been the dream of most of the sailors of the time. Yet one day, Bannister did the unthinkable: he stole the ship that been entrusted to him and turned it into a pirate ship, and he into the most hunted pirate on the seas. Yes, this sounds like the kind of thing that Captain Jack Sparrow would do. But Bannister was the real thing. When the Royal Navy once again tracked down Golden Fleece, they had every expectation of recapturing him. They found the ship at its most vulnerable, being repaired on the beach of an island. There it lay on its side, the proverbial sitting duck. Two warships, the hunting dogs of the fleet, with a combined strength of over fifty cannons and 250 highly trained sailors. Any sane man would have surrendered and hope he could escape another day. Instead, Bannister escaped, though Golden Fleece was left behind, a burning wreck. Three hundred and thirty years later, no one knew where the wreck of this fabled ship lay. This is the exciting story of Chatterton and his partners' search for Golden Fleece and the remains of one of the most embarrassing defeats suffered by the Royal Navy. Reviewed by Will Marston, West Branch Teen Services Librarian
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