You may have seen in our last excellence issue a centerfold picture where the ‘BBC Pearl’ was trans-porting the ‘Black Pearl’. We thought this was an interesting coincidence and take this as an opportunity to come up with this unique essay honoring the two floating devices.
Did you know that the ‘Black Pearl’ was originally called ‘Wicked Wench’? According to the fiction, the ship was registered to the East India Trading Co. and owned by Cutler Beckett, the EITC Director for West Africa.
Jack Sparrow captained the ‘Wicked Wench’ for Cutler Beckett for about a year, hauling various cargoes, but he refused to haul slaves. Hoping to recruit Sparrow as one of his many ‘operatives’, he had dispatched Sparrow on a mission to find the lost island of Kerma in order to perk up a treasure trove there. But Sparrow followed his own agenda, double-crossed his employer and claimed he couldn‘t locate the island.
Suspicious that Sparrow had indeed found both the island and the treasure, but had not informed him, Beckett determined to browbeat the captain into obedience, demanded that the young captain transport a cargo of slaves to the New World. Initially Sparrow agreed, but when he realized that he was betraying the ‘Wicked Wench’, as well as himself, he rebelled and freed the slaves by taking them to Kerma for safe asylum.
Furious that Sparrow had flouted his orders and stolen from him, Beckett had Sparrow thrown into jail. After allowing him to languish for a couple of months, he had him transported to the ‘Wicked Wench‘s’ anchorage, about a mile from the coast of West Africa, near Calabar on the Bight of Benin. There, after personally branding Sparrow with the ‘P’ brand (so he‘d be forever branded a pirate) Cutler Beckett gave the order to abandon his own ship, the ‘Wicked Wench’, in order to totally demoralize his prisoner.
Sparrow attempted to rescue his burning, foundering ship, but he was too late. The ‘Wicked Wench’ turned into an inferno; she sank and took Jack with her.
But, while dying, Sparrow called upon Davy Jones, a character in charge of ferrying souls who died at sea to the ‘other side’, and struck a bargain with him: his soul and one hundred years serving aboard the ‘Flying Dutchman’ in return for a continued human existence of thirteen years as captain, plus saving the ‘Wicked Wench’ and transforming her into the fastest, most dangerous pirate ship sailing the seven seas. Jack christened his resurrected ‘Wench’, now a black vessel with an angel figurehead, ‘The Black Pearl’.
It will be difficult to come up with a similar story for the ‘BBC Pearl’. However there is a commonality as ‘BBC Pearl’ is the second branded name of this vessel which also runs under the name ‘North Sea Carrier’ for her owners. As exciting adventures today, she is employed to face the logistical challenges of a globalized world
and carries project and heavy-lift cargo and occasionally story-loaded cargo, such as the ‘Black Pearl’.
It’s not due to our lack of creativity that we confidently wish that above story should be avoided and that all parties involved, i.e. captain, crew, owner and last BBC Chartering as operators have good reason to work together…. working for our clients, raising performance levels in our industry.