Wooden sailing ships and barefoot sailors. Bare feet to grip the deck, yet not damage it, and bare feet to grip the rigging. Bare feet to swab the deck. Bare feet to feel the man's (or woman's) hands below you when you're coming down the rigging. Bare feet to maintain balance on a pitching deck. Bare feet for comfort in the tropics. Those idiot "pirate boots" in the movies are just that. Idiot. Pirates certainly went barefoot. And those barefoot pirate girls...mmm.
Maybe in the Bahamas, but I get a feeling you'll be screaming for sheepskins if you're voyaging across the north Atlantic.
i don't know what pirates did, but i know that boating is one of the few areas of my life where i actually encounter the crazy shod nazis that so many in this forum imagine to exist everywhere.
All that ill-gotten booty plundered from the Spanish Main, and no one thought to buy a pair of Topsiders?
Wait, what? The bars and restaurants that you can dock at near me always have barefoot people. The yacht clubs don't like it, and I can think of one dive that bothers people about bare feet. Otherwise, the closer to water, the more bare feet I see. I can't imagine any boat owner inviting on shoes. I don't get picky about it, but I did ask one guest to lose the chunky black clogs with a heel. Edit: fixed effed-up quote tags. Don't know how I did that. Sorry!
^ i don't really know what their argument was, but i've met a few boaters and heard of a few more who wouldn't let anyone on their boat without shoes. worried about slipping maybe? i really don't know.
As a rule I usually do not let people ware shoes on my boat. I don't like spending a bunch of time scrubbing marks off the deck.
It had to be a real drag getting slivers out of your soles.....all them old ships were all wood, with salt water having long washed away any varnish or resins from the decks. Most boats today are fiberglass with maybe a touch of teak trim, with carpet on the decks, a barefooter's dream.......
I doubt slivers were an issue. Wooden decks were holystoned to keep them smooth, and the sailors had fairly tough feet.
Wow, that movie looks like it has potential. And it appears that Jean Peters is barefoot most of the time. My fantasy pirate woman! The foreign posters tended to be more racy.
I got to cruising the Internet to find more pirate movies, and came across this picture of Genevieve Bujold on the set of "Swashbuckler." That's Robert Shaw on the left.
