Recently, we celebrated the saving of the wonderful Coney Island Mermaid Parade.  Now a story about “mermaids” that is a bit disturbing.

There were two news stories that at first glance had little in common, other than a distant nautical connection. Recently “The Animal Planet” aired a sequel to last year’s “Mermaid – the Body Found.”  The new “documentary”  “Mermaids: The New Evidence – Are Mermaids Real?” earned the highest ratings of any show on the Animal Planet.  Despite being presented as fact, the documentary was entirely fictional.  Not everyone made that distinction.

The other news story was a about a carpenter, Tim Woodson, whose hobby is building “pirate ships.”  He recently sold his latest creation, a 12 meter monstrosity, for $80,000 on Craigslist to none other than the History Channel.  The “pirate ship” is built on an existing houseboat, with a slapped on wooden bulkheads, bowsprit and scroll-work  and  three sort-of masts with tattered sails.

What do these two items have in common? They seem to be part of the dumbing down of both science and history.

Animal Planet, owned by the Discovery Channel and the BBC, is willing to present fiction effectively as fact, for the sake of ratings. (Yes, there is a disclaimer toward the end of the fake-documentary, if anyone is still paying attention by that point.)  Likewise, Woodson’s “pirate ship” is more like a carnival float than a sailing vessel of any sort.  Anyone spending any time aboard is likely to come off with a net loss of knowledge.

A year ago, the previous fake documentary Mermaids – The Body Found  was a huge ratings hit for Animal Planet.  Not everyone was enthusiastic.  Wired Magazine referred to it as “the rotting carcass of science TV.”   The problem is that program was presented as more science fact than fiction. Indeed, the  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was concerned enough by confusion caused by the fake-documentary that it issued an announcement stating that “no evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found.” (See our post from last year Breaking News: NOAA Claims that Mermaids Aren’t Real! )  As we noted then: Since the program went on the air, NOAA has apparently been bombarded with questions about why they have covered up the existence of mermaids.

So now the Animal Planet is back at it, spreading misinformation to the gullible. What does it matter?  David Shiffman, writing in Slate (No, Mermaids Do Not Exist; What Animal Planet’s fake documentaries don’t tell you about the ocean) replies:   It matters because the ocean is extremely important. It provides jobs for tens of millions of people and food for billions. However, many marine resources are being overexploited and mismanaged, leaving us in serious danger of losing them forever.

In short, now is bad time to uninformed, misinformed, or otherwise scientifically clueless about the oceans.  And by the way, in 2010, the World Economic Forum ranked the United States 48th out of 133 developed and developing nations in quality of math and science instruction.

OK, so what does this have to do with Tim Woodson’s “pirate ships?”  If spreading carefully crafted nonsense about mermaids is dumbing down of the science of the sea, then these “pirate ships” are the end result of the dumbing down about our nautical heritage.

Every year there are literally hundred of “pirate festivals” around the country.  Notionally, the pirates which are being emulated are from the “Golden Age of Piracy” from around the 1650s to the 1730s.  Notionally, but in fact they are not really tied to history. If there was some history to be learned that might not be all bad.

Instead, the pirate festivals are actually based more on Disney water rides than anything in history.  Throw in a little Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance, mixed with Johnny Depp from Pirates of the Caribbean, the series of movies inspired by the water ride of the same name, with maybe a touch of Wallace Berry from Treasure Island and there you have it – a mob of Hollywood pirates in bandannas and bad hats, swinging toy cutlasses and yelling “Arrgh” for no apparent reason.  It all has as much to do with nautical history as Animal Planet’s mermaids have with marine biology. Maybe less.

I am being simply too grumpy, here?  Should I lighten up and enjoy the fun?  I have two problems with the modern Hollywood “pirate” phenomenon.  Some argue that these “pirate festivals” are a “gateway drug” into learning about history, ships and the sea.

To me that makes about as much sense as suggesting that Twinkies are a “gateway drug” to nutritious eating.  Many folks who attend “pirate festivals” may come away with less real information than they arrived with. Instead of learning about “sea shanties” they come away singing “pirate songs” which often are sea shanties, though you probably won’t learn that from the folks in the funny costumes. Every sailing vessel with a mast becomes a “pirate ship. ”  This includes mixed up creations like the “pirate ship” recently acquired by the “History Channel” which is not actually a sailing vessel at all, masts and shredded sails notwithstanding. If anyone goes on to actually learn anything about actual ships or real history, my guess is, that it would be in spite of the pirate festivals, rather than because of them.

My other problem with these festivals is that they distract from the the very real problem of piracy in the world today. In recent years, hundreds of merchant seaman have been taken hostage and held for ransom under terrible conditions, suffering abuse and in some cases outright murder. In 2010, 645 sailors were held as captives. In 2011 the number was 555.  Fortunately the number has dropped to 71 right now, but that is still far too many.

Here is but one example of the cluelessness that the Hollywood piracy seems to induce, .  At the end of April, the North Devon Women’s Institute branch hosted former sea captain Colin Darch to speak on the topic of piracy. A number of women in the organization dressed in what, these days, passes for pirate garb: eye-patches, bandannas, plastic cutlasses, stripped shirts and that sort of thing.

Captain Darch was speaking of being captured and held for ransom for 47 days in 2008 by real gun-totting Somali pirates. Apparently, the ladies who invited him to speak were completely unaware of that fact.  Given that piracy is still a very real and serious problem in the world, dressing up in silly hats and eye patches to impersonate a cartoonish version of a 17th century pirate, seems almost in bad taste.

The only really good news here is that there are great alternatives to “pirate festivals.”  All around the world and in slowly increasing numbers, tall ships festivals are attracting literally millions of visitors yearly.  Sail training ships are a true “gateway drug” into both sailing and a love of nautical history and culture.  Unlike Woodson’s “pirate ship,” it is hard to visit real sailing ships without both learning something and wanting to come back for more.

Thanks to Phil Leon for contributing to this post.