Seaside Vacations

Pirates will return to Ocracoke to remember the battle that ended in Blackbeard’s death

On November 22, 1718, two hired merchant sloops manned by 60 Royal Navy sailors from Virginia engaged the notorious pirate Edward Thatch, aka Blackbeard, and his 20 shipmates near Ocracoke Inlet. Following a brief gun battle and hand-to-hand combat lasting fewer than six minutes, 12 pirates were killed, including Blackbeard, and nine men were captured. Eleven of the King’s men were killed…the “Battle of Ocracoke” was born.

The “Battle of Ocracoke” and the death of the notorious pirate Blackbeard will be memorialized on Ocracoke Island at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 22.

The memorial event will be held on a soundside sandy beach adjacent to Ocracoke’s Springer’s Point, near the location of the 1718 engagement at Teaches Hole Channel.

More than 50 pirate reenactors, dressed in period attire will assemble at the site for a 45-minute ceremony featuring period music, a newly-composed pirate chantey, an elegy, the floating of a wreath and a 23-gun salute for each of the 23 pirates and King’s sailors who were killed in the battle.

The event has been coordinated and sponsored by Blackbeard’s Crew, a Virginia-based living history performance group, and by Kevin Duffus, a Raleigh, N.C., historian and author of the book, “The Last Days of Black Beard the Pirate.”

The public and media are welcome to observe the inaugural Blackbeard Pirate Memorial. Those attending are encouraged to gather at 1 p.m. at Blackbeard’s Lodge in Ocracoke village at 111 Back Road.