Longest Pirate Golden Age?

How long could the Golden Age of Piracy (1650-1730) really last? What PODs would be necessary for it to happen and what effect could it have?
 
I'm not convinced pirates can last much longer than they did OTL. Pirates are an advantage to no European power. Meanwhile privateering is a legitimate enterprise which naturally European powers used to their advantage. Of course, certain regions can have spates of piracy, like Jean Lafitte in Lousiana, the Barbary pirates, the Somali pirates, the Internet pirates, etc.

Could pirates not adapt to using steamships?

Don't those require a lot more work to maintain, and not to mention require a stock of coal? Not to mention, as the American Civil War showed, you don't necessarily need steamships to win battles at sea.
 
Could pirates not adapt to using steamships?

Don't those require a lot more work to maintain, and not to mention require a stock of coal? Not to mention, as the American Civil War showed, you don't necessarily need steamships to win battles at sea.
Steamships require coal and that means coaling stations. One reason why the Royal Navy was so powerful was because it had more coaling stations than any other navy.

Also, coal costs money upfront.
 
Just a delay of steamships plus a more divided Caribbean (after maybe a bumped-job Quasi War?) could extend its lifespan by a good 50-100 years.
 

Pellaeon

Banned
I guess keep the French and Spanish as viable powers in the Caribbean and North America, combine that with the lack of oppurtunity in the Caribbean.

Also delay steamships for another century and maybe a half.

You have the recipe for a golden age of piracy lasting well into the 19th century.
 
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