OregonLive.com has reported on The Portland Pirate Festival’s recent effort at breaking the current record for most pirates gathered. The article correctly reports that Portland, at 1,700 pirates fell short of the current record of 6,166 (currently held by England), then then went on to erroneously state that Portland does hold the record within the US. Actually NorCal set that record in June with 2,646.
Portland Pirate Festival misses the world record but tops the U.S. mark
That aside, I really think that this constant battle for the recognition of Guinness is something we should all move on from. It was fun for a while, but I’ll take a better event over a larger event any day – and at the current record numbers it’s going to be increasingly tricky to achieve both.
PORTLAND PIRATE FEST WAS GRAND A LITTLE WET THO!! IF THE WEATHER WAS BETTER THE NUMBERS WOULD HAVE BEEN HIGHER…..HOPE TO SEE YA ALL IN SAC THIS WEEK END AT THE SEAFAIR MARKET FEST
If I understand correctly, Guinness didn’t have time to certify NorCal’s attempt before Hastings took it. So at the moment, Portland is the first and only US city recognized for the record attempt.
What? The Oregonian (the newspaper that owns Oregonlive.com) gets things wrong? Next ye’ll be tellin’ me that the sea is wet and the sun be warm!
“That aside, I really think that this constant battle for the recognition of Guinness is something we should all move on from. It was fun for a while, but I’ll take a better event over a larger event any day – and at the current record numbers it’s going to be increasingly tricky to achieve both.”
Bilge, in MY opinion, ye hit it on the head. BETTER event over BIGGER event. The main problem I see with this view is that we live in America, where the battle cry is “Bigger is better!” Right or wrong, it seems to be the state of things that people are more accepting of less quality of (x) as long as there is MORE of it. I personally would rather have a moderate amount of GOOD (x) than a larger amount of ‘ok’ (x).
Maybe Raking Talon is correct, that Guinness didn’t have time to certify the NorCal numbers. Maybe. Or maybe the people counting the Portland numbers were just more efficient. Or maybe there were less people in attendance, thus allowing the Guinness team time to certify the numbers at Portland. Whatever the reason is, Guinness will mark that Portland has the record, regardless of NorCal having almost 1000 more people in attendance.
This has been my $0.02, thanks for reading.
Avast ye scurvvydogs!!! I am from Okla.City,and this was me first event at the PPF#5.It be full of fum,despite the rain on Sat.It was a great group of Pirates,wenches and scallywags;even,though the event didn’t set the record.I had me a Blast.Me was most honored to met,Dave Nichols,Capt.Slappy,GunPowder Gertie,and Black Tess and seeing me friends Capt.Quicksilver,Jeff MacKay,AND a the Lady Shayna Vest. It was a Rum—The Kracken–Tyme.Okay Bilge,we’ll party at Ft.Myers!!!!! Me looks forward to seein ye,in a couple of weeks. Au Revoir,Mon Ami,LaVasque
Oh,It’s tyme for another shot of the Kilo Kai, or are you passing a swig of the BlackHeart;Oooohhhhh My!!!!!!Arrrrgh,we be havin a swig of the juice,a taste of the islands,Saaavvyy,Mates!!! LaVasque.
I’m going to agree with Bilge here – at Norcal, we’re pretty much done with the “race for guinness.” YES…it was fun ONCE….but, come on….did anyone watch the video of the hastings event? If you did, you’d see that guinness clicked just about everyone who walked through the gates – there were a LOT of t shirts, ball caps and tank tops (we didn’t allow ANY of these things as per the rules we were given).
We had an attendance of close to 40,000 people – but only counted the ones who registered and were in actual costume.
Take a look at the Norcal photos on our website (and at Oregon’s too for that matter): What you’ll see is a giant ocean of real, FULL-On Pirate costumes!
Count it however you want…
NorCal and our friends in Portland both have wonderful events bursting with REAL pirates!!!