Edinburgh Trader

The Edinburgh Trader was a 169-foot-long merchant cargo ship owned and operated by Captain Bellamy and his crew. Upon finding a wedding dress owned by Elizabeth Swann, who stowed away on board, the crew believed the ship to be haunted or that it was a spirit bringing some omen of ill fate, though later believed it brought good fortune after the "spirit" told them to pull in at Tortuga, where they made profit. When Will Turner was brought aboard the Edinburgh Trader, having escaped the Flying Dutchman, Davy Jones sent the Kraken to destroy the ship.

History[]

The ship was docked at Port Royal following Lord Cutler Beckett's arrival, and launched for the open water after Elizabeth Swann escaped from Beckett's custody. Swann stowed away aboard the Trader, disguised as a crewman, intending to reach Tortuga. To this end, she played on the superstitious nature of the ship's crew, using her wedding dress like a puppet to fool the sailors into believing the ship was haunted by a widow's spirit. She was ultimately able to persuade the captain to head for Tortuga. While there, the crew made a tidy profit "off the books."

Later, back on the water, the crew picked up Will Turner, having escaped from the Flying Dutchman. However, Davy Jones had set the Kraken after him, and the legendary leviathan rose, dragging Captain Bellamy to the depths, and attacked the Edinburgh Trader. After smashing the masts and snatching crew members with its numerous tentacles, the Kraken brought its largest tentacles down on the ship, splitting it in two right down to the keel before dragging its remains underwater. Will Turner was the sole survivor, as the other six survivors were killed by Jones' crewmen after being brought aboard the Flying Dutchman.

Design and appearance[]

The Edinburgh Trader was a relatively large but moderately armed merchantman. It was a fully-rigged, three-masted ship armed with 10 4pdr cannons. Such a vessel would have been capable of carrying large amounts of cargo across the Atlantic Ocean and resisting the attacks of smaller pirate ships.^{[citation needed]}

Behind the scenes[]

The Edinburgh Trader was portrayed by the HMS Bounty in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. The Bounty had been constructed for the 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty, where it was used as the titular ship. On October 2012, the Bounty was lost at sea during Hurricane Sandy.^[1] As the weather and sea conditions presented more challenges to director Gore Verbinski and company as they filmed the Kraken attack on the Edinburgh Trader, Rick Heinrichs' art department constructed an exact replica of the Bounty without the "guts" of the ship.^[2]

A ship identical to the Edinburgh Trader can be seen at the EITC docks when the Flying Dutchman appears in the Port Royal harbor in the Dead Man's Chest deleted scene "The Map Is Finished" featured in Blu-ray releases beginning in 2011.^[3] The same ship is docked in Tortuga when the sunburned sailor informs Will Turner about Jack Sparrow's supposed death. Another identical ship appears in one of the final scenes of At World's End, where Jack Sparrow brings Scarlett and Giselle to the docks of Tortuga, only to find the Black Pearl once again gone and Joshamee Gibbs sleeping on the dock.^[4] The latter scene most likely due to being filmed early on April 6, 2005, with the simultaneous back-to-back productions of Dead Man's Chest and At World's End.^[5]

The set of the destroyed Edinburgh Trader was reused for the scuttled ship.^{[citation needed]} Ironically, both ships were destroyed by the Kraken.

Appearances[]

• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (junior novelization) (First appearance)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (comic)
• LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game (Non-canonical appearance)

Notes and references[]