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Disney's Black Pearl - TPR's In Focus - May 6, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from the Rosa Parks Museum on Troy University's Montgomery campus,
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  located on the spot of Mrs. Parks' historic 1955 arrest and featuring
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  exhibits that chronicle the history of the Montgomery bus boycott.
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  More information at Troy.edu slash Rosa Parks.
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  From Troy Public Radio, this is In Focus and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson.
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  If you're a fan of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean series,
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  you may be surprised to learn that the ship, the Black Pearl, was built on the Alabama coast.
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  Al Jones, who is the Alabama Forestry Commission's Senior Economic Development Representative,
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  found the shipbuilder and he shares the story.
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  Al Jones, thanks for joining us today.
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  You're welcome, Carolyn, and I really appreciate the opportunity to speak to your audience.
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  Al, we have been having so much fun with sort of a miniseries.
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  I'd like to name that miniseries Pirates of the Panhandle
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  because we're talking about the pirates that plied the waters of the Gulf Coast.
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  You have a fascinating article in Alabama's Treasured Forest magazine
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  called Woods to Goods, Pirate Ship Edition.
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  It brings the story forward. How did you get into this?
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  In a previous career, I did disaster recovery after Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina.
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  And I was down in Bayou La Batre and I was driving over the bridge there in Bayou La Batre, the drawbridge,
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  and I saw the back of a pirate ship sticking out from Steiner Shipyard.
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  And I didn't know anything about it.
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  And I was just thinking to myself, what is a pirate ship doing in Bayou La Batre?
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  I filed it away in the back of my mind.
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  And then later I saw an article that said that the Black Pearl from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies
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  was actually built in Bayou La Batre.
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  And I assumed that must have been it.
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  And it was. That was the pirate ship that was there.
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  So, Al, after you filed away that sighting in your mind, what happened later?
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  So, moved forward several years to work at the Forestry Commission.
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  And we have a meeting every quarter to talk about articles that we could write.
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  And I was asked to do one, basically, Woods to Goods, exactly what the part of the title there is.
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  And I asked, well, does anybody know that the pirate ship from Pirates of the Caribbean was built there in Bayou La Batre, Alabama?
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  Not everybody had the opportunities I've had to go to different places in Alabama and see stuff like that.
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  But they were really surprised to hear that.
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  And they said, please, that sounds like a good article.
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  And that's exactly where it started.
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  So, Al, we find out in the article that this is all about wood, of course.
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  Right.
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  You looked into this.
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  You found that the Steiner family was three generations building wooden ships.
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  Why was this black pearl built out of cypress?
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  Cypress is a very strong wood that it's what a lot of ships were made from,
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  even back in the days of the Spanish galleons that were turning pirate ships.
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  When it's in the water, it's going to be there.
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  I did a previous article for the Treasure Forest magazines.
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  There is a cypress forest under the Gulf, about 60 miles off of Gulf Shores.
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  And they've studied that wood there.
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  And it still is good as it was when it was buried 60 plus thousand years ago.
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  So cypress is a very good shipbuilding material.
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  Back to this family shipyard.
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  You must have contacted the family.
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  And what did you find?
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  I found them to be very receptive and excited to share information.
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  People have done interesting articles about it,
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  but not in depth about both the ship and the family.
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  Once I met the grandfather, Mr. Russell Steiner, he's long retired.
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  But his passion for that ship and everything that went into it
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  and his willingness to immediately say yes to the Disney Channel
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  when they asked him to build that ship, even though he had never built a pirate ship,
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  is just a great family story.
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  It shows the resilience of the people of coastal Alabama.
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  They have that can-do attitude of, yes, whatever it is, we can do it,
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  and we'll make it work, and it will be a great outcome.
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  So how did the Steiner family go about building this pirate ship?
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  The ship that it was built on called the Sunset.
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  When Disney called Mr. Steiner, they said,
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  do you have a ship that we could use that a pirate ship could be built around?
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  And he said, yes, I owned a ship, and it's in Honduras now,
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  and I think it would be perfect for what you're looking for.
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  When he told Disney people that,
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  they immediately sent their designers and engineers down to Honduras,
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  and they came back with the Sunset.
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  It was a very small ship.
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  It's a metal ship, and they built a ring of steel around that little ship.
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  And the entire black pearl is kind of a veneer
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  that's just built around that metal frame.
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  And I think you said it was 160 feet long.
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  What really struck me about your article in the Treasured Forest magazine,
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  you talk about the legacy of a vanishing Gulf Coast craft,
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  old-school craftsmanship using wood.
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  Now, today, these boats are not all built by wood, right?
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  That is correct.
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  The Steiners used steel in basically all the ships they built,
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  and so did most of the other shipbuilders around Bayou La Batre
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  and the Gulf Coast and everywhere.
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  Wood is not used much for shipbuilding anymore.
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  Steel lasts so much longer, so much more durable.
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  It is shocking to me that when the Steiners were asked to build this ship,
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  the answer was an immediate yes.
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  This long-ago experience they had that had kind of faded into the background,
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  they were still prepared to step forward when it was needed
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  and, as you can see from the movies, do an outstanding job.
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  You were determined to track down what happened to the black pearl.
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  What happened to it?
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  That is a very interesting story.
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  The ship, after it stopped being used for Pirates of the Caribbean movies,
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  was sent down to the Caribbean, just like the title of the movies.
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  It was sent to the Caribbean to a resort down there that the Disney cruise lines go to.
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  It was there for the guests of the cruise line, as I understand it,
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  and to get off of the ship they were on and go onshore
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  and then get aboard the black pearl and look around.
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  Obviously, it was not kept seaworthy while it was docked there for tourists,
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  and it got to a point that it really was not usable for anything anymore,
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  and it was towed back from the Caribbean to Louisiana,
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  and there is where it was actually disassembled.
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  As I understand it and as the Steiners believe,
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  the only piece of it left is now lying at the Welcome to Lafitte, Louisiana sign.
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  The rest of it is completely gone and totally destroyed.
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  Is there any historical reference to this ship in that welcome area?
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  As far as I know, there is no reference to it whatsoever.
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  It's just a piece of a ship laying next to the side of the road.
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  If somebody were to happen to go to Lafitte, Louisiana
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  and see that piece of a ship lying there next to that sign,
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  I would love to have a picture of it,
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  and I would like to kind of put an exclamation point at the end of the story
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  if I could actually see what's left of that ship.
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  Is there anything else you'd like to add to your story?
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  I just wish that this kind of thing could happen more often,
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  that the use of wood to make ships could continue on.
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  I know that it's not the most viable way to do things now,
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  but I sure hate to see this great industry go away,
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  the use of wood in shipbuilding.
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  I just think it's fascinating.
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  I think it's beautiful, as you can see from the pictures of the ship in the article.
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  It was a fantastic ship, and to think that that's a dying art is really sad.
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  Al, thank you so much for your time today and for sharing this story.
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  Again, the listeners can find it in the Issue No. 1, 2026,
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  Alabama's Treasured Forest, a publication of the Alabama Forestry Commission.
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  Thank you.
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  Thank you, Carolyn. I appreciate the opportunity.
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  That was Al Jones, Senior Economic Development Representative
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  at the Alabama Forestry Commission.
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  Thanks for joining us today for In Focus,
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  which is a podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
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  I'm Carolyn Hutcheson, and this is Troy Public Radio.