The sloop was an extremly common ship. They were fast and designed to carry goods and cargo at a fast rate which made them ideal for pirates to capture, since they could catch slower moving ships quickly.

A sloop had a single mast with a fore-and-aft rig and generally had one sail.

A brigatine is a two mast ship with the foremast square rigged and the mainmast fore-and-aft rigged. It was durable and boasted a huge cargo capacity which meant that this ship was able to hold large crews and weapons such as cannons and mortars.

The most popular ship for pirates since it could hold at least a dozen cannons and a huge crew.

Similar to the brigatine, except this ship had two mast rigged with square sails and were much bigger than brigatines. These became popular for pirate, merchant, and warships since they were more manuverible than the average vessel of there size. The biggest disadvantage over them, was that they required a good size crew to sail and had a hard time sailing into the wind.

The frigate was the main "Ship of the Line". These ships boasted a huge upgrade over brigatine ships with three mast fully rigged and usually at least 28 cannons on board. These ships were warships that could chase down any ship and had devastating weapons like mortar and chainshot. Pirates loved these ships though it was usually a lot of work for a crew to take one.

The British Man-o-War was a ship with one purpose. Bring order to Britian by destroying spanish and pirate ships alike and very seldom did they ever not succeed. Many pirates, including Blackbeard and Bartholomew Roberts, lost their lives at the hands of a Man-o-War captain.

The Man-o-War had three main mast with 3 to 4 sails. Some were well over 200ft long and could hold a battery of around 124 cannons. Usually it was 4 at the bow, 8 at the stern, and 56 on each side spread between three decks. They were extremly slow but if they hit you with a broadside it was all over.

Designed to be battleships or treasure ships. These ships had three mast and three decks. Boasting a high amount of cannons, these ships were Spanish equivilants to the British Man-o-Wars. Some of these Galleons fell into pirate hands during the Golden Age. The most well known Galleon was Blackbeard's ship Queen Anne's Revenge (originally named Concord) which was stolen on a merchant voyage.