Pirate Academy: Missing at Sea by Juston Somper ~ Blog Tour

By Kate Heap on July 2, 2024

Welcome to the blog tour for the exhilarating, ever-so-charming and endlessly fun "Missing at Sea", the second book in the Pirate Academy series by Justin Somper. Excitement is growing as the young pirates prepare for their Oceans Bound weekend. Not only do they need to captain their own ships and work together as a crew, but there are dangers to navigate, an enemy to defeat and a huge adventure to be had!

I'm thrilled to welcome author Justin Somper to Scope for Imagination with a guest post about the school lessons the pirate apprentices take at the Pirate Academy.

LESSONS by Justin Somper

Some of the best fun I'm having writing PIRATE ACADEMY is populating the school timetable and, with it, the staff common room. The lessons on the PIRATE ACADEMY curriculum are so important in making this feel like we're at a real school but, at the very same time, showing readers that this is "no ordinary school" and has its own rules and atmosphere.

When I first introduced Pirate Academy in the VAMPIRATES books, I swiped my teenage nephew Matt's school timetable, to remind myself of the layout of a young teen's typical school week. I quickly started striking out Matt's own lessons – English, Geography, Biology etc - and began replacing them with classes more suitable for trainee pirate superstars.

I decided every day at the Academy would begin with Strength, Stamina and Motivation, the brainchild of teaching captain, Pavel Platonov. It seemed important that the students achieve maximum physical and mental fitness, so where better to start each and every day? In PIRATE ACADEMY, I've revisited and refined SSM a little. The older Academy students (ages 12+) now run a full 10 km every morning. The next three classes - including our all-important Barracudas - run 5 km. I decided to let the first two years (ages 7-9) off the rigours of SSM. As far as teachers go, Platonov is joined by a roster of his teaching colleagues, including Captain Kirsten Larsen and Captain Victor Molina.

SSM not only offers an invigorating start to the Academy day – it's proving quite useful to me from a storytelling point of view. It's so handy having a class where clusters of Barracuda students are running together and can swap key pieces of information and gossip. In NEW KID ON DECK, there is feverish speculation about the fate of Wing Moon, whose mums removed him from school the night before. In MISSING AT SEA, the Barracudas are all full of anticipation for the upcoming Oceans Bound weekend.

The second lesson to have made a transition from VAMPIRATES into PIRATE ACADEMY is Knots Class, which is the domain of pirate legend, Captain Lisabeth Quivers. In VAMPS, we see Quivers instructing the students in fairly standard nautical knots. For PIRATE ACADEMY, I decided to amp things up and show her, and the students', excitement when working on "attack knots". So we see Captain Quivers teaching the students how to deploy the fiendish "Catch of the Day". It's a knot we see some of the Barracudas use to great effect later in the story, when they are pitted against the fiendish agents from the League of True Pirates.

Captain Quivers is one of my favourite teaching captains, not least because of her dry sense of humour. There are a couple of key inspirations for Quivers. I've always imagined her having the cut-glass voice of Katharine Hepburn. Her demeanour also owes quite a lot to children's books pioneer, Wendy Cooling, a great friend and mentor. Quivers has a "kind manner and floaty clothes" but also possesses "the soul and fire of a pirate queen".

It's obviously important that the Academy students are taught how to sail – and I pondered just where these 11 and 12 year-olds would be in their sailing journey. In NEW KID ON DECK, we see them having Double Sailing. Funny how even the expression "Double X" instantly takes you back to school, isn't it? Talking of going back to school, a key piece of research I did for PIRATE ACADEMY was – finally - taking sailing lessons myself. Six months after arriving in Perth, Western Australia, I began a beginner's course at Royal Perth Yacht Club.

I learned a lot of the rudiments – from how a sail works, through tacking and gybing to sailing "in the groove". Above all, it was invaluable to experience first-hand what it feels like to be in a small boat in a range of weather conditions – from sunny, virtually windless days through to full-on storms. I also learned how it feels when a crew is all pulling together well and, conversely, when they aren't. After almost 20 years of writing about ships and sailing with the minimum of first-hand experience, this was hugely worthwhile and overdue!

When I'm writing the parts of the story where the Barracudas are out at sea, I make a conscious effort not to get too technical. "You're not writing a sailing manual," my editor Anne fed back on one occasion when I'd got rather consumed by jargon. Mostly, I try to lean into the experience of being on the water, and how that can change from calm and relaxing to exhilarating to frankly terrifying in a matter of minutes.

The other regular lesson on the Barracudas' timetable is, of course, Swords Class. Again, in PIRATE ACADEMY, I've seized the opportunity to change up what we've seen before in VAMPIRATES. So in NEW KID ON DECK, we find ourselves in a state-of-the art combat studio, where the floor tilts to mirror the rolling deck of a ship. Here the students are taught by Captain Victor Molina, who has the enviable reputation of being "the most accomplished swordfighter in pirate history".

Writing about sword-fighting is another area where it can be all too easy to fall into jargon and lose the reader's attention. I've worked hard here to trim this back and convey instead the raw energy and athleticism of the class. We see more than one Barracuda opening their attack with a 'flunge' – a flying lunge. This, I think, tells the reader that these kids are talented and experienced but also emphasises that we are all here to have fun!

In many ways, that's the balance I'm aiming to strike with all the lessons at Pirate Academy. I want to convey the sense that this is an elite school where legendary pirate captains are rigorously training their young apprentices to be "the best of the best". There's an overarching sense of jeopardy hanging over Pirate Academy and the students of Barracuda Class. At the same time, I want the lessons to feel incredibly fun – both for my characters and readers – to participate in.

Don't miss the other stops on this exciting blog tour!