Captain Charles ‘Charlie’ Vane

Charles Vane, is an English pirate who preys upon both English and French shipping.

Vane was among the pirate captains who established the Pirate Republic at New Providence after the British abandoned the colony in 1713. When threatened there by Governor Woodes Rogers and two Royal Navy ships, Vane alone resisted them, driving the men-of-war back with a captured French fireship. Vane then escaped in his fast six-gun sloop, the Ranger, defiantly firing on the governor as he passed and threatening to return. Vane subsequently traded up ships by capturing first a Barbados sloop and then a large 12-gun brigantine, which he also renamed the Ranger.

After a brief rendezvous with Blackbeard near Oracoke Island in the Carolinas, Vane cruised north to New York, seizing yet more vessels, before turning south towards the Caribbean, only for his crew to vote him out of his captaincy for cowardice after failing to engage a larger French warship. Replaced by his quartermaster Calico Jack Rackham, he was marooned along the coast of New England where he managed to steal a small sloop. Subsequently he has set about clawing his way back up the pirate ranks by seizing ever larger ships.  His present whereabouts and resources are unknown.

He is despised by many for his cruelty to captives. He also shows scant respect for the pirate code, having cheated his own crews out of their fair share of plunder.

Governor Rogers has set the pirate hunter Captain Hornigold the task of capturing Vane He has so far evaded his Royal pursuer.