How would they be able to afford a ship? I have this imagine in my mind that many pirate ships were stolen, but if this is the case, how could they even be stolen without a ship to raid the ship, I suppose it's possible to steal a ship while it's in port, It's also theoretically possible to board a ship and simply have a mutny and seize control of the ship, while already at sea, and it's possible that ships were simply given to new captain from older captains if they managed to seize one, but these are simply what could theoretically be possible, rather than what actually happened historically.