About Us

WE ARE the Crewe of Thee Leviathan, berthing out of Daytona Beach, FL and flying under the flag of the Pirate Nation…
We are a very rapidly growing group of fun loving people that enjoy participating in Pirate Festivals, Renaissance and Medieval Faires, ComicCons, Fantasy Fest, SteamPunk events, and all the traveling, parties and socializing that happens when FUN and CREATIVE people get together with other FUN and CREATIVE people. It’s never too late to set your inner Pirate free!

We believe life is too short to drink bad wine or cheap rum, and is best lived with a smirk on your face. Our itinerary is simple- weekend festival getaways, planned “invasions” of restaurants and bars, pub crawls, themed parties, happy hours, and random impromptu gatherings. We network within our group for those in business and the arts while also being a support network for each other in our daily lives…because put quite simply, “We Are Crewe!”

The Founding of Thee Leviathan

IN EARLY 2011, a group of four friends from Ormond Beach, FL visited the Bay Area Renaissance Faire (BARF) in Tampa dressed as pirates. There they met Doug Kosarek, a veteran of Ren Faires and pirate festivals who was part of a Tampa pirate crew called The Harbinger. Doug introduced them to many of his pirate friends over the next few weeks of BARF and soon they felt the call of the sea and thought of forming their own crew on the east coast, based in Daytona Beach. On a hot, steamy day in August that year, at an unplanned, impromptu gathering in a pizza joint in Daytona, the now five good friends decided they would officially form the crew and call it Thee Leviathan. They chose Doug to be the Captain, since he had so much experience and many ideas on how to structure and lead the group forward, and Doug’s alter ego, Captain Kraven Moregrog, took the helm. In order to distinguish Thee Leviathan from the many Gasparilla and Mardi-Gras groups that spelled Krewe with a K, we chose to always spell Crewe with a C. Each year on August 24th, the Captain and founding members have made the pilgrimage to Giuseppe’s Pizza in Daytona Beach to commemorate the founding, and everyone is welcome to join in the birthday celebration.

Our Creed: Fun, Love and Acceptance

Thee Leviathan was created in part because what the founders had seen in most other groups was exclusive membership, where new members had to be sponsored, nominated, or voted into the crew. Of course, sometimes this is the only way a group can work, for example with Gasparilla Krewes that can only grow to a maximum size of 50 or 100 members due to resource limitations. But even the pirate groups we met that were not part of Gasparilla had strict rules to allow only a select group of people to join, usually restricted to who they already knew and hung out with. What we wanted was a Crewe that was inclusive, and allowed anyone to become a stowaway who was captivated by what we did and who we were and simply asked to join us. Each stowaway is welcomed and accepted as they are with the promise that we will not judge them, and they will be part of a loving and supportive Pirate family, where all are equal and respected.

We have one rule: 

 Have fun and create a fun environment for everyone around you

The early members also felt that we were not just at an event to keep to ourselves, but we truly had a desire to interact with the public and other pirate groups. We were naturally entertaining to the people around us, and regularly chatted and took pictures with them. Captain Kraven would often remind the Crewe that “We haven’t met all the cool people yet!”. Not only did our membership grow quickly, but out of this came our proud declaration, “We don’t recruit, we attract!”.
Based on these founding principles, our core values remain inclusivity; openness; mutual respect for our members, other groups, and the public; and a desire to have fun and entertain. This is what it means to be Leviathan.