I work with some proper old skool rockers / jazz types (old enough to be our parents) on the radio station and folk actually did use to do stuff like that although paying a bunch of drug addicts to burgle the studio and steal master tapes wasn’t uncommon either!

As for actual ship based radio pirates, “the boat that rocked” is complete and utter bollocks. The reality was far harsher and the Post Office (at the time they controlled every form of communication available in the UK) locked them off because people were fighting over the money to be made and killing each other (my older friends first band manager was shot dead over a financial argument from pirate radio and the music business back in the day).