From YPPedia

The ultimate list is a listing of the highest skilled pirates in the ocean. Separate lists are maintained for each puzzle, and displayed for both puzzle standing and experience. Each ocean has an ocean wide ultimate list for each puzzle, and each archipelago has one as well. These lists are viewable by clicking on the icon of a puzzle on any pirate's info page.

In a well-established puzzle, only pirates with a puzzle standing of ultimate and a puzzle experience of at least broad are shown on the puzzle standing list (left-side) while only the top experienced pirates with a standing of master or above are shown on the experience list (right-side). However, in a new puzzle or in a new ocean, the list behaves differently. If there are fewer than ten ultimates in the ocean/archipelago, lesser ranks will be shown provided that there are at least ten pirates with a level of broad or better experience. If there are not at least ten pirates with broad, then the list is limited to the number of total pirates with ultimate standing. Thus in a new puzzle or ocean, it is possible to be on the ultimate list with a broad/master standing, as long as there are nine pirates or fewer with better rankings.

The ultimate lists are updated daily, at around 2:00AM PDT.

Historical Notes

The ultimate lists replaced an earlier feature of similar function, the "Top 10" lists. These showed only the top 10 pirates for both puzzle standing and experience in each puzzle, and they were replaced with release 2005-07-08. The Top 10 lists also had nearly instantaneous updates.