If no one has a galley story to share, what about superstitions? Anyone have any good ones? Bananas of course, we had one about split pea soup and theres a couple about salt. Appreciate any input
Banana goooood……..arrrrrrr!
Don’t fear the banana.
I was subjected to “whistling in the wheelhouse”. Thought it misguided.
Leaving a bucket half full…..
whistling…
blue mittens
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When I was in the fishing business, we’d never sail on a Friday, and nobody else ever did either, so that was an easy superstition to comply with. Later, when I got into the tug freight business, voyages seemed to always start on Friday, so I had to let that one go.
A while into my sailing life, I developed my own superstition: I would never pack my bag to get off the boat until the day of my departure. To pack the day before would tempt fate, and something would happen to screw up me going home. I never ran into anybody else who held this superstition (psychosis?), so maybe it’s mine alone.
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Norwegian one - it is bad luck to see a member of the church on the dock before a trip.
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we break every superstition possible out here in asia to get wind when sailing
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Whistling has been mentioned and I suspect that was historically related to it being confused with orders which were passed by the bosun’s call, still occasionally evident in some sail training ships. Certainly during my time in the navy, whistling was banned.
Food wise, I don’t recall any superstitions worthy of that definition that withstood any test. Banana mania seems to be related to particular ships or skippers but without basis in any dire consequences.
My experience of naval catering brought home deep suspicion (not superstition) of anything in pastry with the strong possibility that the pastry was hiding something that didn’t move well in previous days. I do recall a near mutiny mid Indian Ocean when we ran out of the best cure-all food disguise, ketchup (colloquially “redders”).
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How about woman o/b?
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Perhaps the pastry was hiding something that did move well when the lights came on but came to a sticky end.
Then there was one cook I sailed with that it was said “ he could turn good food into shit faster than my dog.”
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Superstitions is an ugly word. Please use instead “attention to detail.”
Food containers upright in storage. No pea soup, no Cornish hens.
Left foot first for boots and stepping on or off a boat.
No roller bags.
Never trust another man’s coil.
Rack mugs to bail overboard.
Banana weirdness is for fisherman.
Put your cell phone the fuck away.
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Once one of our vessels had to carry a coffin with the remains of a person from Dutch Harbor to Sandpoint. The weather was fair. A receptacle was made on deck for the coffin to protect it for the12-hour run.
One of the deckhands was from Guyana. A good man. Steady and hardworking. But he absolutely refused to step one foot on deck from the minute the coffin came aboard to the minute it was delivered.
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On my fish processor we had a crew of anywhere between 120 and 186, and one of them was an old Filipino gentleman who was a great worker and good shipmate.
Unfortunately, he had some kind of cardiac event one day and despite our hard work and best efforts, he passed away onboard. His body was taken ashore to be returned to his family, and I expected things onboard to pretty much go back to normal, but there was general unrest until the word filtered up from the crew that the ship needed to be blessed in order to make things right. So, I believe it was Father George in on the island of St. Paul who came out in a gale with his vial of holy water and straightened us out. Not exactly a superstition, but we do what we can to make sure the ghosts stay friendly.
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- Whilst on the bridge, never turn your back to the bow, (makes sense).
- It’s bad luck to change a boat’s name (unless you ask the previous Owner for permission).
- My own personal rule about entering holds and spaces: “Last in, First out.”
- If I someone is turning green at the gills, i.e. tipsy: Make them face to leeward (why, should be obvious to anyone that has ever had a bender on board.
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In the French Navy, you never mention the name of a rodent with big ears that starts with an “R” or an “H”.
The only rope “corde” is the watch bell’s rope or the hangman’s rope.
“rodent with big ears”
Unmentionable in Scotland (and RN) too, that’s “underground racehorse”. Likewise salmon (despite the scale of the fishery) is the “pink gentleman”, swans too, or images of above. Leave your “Swan Vestas” matches ashore.
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What’s the lore behind the unmentionable salmon and swan?
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What’s the lore - no idea!
I found out about the swan thing when, one day out in the Clyde in the days when I still smoked, one of the guys (Titch, who was a fisherman and RNLI lifeboat crew) snatched my matches from me and threw them over the side!
I am the same, after learning the hard way. My scheduled reliefs didn’t show 3 times in a row.
Now I don’t even bother packing my bag until I see my relief coming up the gangway with my own eyes.
Best cure for “channel fever”.
I believe the bananas on a boat superstition came from how bananas are very susceptible to Panama Disease, and avoiding spreading the fungus to other countries. The banana we know today as the “Cavendish” which became popular in the 1950s is now under threat of “Panama Disease”. Before that was the “Gros Michel” was popular before that, but is almost extinct now because of this.
Makes more sense to me than anything I’ve read or heard anyway.