SUPERSTITIONS

 20 November 2021: Sailors - and others who go to sea - are basically a superstitious lot; some of their beliefs are weird and strange to those of us in the 21st Century, but in the days before the internet, airplanes, and instant communications, a sailor had only himself, his ship, and his mates to rely on for getting back to shore safely - and hopefully, in the same vessel he left port on!

Courtesy of the Maritime Museum of New Zealand, we will have a look at ten of the superstitions this week and next week, we'll finish the list of twenty. 

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20. Re-naming a boat
It is bad luck to change the name of the boat. If you do, you must have a de-naming ceremony and officially christen the boat again.

19.  Tattoos
When tattooing became popular at sea a rooster and a pig were often tattooed onto sailors’ feet. It was believed these animals would prevent the sailors from drowning by showing them the way to shore. [ed: they were also generally in crates which floated!]

 

 

 18.  Blood
It is unlucky to set off at the start of the fishing season without having first shed some blood in a fight or in an accident.[ed: "if there's no blood, you're not sailing!"]

17.  Fishing nets
When setting fishing nets it is good luck to use an odd number 

16.  Caul
Having the caul of a new-born child on board a ship was meant to prevent anyone from drowning. This meant that cauls were often purchased by sailors before a voyage. (A caul is a harmless membrane that covers the face and head of a newborn baby. It is very rare).

15.  Hat overboard
Losing a hat overboard was an omen that the trip would be a long one.

14.  Egg shells
Egg shells had to be broken into tiny pieces once an egg was cracked open. This was meant to stop witches coming to the ship to sail in the pieces of shell.

13.  Personal grooming
Anyone aboard who trimmed their nails cut their hair or shaved their beard brought bad luck to the ship.

12. Feet
Flat-footed people were unlucky on board a ship and were also avoided by sailors before they boarded.

 

11. Women
Women were bad luck on board because they distracted the crew, which would anger the sea, causing treacherous conditions as revenge. However, conveniently for the male crew, naked women calmed the sea, which is why so many figureheads were women with bare breasts. 

                                          

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OK, yes they are a bit weird, certainly not prevalent in today's maritime world, but at one time, men of the sea lived by these and 10 more that we'll look at next time.

Until then, 

                                       Fair Winds,

                                              Old Salt

NOVEMBER STORMS

 14 November 2021: It was 46 years ago this past week that one of the more notorious shipwrecks - sinkings - in the United States occurred. November 10th 1975 was the date the iron ore carrier, Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior taking with her all 29 men aboard. Because it was so sudden and radio communication so sketchy, that to this day, no one knows for sure why she sank. Granted she faced an horrendous storm - Lake Superior is famous for monster storms that just spring up out of nowhere - but the actual reason has yet to be determined. Singer Gordon Lightfoot wrote a very long song about the disaster which more than likely brought it to the attention of many who might never have been aware of the tragedy. From a local (Michigan) publication:

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LAKE SUPERIOR, MI - “Things look pretty bad. It looks like she may have split apart at the seams.”

In the hours after the 728-foot Edmund Fitzgerald abruptly vanished from the radar during a gale on Lake Superior the night of Nov. 10, 1975, the attitude of rescue crews quickly switched from incredulity that a freighter so large could just disappear, to asking nearby ships to help with the search.

 

Forty-six years ago tonight, the search for the Mighty Fitz was just beginning. Its last radio contact with a nearby ship was at 7:10 p.m. Minutes later, her crew could not be raised on the ship’s radio.

The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point in the Upper Peninsula will be offering a livestream memorial service at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 10.

In these audio recordings, the U.S. Coast Guard at the Sault Ste. Marie station is talking to Capt. Jesse Cooper from the nearby Arthur M. Anderson, a ship that had been trailing the Fitzgerald for much of that day in fierce seas and waves as high as 25 feet.

The Anderson had been the first to raise the alarm when the Fitzgerald vanished. Now the Anderson’s crew was being asked to go back out into the gale and look for the Fitzgerald and her crew of 29 men.

You can hear the Coast Guard saying it’s “very certain that the Fitzgerald went down,” and is asking nearby ships for assistance.

The Coast Guard was hoping ships near Whitefish Point could look for lights in the water, lifeboats, debris - anything signaling there might be survivors.

as she rests today under Lake Superior

 Earlier in the day, the Edmund Fitzgerald had lost both its radars and the Arthur Anderson’s crew had been helping the Fitzgerald’s crew navigate through the storm.

“The last time I talked with him, he said he was ‘holding his own.’ I lost contact after that,” Cooper tells the Coast Guard.

Cooper agrees to go back out to the area where he thinks the Fitzgerald disappeared, but you can tell by his voice that he’s worried about his own crew, too.

“I’m afraid I’m going to take a hell of a beatin’ out there.”

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Perhaps someday, underwater archeologists will figure out what actually happened to the "Big Fitz" but at the present, only theories are offered. Some include poorly secured hatches which allowed water into the holds unnoticed, until it was too late (covered the ore shipment), while others claim the ship hit a sandbar leaving port and damaged her hull. Neither, of course, has been proven.

Until next time,

                                               Fair Winds, 

                                                       Old Salt

 

SAIL VS NARCOS

 7 October 2021: Back in 2012, during the celebration of the bicentennial of the War of 1812, I had the privilege of riding the Ecuadorian tall ship GUYAS from the Gulf of Mexico up the Mississippi to New Orleans. It was a grand experience (though certainly not my first on a square-rigged sailing vessel) and even though the weather was anything but wonderful, we enjoyed watching the cadets (Guyas is a naval training ship) handle the sails, man the yards, and operate the ship. Cut now to a week or so ago, same ship, but in the Pacific Ocean, and something not as "spectator-friendly" - there likely were no spectators, except the participants, around anyway - and remember Guyas is a military ship. From CNN:

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 Consider it a win for 18th century technology over late 20th century criminal innovation.

A three-masted sailing ship belonging to the Ecuadorian Navy last week captured a so-called narco sub, a homemade low-profile vessel (LPV) designed to transport illegal narcotics, in the Pacific Ocean off Colombia, according to a statement from Ecuador's military.

Guyas entering NY Harbor in 2012

It said the barque Guayas, used to train naval cadets in seamanship, interdicted the narco sub, in international waters between the exclusive economic zones of Colombia and the Ecuadorian islands in the Pacific.[ed: The Galapagos]

Three Ecuadorian nationals and one Colombian were taken into custody, the statement said, though it did not give any details on what narcotics might have been aboard the narco sub, which was powered by three outboard engines.

The 257-foot-long (78 meter) sailing ship, powered by more than 15,000 square feet (1,393 square meter) of sails hung from three towering masks, was on a training cruise when it spotted the drug-running vessel and made the stop, the Ecuadorian military said.

The Guayas is designed to carry 80 cadets as well as a permanent crew of 36.

Most narco subs are actually LPVs, essentially boats with most of their bulk below the waterline, although more advanced versions are what as known as semi-submersibles, vessels with just a hatch and air intakes above the surface. 

the capture

 The LPVs first emerged in the late 1990s as Colombian drug cartels looked for ways to evade United States law enforcement patrols in the Caribbean Sea and get their illicit cargo into the US

Sailing ships had their heyday in the 18th and early 19th century as European powers like Great Britain, France and Spain [Ed: U.S. also] built naval fleets to protect their commercial shipping interests.

But the advent of steam power in the mid-1800s quickly relegated sail-powered military vessels to the scrapyard.

But several nations still use sailing ships to train recruits in basic seamanship. Sister ships of the Guayas are in use with the Colombian, Venezuelan and Mexican militaries, according to the Tall Ships Network, a British website that calls itself "a global platform for all things tall ships."

The US Coast Guard barque Eagle is used to train the service's cadets and is the only active sailing ship in the US military.

"The ways of old still have much to teach," the US Coast Guard Academy's website says of Eagle. "The conditions and situations that you face under sail can't be replicated either in a classroom or aboard today's modern ships."

 "Totally dependent on wind, waves and currents, (Coast Guard cadets) quickly learn how these forces of nature affect a vessel. They become skilled in ship-handling, decision-making and meeting unexpected challenges," the academy's website says.

It's that kind of training that could lead to a sailing ship to running down a mechanically powered vessel, said Alessio Patalano, professor of war and strategy at King's College in London.

"Sailors train regularly to man this ship to the utmost of its capabilities, which means that on favorable weather conditions its sails could propel it well past 10 knots," Patalano said.

"Whilst this is not a speed comparable to modern ships, when combined with a proficient crew, it would certainly give the ship an edge over four narcos on a home made drug-carrying raft, fast as it could have been," he said.

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There you have it! A couple of weeks ago we wrote about another Tall Ship tangling with a bridge with lots of spectators to witness it - admittedly not a glorious moment - but here is one engaged in a glorious moment - and not a soul other than the participants to enjoy it! 

Until next week,

                                    Fair Winds,

                                       Old Salt