Sailing Superstitions

phantomlady said:
Anyone got any sailing superstitions to share?
We never start a trip (sailing) on a Friday and my husband (who is Cornish) will not entertain having a pasty in any shape or form aboard our boat - apparently its a cornish thing (?)
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I set sail across Biscay leaving Falmouth on Friday the 13th December and had no prob's other than a lack of wind for the first couple of days!
 
NO women or BANANAS on a boat if you want to catch fish.

If we're out trolling and no fish are caught within a few hours the Bananas go first.

Why because bananas cant cook like my wife can.

"Give Mark a banana and he eats for 1 minute give him his wife and 26 years and still eating!"
 
A libation is poured at the start of every season and before and after every major passage.

Makes the rum consumption a bit fierce!
 
Superstitions

Thirty years ago I was sailing with my brother in law & was amazed when he said that he wouldn't have a whistling kettle aboard - he was a scientific type university don. I started collecting superstitions etc. and have several hundred which I considered publishing but never got round to it. Far too many to post here but if you want a particular subject e.g. names, colours, bodies, mythology I will try to oblige.
Jim
 
Last edited:
phantomlady said:
Anyone got any sailing superstitions to share?
We never start a trip (sailing) on a Friday and my husband (who is Cornish) will not entertain having a pasty in any shape or form aboard our boat - apparently its a cornish thing (?)
Click to expand...

Well, I'm a bit stuck with the one about not having ministers of religion on board - I AM a lay Minister in my spare time! So, you can blame bad weather in the Clyde region on me :D
 
Well I'm Cornish and always take a pasty aboard, every weekend ... maybe that's where I've been going wrong all these years! ... I have to get them sent up from Cornwall by the boxful ... didn't know about the superstition though ... only one I adhere to is never buying a green hulled boat.
 
JCP said:
I'm confused. Is pasty a slang term for a minister of religion?
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Sorry - I was introducing a new superstition, which is so ancient that I assumed everyone would know about it; it is actually a part of the story-line in some of the Jack Aubrey novels, where Jack Aubrey is quite happy to have a minister of religion sailing with him as an assistant surgeon, but NOT as a chaplain. I was responding to the OP's "nautical superstitions" question, not the specific statement about pasties!

I wear strange clothes on Sundays, but they are made of cloth, not pastry :D
 
You must never say the "R" word. "Bunnies" is ok, but don't ask me why rabbits are unlucky.
I also once sailed with a captain who reckoned it was unlucky to turn the ship in an anticlockwise direction. Apparently it made getting in and out of Barry quite interesting.
 
Neptune gets a share of our booze, for being kind to us.
I won't allow any whistling by people, on the boat (the kettle's fine!)
You just don't what wind is going to whistled up
And NO tempting fate!!
 
Took delivery of our cat on a Friday 13th and sailed 2 hours later to take home, 420 n miles and one problem, even managed a few good fish on an old line and lure we found on board.

However my Son, the only other person on board would let me take any bananas on board; not even after I explained why banana boats sank and caused the myth.

Back then ships were loaded till the hold was full. Now if you were loaded with hay and me with bananas and we hit a good storm, chances are I might not make it, primarily because I was carring a lot more weight in my hold.

Avagoodweekend......:)
 
I always have pastys onboard when in Janner land. But they have to be good ones. Not the one's sold by the likes of the Cornish Oggie Co................they are c**p.

Superstitions onboard ? one or two but we try to avoid them.

We do however have Mrs B who lives onboard with us. Well, not actually Mrs B, but her spirit.
She was the wife of the previous owner. Cant fully explain it, but we have had some very strange things happen.
 
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