Sailor Mouth Saturday: Lap

Today's word swings widely at sea. From superstitions about weather to naval uniforms to the building of iron vessels, lap plays a little part in them all.

In shipbuilding, lap over revers to the carlings of masts which Admiral Smyth explains clearly in The Sailors Word Book:

Pieces of timber about five inches square, lying fore and aft, along from one beam to another. On and athwart these the ledges rest, whereon the planks of the deck and other portions of carpentry are made fast.

Thus, the mast carlings are said to lap over or upon the deck because they are necessarily deep. Laps proper are the ends of a carling that support an unusual heft. Admiral Smyth gives the example of the capstan step.

Lap jointing refers to the overlapping plates of iron on a vessel. This form of shipbuilding is similar to the old wooden fashion known as clincher or clinker building.

We've all read of the wave "lapping" at the shore or some other solid surface but at sea, lapping often refers to thin ice. Indicating the way the ice slowly builds as the temperature descends, these layers of overlapping ice can be an extreme danger to ships and men, trapping or even crushing vessels in their stealthy grasp.

The word lapel (lapelle) was once as important to naval uniforms as the more modern epaulette. The golden fringed epaulette came into use in European navies during the late 18th and early 19th century. Prior to that, a white lapelle was used in uniform making to indicate the rank of lieutenant. Admiral Smyth quotes what he calls "the brackish poet, in the craven midshipman's lament":

If I had in my country staid,
I then had learnt some useful trade,
And scorned the white lapelle.

In northern seas women who claimed a certain talent for weather-witchery were sometimes dubbed Lapland Witches. Apparently the women of this Finish tribe were more than capable of bringing fair weather - but at a price. One was considered an ignorant gob among his mates if he bought weather for coin.

Famously, the dish known as lap's course is said to be one of the oldest savory dishes served to any working ship's foc's'l men. It developed into the more familiar lobscouse, a stew of salted meat, potatoes, onions, spices and ship's biscuit for thickening that warmed the heart and stuck to the ribs of many a hungry seamen throughout history.

And so, an end to lap. I chose this word today because it is my youngest daughter's fourteenth birthday today. Like any mother who loves her children, I now see a beautiful young lady but remember a very little redhead who used to like to sit on my lap and listen to me sing...

Happy Saturday, Brethren; fair winds, following sails and full tankards to you all!

Header: Beach Scene by Gustav Courbet c 1874 via Old Paint

Sea Monsters: The Mermaid Song

One Friday morn when we set sail,
And our ship not far from land,
We there did espy a fair pretty maid,
With a comb and glass in her hand, her hand, her hand,
With a comb and glass in her hand.

And the stormy winds did blow,
And we jolly sailormen were up, up aloft,
And the lubbers lying down below, below, below,
And the landlubbers lying down below.

Then up spake the cabin boy of our gallant ship,
And a well-spoken boy was he,
I'va a father and mother in fair Portsmouth town,
And this night they will weep for me, for me, for me,
And this night they will weep for me.

Then up spake the captain of our gallant ship,
And a right good captain was he,
I have married a wife in fair Plymouth town,
And tonight she a widow will be, will be, will be,
And tonight she a widow will be.

Then up spake the cook of our gallant ship,
And a dirty old sinner was he,
I don't care a damn for the pots and the pans!
They may go to the bottom of the sea, the sea, the sea,
They may go to the bottom of the sea!

Then three times round went our gallant ship,
And three times round went she,
And she sank to the bottom of the sea, the sea, the sea,
And she sank to the bottom of the sea.

And the raging seas did roar,
And the stormy winds did blow,
And we jolly sailormen were up, up aloft,
And the lubbers lying down below, below, below,
And the landlubbers lying below.

This old sea song, whose origin remains in question, seems to imply from its title that sighting the mermaid at the beginning of the voyage is what doomed the song's ship. As any good seaman knows, this is surely a ruse. Leaving port on Friday was doubtless what actually did her in...

Header: Mermaids by George W. Maynard via American Gallery

History: The Sailors' Saint

When modern Americans hear the name St. Nicholas, they think of that right jolly ol' elf who brings presents to good girls and boys on Christmas Eve. But this very versatile saint has many other duties to attend to; some of which involve the safety of sailors.

St. Nicholas, who was born at Lycia some time in the fourth century CE, is better known as "of Myra" in honor of the city over which he presided as a Catholic bishop. The saint is sometimes also know by the moniker "of Bari" although why I cannot determine. He is the patron saint of a vast and seemingly disjointed array of items and people. According to Butler's Lives of Patron Saints, the Bishop is responsible for children of both sexes, brides, unmarried women, pawnbrokers, perfumers and perfumiers, travelers, pilgrims, safe journeys, sailors and maritime pilots. He is also the protector of Russia and the cities of Amsterdam, New York, Baranquilla, Bari, Myra and Liverpool. His feast day is December 6th, coincidentally the day after Krampus, the celebration of St. Nicholas' unsavory helper who goes by the same name.

The most famous story of the saint - and the one that awarded him the red and white suit of Santa Claus - has to do with Bishop Nicholas rescuing the three Christian daughters of a poor pagan who, unable to provide them with the dowries required for proper marriages, was going to sell them to a brothel owner. The future saint, hearing of the girls' distress, managed to raise three bags of gold, one for each girl's dowry. As he amassed these small fortunes, St. Nicholas threw the individual bags into the poor man's cottage under cover of darkness. Thus the bishop remained anonymous and, through this generosity, became not only a patron of children and brides, but an overarching giver of gifts, particularly at Christmas.

The connection of the saint to sailors is probably just as much legend. St. Nicholas was said to have made pilgrimages to the Holy Land and Egypt, both of which would have required travel via ship. The most compelling story of the saint and sailors, however, has the Bishop appearing to a vessel about to be beaten open on the rocks off Lycia. Through his intervention, the ship was brought safely into the port. A shrine was built to the saint there and, from that time forward, sailors stopped in to prayed to St. Nicholas for safe passage. Those who survived rough seas were also known to bring a piece of canvas from their rescued ship to the shrine as an offering of thanks.

Finally, if you're interested in the subject, you can find a lengthy and fascinating discussion of St. Nicholas and his importance to sailors over at the always informative gCaptain.

Be sure to stop by again tomorrow when the lucky winner of Triple P's very first giveaway will be announced. Until then, I hope the Holidays continue happy for all!

Header: Saint Nicholas and the Sailors from the Tres Riches Heures of the Duc of Berry via Wikipedia

Horror on the High Seas: Dead

The word dead has a lot to do with Hallowe'en, which if we're honest is a celebration of the dead. So what better word for our Sailor Mouth Saturday during Horror on the High Seas week? I mean, we did devil last year.

We've discussed dead reckoning before, that amazing ability of our ancestors to make an educated guess about the positioning of their ship in blue water without reference to the stars or the planets. A keen trick if you could pull it off, but potentially deadly if your guess was wrong.

Many times the word dead has to do with components of a ship or her rigging. Dead doors are those attached to the inner bulwark of a ship's quarter gallery, this being the private latrine of the commanding officer. Since the quarter gallery is shifted slightly outward from the hull - for obvious reasons - dead doors are set in place to keep water out should the quarter gallery proper be, as Admiral Smyth puts it, "carried away." Wooden blocks, often made of elm, are used as stationary harnesses for rope to pass through; these blocks are known as dead eyes which comes from the older term, dead man's eyes. It is thought that the "dead" in this instance refers to the blocks' lack of movement.

The timber just at the midship bend, about a third of the length from her head, is known as a dead-flat. The dead-rising, by contrast, is the area of a ship near the stern post and is usually a reference to her bottom rather than her deck. Dead ropes are those which do not run through a block. Dead wood is used to correct certain inherent aberrations in a ship's keel; the blocks used were known individually as dead wood knees.  Dead works refers to the entire part of the ship which is above the water line when that ship is fully laden.

Dead lights are the shutters which can be attached to the outside of the stern windows which light the commanding officer's cabin in larger ships. These are fastened shut in anticipation of dirty weather. Dead lights is also a term for swamp gas or the elusive jack-o-lantern.

Dead can also be applied to weather conditions and navigation. A dead calm indicates no wind whatever, a sailor's nightmare. This is similar to a dead-lown, which Admiral Smyth tells us in The Sailor's Word Book is a "completely still atmosphere." Dead on end refers to a full backing wind blowing in the exact opposite direction from the ship's course. Dead upon a wind is to slightly better advantage with the ship braced up and close hauled while hard tacking.

The dead months signified winter, and a dead lift was the act of moving a "very inert body" - perhaps your fallen mate. Dead weight is the amount a merchant vessel must pay for goods she did not ship. Dead pay was that given for a man on a ship's books who did not appear when compensation was handed out; as the Admiral puts it "as was formerly practiced with widow's men."

Dead men's effects were those sold via auction at the main mast when a mate died. The purchaser would often have his pay docked in the ship's books to compensate for whatever he had won at auction. This was not always done for each man, but was often reserved for those who had no family to return any belongings to.

A dead ticket is a document, signed by surgeon and commanding officer, that certifies the man is in fact dead at sea. This was the first step to clearing the seaman off the ship's books.

Finally there is the curious ritual of the dead horse, which was performed on merchant vessels. When work for which the seaman were paid via advance, such as preparing to put out to sea, was completed, the men - at least in theory - would once again begin earning new funds. At this point the effigy of a dead horse was dragged around the decks to represent the end of "fruitless labor." The doll horse was sometimes run up the yardarm thereafter and cast overboard, according to Admiral Smyth "amidst loud cheers." Now there's something most of us have never heard of but that was probably witnessed by more than one traveler in the 19th century.

And so an end to our discussion of dead. Horror on the High Seas week continues on the morrow and marches right on to Hallowe'en. Don't miss a minute, Brethren.

Header: Moonlit Night by Stefan Popowski c 1910 via Old Paint

Tools of the Trade: The Weather Gauge

The idea of today's tool will be very familiar not only to the Brethren but to readers of nautical fiction. Having the weather gauge seems an all important point in winning a sea battle. Explaining why this might be is, to my mind, more difficult than achieving it. Readers of O'Brian will recall Dr. Maturin puzzling over the finer points of this strategic maneuver on more than on occasion. The question even came up in the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and found poor Killick insisting that Jack draw his examples for the weather gauge "not on the cloth."

In plain terms, having the weather gauge simply means that a ship is to windward of her opponent.

Is the weather gauge really an advantage? According to Falconer's New Universal Dictionary of the Marine, originally published in 1815, the answer is no. The caveat being that most sailors would tell you emphatically yes. Rather than try to paraphrase the master, here are William Burney Falconer's comments on the advantages of weather gauge:


1. The weather-gage is the sooner clear of smoke; and of course that line can better observe the signals which are spread, than the ships to leeward can, which must have the continuance of both its own and of the enemy longer.
2.  If the weather-ships are more in number than the enemy's they can detach some from their squadron; which, bearing down upon the rear of the enemy, must infallibly throw them into disorder.
3. The fire-ships of the weather-line can, when they are ordered, more easily bear down upon the enemy than those of the lee can ply to windward, which can never be done against a line in action; but the weather fire-ships can bear down against all the resistance that can be made by the enemy.

Falconer tells us that the disadvantage for the weather ships is in, for all intents and purposes, running away. As he so delicately puts it, "the weather-line cannot decline the action, without the dangerous expedient of forcing through the enemy's line."

There are advantages to the lee gauge, however, as Falconer notes:

1. If one, two or more of the ships to windward should be disabled, they must inevitable drive to leeward, and become a prey to the enemy.
2. The ships of the lee-line can more readily bear away before the wind, and have their places supplied by ships from the corps-de-reserve, in case of being disabled or meeting with any disaster.
3. The line to leeward can keep their ports longer open in a strong wind with a high sea, when those to windward in all probability may be obliged to shut the ports of their lower tier of guns, to prevent the water from rushing in between decks, which may be attended with the most fatal consequences.
4. The lee-line can more easily observe the men on the decks of the ships to windward, as they heel, and when the smoke does not interrupt their sight; at which time the marines and topmen may easily take aim at and destroy them with muskets and carbins.

Of course, the lee gauge has its own disadvantages including a lack of control over the timing of the battle and the ever present danger of an enemy ship breaking away from her line and coming up on the lee gauge ship or ships from behind.

The weather gauge has gone by the board now that ships of battle are outfitted with motors instead of sails. But you'll never convince an old salt - or an old soul - that the weather gauge isn't of great advantage in battle regardless of situation.

Header: USS Essex vs. HMS Alert August 13, 1812, painting by John B. Dindale

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Cheat

As the Brethren are well aware, sailors are a superstitious lot. Today’s word plays in to that mind set. And it also points up where and when a sailor is not afraid to let superstition go by the board to save his skin, or for an extra few minutes of blessed sleep.

The practice known at sea as cheating the Devil has everything to do with superstition. Bringing the Lord, or for that matter the Arch Fiend, into one’s speech was a sure way to court disaster aboard ship. This lead to what Admiral Smyth refers to as the “softening of very profane phrases” in The Sailor’s Word Book. Thus “God’s death” might come out as ‘od’s depth. Other epithets familiar to the seamen that would otherwise feature the word God might include ‘od’s blood, ‘od rot it, or for ‘od’s sake.

On the other hand, calling up the Devil would never do either, except as an absolute last resort. In such cases, a sailor might offer his hair to the Devil, throwing a lock into the water or up into the wind to please Old Scratch in desperate times. Help in a pinch is help, after all; the consequences can be dealt with later. All things being equal, however, sailors would rather not court Satan. Thus phrases like by gosh, be darned and dang you probably had a seagoing origin. More colorful terms such as deuce take you and see you blown first might also be overheard. Better safe than sorry after all.

The habit known as cheating, or flogging, the glass comes from a time when clocks were not a feature on a ship’s deck. The timing of bells and watches was kept by means of a half-hour glass which was usually hung near the binnacle.  General understanding among seamen had it that the sand would run through the glass more quickly if exposed to vibration. A man might “cheat the glass” by jarring it surreptitiously. As Admiral Smyth aptly puts it:

… hence some weary soul towards the end of his watch was said to flog the glass.

Given that the average Jack got no more than four hours at a stretch of free time at sea, one can imagine a tired soul being desperate to hurry time along.

Happy Saturday, Brethren; watch your language – and the glass – out there.

Header: Sunset by Mykola Yaroshenko via Old Paint

History: Leaving Your Mark

Above is a wall in a water basin behind English Harbor.  The site is on the Caribbean island of Antigua where the Royal Navy had a base throughout most of the 18th century.  Posted by Navy Records in the UK on their Twitter feed last Friday, this amazing picture shows graffiti left behind by sailors in port.  The approximate dating of this wall's scrawls and scribbles is between 1740 and 1780.

Leaving a little bit of themselves behind, a few anonymous seamen have also left us a remarkable and invaluable treasure.  And that is our good fortune indeed.

Header: Sailors' graffiti c 1740-1780 via Navy Records UK

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Saint

Oh, there’s never a saint around when you need one and rarely can a saint be found aboard us. That said, and today being Saint Patrick’s Day, let us look at a few uses for the word saint at sea.


In the north of England, the eider duck of the Farne Islands is known as St. Cuthbert’s duck. Butler’s Lives of the Patron Saints does not list St. Cuthbert, but one has to imagine he had a seafaring bent. Or kept ducks, perhaps.

A popular saint reference is a weather dial at sea and at the sea shore. St. Swithin’s Day is July 15, and it was said that if it should rain on that day “not one of forty days following will be without a shower.” St. Swithin is also unfortunately absent from Butler’s, but Admiral Smyth tells us that he was a bishop.

Many navies, particularly those of Catholic countries, have patron saints. Many call upon the Virgin Mary whose aspect of Stella Maris, star of the sea, makes her an over-arching protector of all who sail the tides. Other, one has to say lesser, saints are popular as well. St. Barbara is the patron saint of the Italian navy, for instance, while St. Nicholas is the patron of the Greek. St. Francis Paola looks after fishermen and St. Brendan, an Irishman himself, is the patron saint of the U.S. Navy. A separate saint – the warrior angel Michael – looks after the Navy Seals.

The most talked about saint aboard our ancestor’s ships, however, was certainly St. Elmo. A bishop from Italy who was martyred in the 4th century, even Butler’s cannot determine why, exactly, Elmo (whose given name was Erasmus) is the patron saint of sailors. The famous electrical discharge which hovers over mastheads is known as St. Elmo’s Fire (or infrequently St. Elmo’s Stars) as it was thought to bring luck to the sailors the bishop shepherded.

Known in later times, and particularly aboard Protestant ships, as compasant (itself a corruption of corpo santo; saint’s body), the odd balls of bluish or white light appear for the most part during electrical storms. Most sailors looked upon them as a sign that their ship would make it through the dirty weather in tact. As Herman Melville described it in Moby Dick:

All the yard-arms were tipped with a pallid fire; and touched at each tripointed lightning-rod-end with three tapering white flames, each of the three tall masts was silently burning in that sulphurous air, like three gigantic wax tapers before an altar.

A Mariner’s Miscellany gives other names for the compasant, including: St. Helena, Castor and Pollux, Corpusant, Capra Saltante, Corbie’s Aunt, Jack Harry, Sailor Devil, St. Nicholas and St. Hermes. It was said at sea that the more lights that were seen, such as in Melville’s triple flames, the better the luck.

Finally, of course, there is the ship’s dog who was sometimes referred to as a saint. In later years and particularly aboard north sea ships, Newfoundlands and Saint Bernards were particularly prized as they would not hesitate to jump into the cold water and save a man overboard. Napoleon himself was saved from drowning by an unnamed Newfoundland on his return from Elba to France. A saintly act, indeed, if only by the dog.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Brethren; may the sea always follow and may your messmates be tolerable good fellows.  Slante!

Header: Kay, My Friend by Elizabeth Strong via American Gallery

People: 16 Cups in One Gulp and A Headless Stroll

When we think of Medieval Europe we are more likely to envision castles and knights, fair damsels with impossibly tall headdresses and maybe a burning witch or two. What we are not likely to have in the forefront of our thoughts are pirates. Perhaps that should change, as the story of today’s curiously mythologized sailor points up.


Klaus Stortebeker or, alternately, Stertebeker, is thought to have been born in Wismar, Germany sometime in the 1360s. He grew up in a frenetic time for merchants and seaman alike, an era that saw the first bloody birth pains of capitalism in the western world. After over 300 years of unending Viking raids, Europe had finally buttressed itself against the invaders of the north by formulating the feudal system. This, for many people, seemed like trading one master for another and in fact it was. Through uprisings of serfs and the expansion of a merchant class, some cities in Europe began to shake off the feudal yoke and supplant it with a new system: free trade.

Of course, as any of the Brethren will tell, once there are merchant vessels on the high seas there are pirates to take them. One of the earliest of these Medieval freebooters, Eustace the Monk, has been discussed here before.

With all this potential wealth in jeopardy, the merchants began to form a safety net. Known initially as Leagues, these groups of coastal cities with ports banned together so that they could afford protection, usually in the form of arms but sometimes including men-of-war as escorts, for their vessels and merchandise. The first successful group was known as the Hanseatic League. Begun to protect commerce between the cities of Hamburg and Lubeck on the Baltic in 1241, the League included 19 other “free” cities by the turn of the 14th century. You can find a map of the area protected by the League, known in its time simply as “The Hanse”, here.

Because of the instability caused by constant warfare in Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries, piratical activity was not only hard to stop but frequently encouraged. Though commissions and letters of marque proper were not yet in use, certain vessels were granted “rights of reprisal” against the ships of enemy countries. Our man Stortebeker, who probably began his career at sea aboard merchant cogs, was given such an order of reprisal by the city of Stockholm some time in 1392.

Stockholm was under siege by Denmark’s Queen Margaret, who seems to have been both power-hungry and clever. To her doubtless frustration, Stortebeker and his boys managed to keep Stockholm so well fed, at least in part by attacking Margaret’s own ships, that she eventually had to give up the siege. Stortebeker’s success would earn him and his men the moniker of Vitalienbruder: the Victual Brothers.

Stortebeker is himself more legend than man. Even his name comes into question when closely examined. It seems to mean “empty in one gulp” or “a cup in one swallow”. Allegedly this comes from the pirate’s ability to gulp down sixteen cups of beer from one stein. Whether or not his first name was really Klaus or Niklaus is open to debate as well. He is now held in great esteem as a folk hero by certain factions, particularly in Germany where he is considered a “freedom fighter” and compared to Robin Hood or – perhaps unfortunately – Che Guevara. All the requisite trappings are along for the ride: Stortebeker was incredibly strong, an honest friend, married to a beautiful woman of higher station and sailed from an impenetrable stronghold, possibly located in Frisia.

In fact, it seems that Stortebeker and his cronies, sometimes given names like Hennig Weichmann, Magister Weigbold and Godeke or Godekins (the last is mentioned by Philip Gosse in The Pirate’s Who’s Who, though Stortebeker himself is not), decided to turn pirate after their success in Stockholm. By 1398 these men were raiding the ships of the wealthy and powerful Hanse. Probably because of Stortebeker’s success, his pirating could not be tolerated.

War ships were sent out from Hamburg and they managed – how has not come down to us other than a legend that says Stortebeker was betrayed by a traitor aboard his ship – to capture over 50 of the pirates including their hard-drinking leader. The actual number of men arrested is still debated, but legend says 73. These men were taken to Hamburg and sentenced to death by beheading.

Historians agree that the pirates now known as the Likedeelers because they shared their prizes equally were beheaded in October of 1401 in Hamburg. Beyond that, the details are again most certainly legendary. The story goes that Stortebeker made a pact with the headsman; asking to be beheaded standing on his feet, he made the executioner promise to spare as many of his men as his headless corpse could walk past.

The man agreed and proceeded to disengage Stortebeker’s head from his neck. The body then lurched forward, passing 11 men before the executioner finally tripped it up himself. In a second act of treachery, the headsman turned and lopped off the heads of all of Stortebeker’s men, those 11 certainly astonished sailors included. The legend adds a bit of irony, though; when asked by the Hamburg senate if he was not tired after so much exertion, the executioner replied emphatically no. He felt quite refreshed, and could cut off the heads of all the senate if asked. For this response, the executioner lost his own head, some stories say at the hands of the youngest member of the senate.

A skull, which eventually became associated with Stortebeker, was found in Hamburg in 1878 and placed in a local museum. There it remained, with a huge spike through it, until it was stolen in 2010, possibly by a gang of bikers. This defilement has led to even more ghastly tales of the pirate’s headless corpse being spotted near his execution site, probably in search of his head.

So much of Stortebeker’s story is shrouded in tall tale and legend that picking out the bits that might be true are quite literally impossible. All we can say for sure is that there was once a group of seamen known as the Victual Brothers, who became equal sharing pirates in the cold North sea and paid for their success with their heads.

Header: Reconstruction based on the skull found in 1878, allegedly belonging to Stortebeker, via Wikipedia

Tools of the Trade: Look to the Moon

Recognizing weather signs at sea is something that even the middling sailor became familiar with relatively quickly in the ages of sail. Out in blue water, with nothing between you and disaster but wood, tar, rope, canvas and a hodge-podge of men, you would become acutely aware of your environment and its atmosphere. Knowing how to spot changes in weather before they became a problem was as critical to good sailing as dead reckoning and maintenance.


Since it would be dark, for the most part, twelve hours a day, relying on the sun and the clouds was only worth half your time. Given that fact, it probably comes as no surprise that the largest body in the night sky – the moon – was the first thing a sailor would look to at night for signs of weather to come.

Here, then, for your considerations are the basics of predicting weather by the moon courtesy of that much travelled navigator, privateer and sometimes pirate, William Dampier:

When the moon appears unusually large and bright, particularly if its tint is blue, count on bone-chilling winds.

The full moon in temperate latitudes – between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn – generally foretells fair weather for the three days she sails in the sky.

A pale moon, either purely white or mottled with gray, signals rain.

If the moon takes on a dirty, yellow cast, which Dampier refers to as “dull”, brutal heat and possible dead calms are in the offing.

A red moon, normally the domain of autumn by land but possible in any season at sea, foretells the return of high winds after calms or slow breezes.

Most interesting to me, perhaps because of the meticulous detail applied, is the forecasts possible when a hazy ring appears around the moon. This is a sure indication of stormy weather. If the atmosphere is already cool, look for sleet; if warm or hot, expect rain. Look more closely, though, and count the number of stars present in the ring. This information was thought to tell a sailor the number of days they had to prepare for the upcoming storm.

Thus the moon might save your life at sea, which is probably something moderns hardly think of. It was doubtless, however, a realization that rarely left the back of any historical sailors mind. At least if he knew what was good for him… or her.

Header: The Lovers Boat by Albert P. Ryder via Old Paint

Booty: Good Luck Charm

We've considered the superstitions of the sea before, on more than one occasion in fact. As we sail for the end of the year, a time on which many a superstition is based, let us examine just a few more sea-going beliefs. This time, because it’s something we’d all like to have in the coming year, we’ll look at the items that late 18th and early 19th century sailors assured themselves would bring good of fortune to them and to their ships.


One of the best good luck charms was not a thing but a person. Children aboard ship were thought to bring good weather and rich prizes. Perhaps this is one of the reasons young men – and occasionally women dressed as young men – were so welcome at sea. Even better than a kid you knew in passing, though, was a mess mate with a gold earring.

If no man with his ears decked out pirate style was available, and children were scarce, a piece of someone the sailor loved was thought to draw him back safely to that person. A lock of hair from mother, wife, lover or child was the best charm of all but sometimes nail clippings and even teeth were carried for good luck.

Animal relics were also popular. Rabbit’s feet had been considered lucky for centuries when sailors adopted them as a charm against the dreaded dead calm. A necklace of shark’s teeth was a powerful personal amulet, particularly if the sailor wearing it had killed the shark himself. The luckiest animal part of all was the horn of a unicorn; this was, in all cases, the front tooth of a male narwhal which grows through the whale’s head and has the appearance of a horn. This treasure had to be kept in tact but on display for it to have any efficacy for the ship and crew. The vignette in O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels wherein Stephen brings aboard a narwhal horn with all circumstance, only to have it broken by Jack’s steward Killick is still one of the most amusing – and quietly heartbreaking – pieces in the books.

Religious articles were popular as well. A Christian cross was highly esteemed as a lucky fetish and was one of the things that first hand accounts of pirates often note them wearing. Equal armed crosses, on the other hand, were shunned as bringers of ill weather. One exception on this note seems to be the privateers of Jean Laffite’s Galveston and South America. Equal armed crosses were popular symbols in Spanish Mexico and so silver crosses of this nature were often “found” and worn by men like Louis Aury and Dominique Youx. A St. Christopher medal, regardless of the sailor’s religious background, was considered lucky. Doubtless the image of the saint carrying the Christ child over troubled waters had a lot to do with that. An anchor medallion would also bring luck and any medal or statuary showing a saint holding an anchor was even better; St. Philomena, whose statue I treasure in my home, was particularly popular in the West Indies for instance.

Pocket pieces that still carry a certain power today include a lodestone and a found coin. The lodestone, with its magnetic properties, has always been considered magical and is seen as kin to those mysterious magnets that work the compass. Found coins are one of those things that delight from a very early age, and that lucky feeling a person has when they come across one is doubtless at least part of their popularity at sea. I personally carry three in my pocket whenever I go out on the water.

General good luck for ship and men could be had by nailing a used horseshoe to the mainmast or bowsprit. It is at sea that the belief in making sure that the horseshoe was nailed “upright”, in the form of a U, so that the luck could be “caught” within it, originated.

From ancient times, painting a set of eyes on the bow was considered mandatory for the safety of the ship. This belief morphed into the dragons on Viking ships and then the animal and human shapes of later figureheads. Either as an extension or from some separate belief, sailors sometimes had human eyes tattooed on their person. Some historians have speculated that this practice in turn led to the popular miniature paintings of the late 18th century known as “lover’s eyes”, which were tiny portraits of one of the person’s paramour’s eyes. If this is the case it would be a rare example of a “fashion”, so to say, working up the class ladder rather than down.

Pick your poison, mates; one charm is as good as another but a sailor has to find what works for him or her. Happy Friday, Brethren (a day, by the way, when you should never leave port – just a friendly warning).

Header: A WWII U.S. officer ready to hunt for his own shark tooth necklace via Navsource.org

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Time

Time is short, of the essence, and there is not a moment to lose. Or so it seems aboard ship. Stephen Maturin famously complained of this situation at sea in O’Brian’s books and in the movie Master and Commander. Jack Aubrey, for his part, could not comprehend what his doctor was whining about. To him, there truly was never a moment to be lost, and so it is with most sailors. There are other uses for time at sea, however, and even words that sound like it from foreign shores.


Time is, first and foremost, the way of keeping track of the day. All ships – from smuggler’s pirogue to pirate’s sloop to massive ship of the line – ran on bells, which mark her time. The bell was rung, or struck in common shipboard parlance, every half hour with the glass being turned at the same time. Thus eight bells signaled the end of a four hour watch.

The half-hour glass was the true time keeper and the margin for human error was great in keeping track of it, particularly under stress. To rectify any errors in time keeping, noon was read daily via a sextant. Thus solar time was set to rights each day. The call of noon was also the official beginning of the ship’s day when a new page in the log would be dated and begun. This ritual goes along with “taking time” when an assistant – usually a youth or Midshipman – would note the time via chronometer each time the officer observing with the sextant called “stop”. In this way, the astronomical observation is rectified as necessary for the most correct reading possible.

A chronometer and later the very accurate hand held watches, many famously originating from Switzerland, were known as timekeepers or time-pieces aboard ship. They were a source of concern for common sailors. Like the compass with its magnetic workings, time-pieces seemed somewhat magical and therefore must be given a wider berth.

Timenoguy is an ancient word for a stay that could prevent sheets or tacks from getting fouled in other rigging. These ropes were particularly used in the fore rigging.

A timoneer is a helmsman. The word came to English via the French timonier and could also indicate a pilot in some cases. Along the same lines is the word timonogy, which is described in The Sailor’s Word Book thusly:

This term properly belongs to steering, and is derived from timon, the tiller, and the twiddling-lines, which worked in olden times on a gauge in front of the poop, in ships of the line, by which the position of the helm was easily read even from the forecastle.

And with that, happy Saturday, Brethren. Keep your timeonguy and your twiddling-lines taut and, whenever possible, make time for yourself and those you love.

Header: Frigate Rose as HMS Surprise by Scott Kennedy

Tools of the Trade: All God's Creatures

Superstition is allowed a very wide berth on any blue water ship. Some say it is one of the many necessary ingredients that bind a crew together in their common goals. Because animals were often all around ships as well as aboard them, superstitions about them have come down to us in droves. Some persist to this day. Here are just a few of the seagoing “dos and don’ts” from our shared nautical history:


Many types of sea birds bode good or ill just by their appearance. A swan seen floating on the sea is thought to signal good weather ahead. A kingfisher near a ship was a portend of calm. Seeing gulls on land meant incoming wind and rain. Petrels or gulls flying near a ship also indicated stormy weather and worse still if they landed and refused to be shooed off the vessel. Sighting a cormorant while underway was thought to be very bad luck; sighting a swallow, however, was very good luck.

Killing dolphins or porpoises was not much thought of before the 20th century; they were considered much like tuna and went straight to the galley. After World War I, however, killing either of these mammals was considered an ill omen. Since Roman times, a shark following a ship was said to be a sign that someone aboard would die.

Domestic animals also foretell weather and luck. Drowning the ship’s cat – whether accidently or on purpose – would surely provoke a hurricane or typhoon. The ship’s cat sneezing meant rain. If a cat ran ahead of a sailor on his way to his ship, his luck would be good. In the same circumstance, however, a cat crossing the sailor’s path signaled bad luck. The ship’s dog howling would catch the mariner’s eye. A storm was on its way and the wind would blow up from the direction toward which the dog’s muzzle was pointing as he howled.

The worst kind of bad luck was sure to follow the killing of a seagull or particularly an albatross. The Brethren may remember the completely non-O’Brian but – as seafaring superstitions go – eerily accurate scene in Master and Commander when Marine Sergeant Howard shoots Dr. Maturin instead of the albatross he was aiming at. Of course true seamen know that shooting at birds just above a crowded deck is patently forbidden but that is another type of ill luck indeed. As Coleridge wrote in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: “And I had done a hellish thing, And it would work them woe; For all averred I had killed the bird, That made the breeze to blow. Ah wretch! said they; the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow!”

Header: Some very unlucky seamen with an impressive albatross via noaa.gov

Tools of the Trade: Name It Like You Mean It

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day and, rather than fall back to the more popular terms sailors in the Golden Age might have used, I thought I’d set a new course. So today, a brief discussion of ships’ names from our seafaring history. Not only is this a fascinating subject but it was one that was quite dear to every sailor’s heart. The name of your ship was your name too, at least to the extent that you were part of that collective body known as a crew.


Many superstitions raged around the naming of ships, probably from very early times. Some of those that were virtually set in stone by the dawn of the 19th century include:

Never give a ship a name that begins with A.

Never name a ship after a reptile (Alligator or Rattlesnake for instance. It should be noted that ships with both names were at one point in Royal and U.S. Navy service).

Do not change a ship’s name for any reason.

Though this last rule was stringently adhered to in the service, pirates and privateers in general renamed their ships with gleeful abandon. This was usually due to the need for covering up the origin of the ship in question as it was often a prize of questionable legality. In the Golden Age names like Frolick, Revenge, Adventure and Royal Fortune were so popular that multiple pirates sailed aboard ships with those names.

In the privateering era, ship’s names became more individualized and, at times, curious. Two Brothers/Dos Hermanos/Deux Frères – depending on what language you were using – was hugely popular throughout the period. More unique names like Philanthrope (“philanthropist” in French), Tigre and La Popa (a fortified hill behind the city of Cartagena) turned up in Barataria and Galveston. Other curiously named vessels included Mousenest, Who’s Afraid (both British privateers), Sturdy Beggar, Grumbler and Growler (both Massachusetts privateers), Catch Me Who Can (a Baltimore privateer), Precious Ridicule, Free Love (both New Orleans privateers).

The list could go on of course but that’s a nice smattering of unique names, I think. When she comes in, name your ship wisely Brethren and you’ll always be luck at sea. Happy ITLAP Day to one and all!

Header: Meditation by the Sea c 1860, artist unknown

Tools Of The Trade: Whistle Up The Wind

It goes without saying that wind in all its glorious forms was essential to the sailing of a ship. Before the dawn of steam and coal engines, and to a large degree even after their use became routine, a ship sat becalmed or ran at her top speed based on the fickle whim of the wind. Man being the control freak that evolution has made him, however, tried throughout history not just to harness the wind but to make it behave as he wanted it to.

Knowing how the wind worked in most cases in any given area of the globe was the first step to controlling it. Learning the patterns of the wind was fairly easy, at least by comparison, when early mariners kept themselves largely confined to seas like the Mediterranean or the China Sea. Things got trickier when ships sailed off toward the ends of the earth. As the Vikings, the Polynesians and so many others set out to a place where no land ahead was ever a certainty, weather and wind became more of an issue.

The patterns of wind in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are actually relatively stable. Of course that stability is challenged by weather conditions whose signs would have been very familiar to seasoned salts. Generally speaking a constant wind will shift in one of two ways. In the Northern Hemisphere those are from left to right (with the sun) or right to left (against the sun).

In shifting with the sun, an easterly wind will shift to the west coming in from the southeast, south or southwest. When the wind shifts in this manner it is said to veer. Conversely, a westerly wind will shift to the east and come from the northwest, north, or northeast. In this case the wind is said to back. For the Southern Hemisphere, simply reverse the directions.

Backing and veering were not the greatest windborne concerns of sailors, however. That was reserved for either ship-destroying storms or their polar opposite: the complete lack of wind. Various beliefs and superstitions grew up around the fear of being becalmed. There were actions that would be undertaken in such a circumstance that would have been sorely frowned upon in a fine breeze. Scratching the mast with a nail or touching or hugging it while whistling were two common remedies. Whistling aboard ship was considered bad luck in any other circumstance. Men might also stick a knife in the mast, pointing the handle in the direction that it was hoped the ship would proceed. A last resort was for the Captain to climb up in the rigging and offer a lock of his hair to the Devil in exchange for fair winds.

Sailors who cared to plan ahead could consult a weather witch whose powers made them capable of controlling the wind. These men and women sold sailors pieces of rope with three knots in them. The sailor was instructed to undo one knot to release a light breeze, two knots would bring a strong wind and three knots would call up a storm. Doubtless many a huckster made a tidy living in busy ports around the world on this scam.

Mind your winds, Brethren, and may the sea always follow where ever you sail.

Header: Sunrise Off Grand Manan by William Bradford

Tools Of The Trade: Judging By The Sky

Growing up, we lived all over the country. If we’d been in one place for two or three years, you just knew any day now Dad would be home with the “Honey, we’re moving” speech. We had the good fortune, though, to usually live by a large body of water: the Pacific Ocean, the Great Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico. So I remember watching the sky for clues to the weather because Dad drilled the old rhyme into us kids: “Red sky at night, sailor delight; red sky in the morning, sailor take warning.” My friends were always surprised that I knew ahead of time when we weren’t going to have to dress out for gym.

But red is not the only color with which the sky prognosticates the weather. For centuries, sailors have looked up and judged – often correctly – what was coming by the hints in the sky. Here is a list, by no means complete, of some of the possibilities from the great age of sail:

Bright yellow sky at sunset: wind
Dark, gloomy blue sky: high winds
Dark gray, oily looking clouds: wind
Dark red clouds: rain
Delicate, cotton candy clouds: good weather with light to moderate breezes
Gray sky in the morning: excellent sailing weather
Lavender-gray clouds: snow
Light, bright blue sky: fine weather
Orange or copper sky at sunset: storms with rain
Pale yellow sky at sunset: wet and humid
Red sky in the morning: bad weather
Rosy sky at sunset: good weather
Sickly green: wind, rain, possible hurricane or typhoon
Tawny or coppery clouds: wind
The softer the appearance of the clouds: chance of being becalmed
The harder the appearance of the clouds: stiff winds and fine sailing

Check the sky where you are today, mates. Let me know how the old seafaring wisdom stacked up in your area.

Header: Good weather with light to moderate breezes in Isle de la Tortue

History: Imaginary Tales

We've talked about piratical myths before but I was inspired to revisit them by this post over at Vast Public Indifference. Caitlin links to a 2008 article from the Colonial Williamsburg Site about "Myths that should by now be history." I'll let you read the article at your leisure; it really is worth your time. Some of the "stories.. told in museums", however, relate directly to the same stories told about seafaring and pirates. But first, my own pare of pet peeves that are entirely pirate-related.

I've been to the Jean Lafitte [sic] Museum in Lafitte, LA. It's a cool little place that has a very local, bayou vibe. The lady who took us to the various exhibits stopped at one point to show us an engraving of a swarthy gentleman with a head kerchief and a hoop earring. "Is that supposed to be Jean Laffite?" one of our group asked. "Oh yes," the woman replied. The guy laughed and said: "Pirates didn't wear earrings." The lady nodded thoughtfully and responded: "I assure you they did, sir. How else would their fellows pay for their funerals?"

Ah, history. I was young then and didn't give the interchange much thought but now it's one of my favorite little vignettes. In fact, few sailors if any wore earrings and hoops would have been right out. There are tens of things aboard ship that could catch a hoop and yank it right out of a person's ear. In a time when a simple cut could fester into a life-threatening injury, no one with any native intelligence would put themselves in harm's way for a funeral (your mates would probably take your bobbles and throw you over board anyway). And I won't even go into the reality that Jean Laffite would have been mortified to be portrayed in either a kerchief or an earring.

Then of course there's the famous walking of the plank, first mentioned by that brilliant writer Robert Lewis Stevenson. Though an excellent set piece for fiction and film, the torture in and of itself would have no value. Getting a person to tell you where they had hidden their valuables was in no way served by using them as live chum for sharks. Better to cut off a finger or an ear and then threaten more of the same. Tossing them overboard once you got what you wanted would be far more expeditious.

The article touches on two myths that relate directly to freebooters. One is the persistent notion the long tips of clay pipes, so common in the 17th and 18th century, were broken off so that men could share a pipe without sharing germs. As the article notes, germs would have been almost universally unthinkable to the smokers in question. Since the bowl of a clay pipe would become extremely hot during a round of tobacco smoking, many men kept a number of pipes at hand. In old Port Royal around Henry Morgan's time, men would keep a number of pipes handy in their favorite punch house so that they could enjoy drinking and smoking over the course of a day and night or more. Later, only the clay bowls were left at the ale shop and interchangeable reed tips were used making it possible to keep only two or three bowls instead of half a dozen.

The second - one of my absolute favorites - deals with the height of our ancestors. Just recently my children were marvelling at the small space between decks in a model of Captain James Cooks' HMS Discovery. The museum docent assured the girls that the headroom would not have troubled Cooks' crew very much because "... people were shorter then." I didn't say anything to the docent but my children got an earful on the way home.

In fact, people's heights varied in all ages and times just as they do today. By the time we get to the 18th century and the traditional Colonial era, studies were being done and records were being kept. As the article points out, the difference in height between 18th century and 20th century men, on average, was less than an inch. There was plenty of hunching over below decks by six feet tall (or better) pirates and privateers like Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, John Paul Jones, David Porter and yes, the inimitable Jean Laffite.

Nothing is given in history, however, and these stories and many others will continue to be passed on just as the Colonial Williamsburg article points out. The stories are probably embellishments whose idea has caught the collective imagination. And sometimes what we like to imagine is the hardest thing of all to let go.

History: Saints Preserve Us

I recently had question from another writer whom I admire very much and whose blog you really should follow. CRwM asked me if there was a patron saint of pirates. I liked the question so much that I ran off and did a fair amount of digging only to find that the answer is far more complicated than no or yes or even maybe.

To begin, there was mention of the Sufi Saint Sidi Ahmed Ibin Ashir as being venerated in the pirate empire at the Moroccan port of Sale. We talked about the port and the idea of it's pirate utopia on Tuesday so I won't go into that. What I found is that the Ashir (or Achir) in question was a reclusive holy man who was sought as a teacher. He lived and is buried in Sale and you can learn more about his life here. Unfortunately, aside from the Sale connection, I can't find any specific reference to the Sallee Rovers attachment to the Saint. But I love the story.

In Europe, where Saints did a brisk trade for thousands of years, there was a saint for everything at some point. The particular favorite of Mediterranean seaman was St. Erasmus, a bishop in Formiae, Italy who was martyred in the persecutions of Roman Emperor Diocletian. The bishop's popular name is St. Elmo and, as you are probably aware, it is the source of the term St. Elmo's Fire. These rosy hued electrical discharges are seen during storms collecting around high points like church spires and, particularly, ship's masts. They are so called because mariners thought of them as a sign that St. Elmo was protecting their ship.

The other interesting point is that St. Elmo, whose martyrdom is shown at the header, is the patron of sailors specifically for the grizzly fashion in which he died. His intestines, according to tradition, were pulled from his body and wound around a windlass. A windlass is the ancestor of the ship's capstan, used to pull up anchors and kedges. But it doesn't stop there. Some historians now theorize that because St. Elmo was depicted in early churches holding a windlass, the story of his martyrdom was built around it. Either way, he is still a favorite of sailors today and was certainly called upon by pirates for help at sea.

Up north, particularly in the British Isles, Saints of the sea abound. The two that are particularly fond to seaman are both Irish. First, there is St. Brendan who, with his band of intrepid monks, sailed off to the Viking lands to get those heathens right with God. In the process Brendan saw visions of Christ and learned the details of the end of time. St. Brendan, I feel compelled to add, is the patron saint of the U.S. Navy.

Also from the land of Erin, where women at sea were not as unusual as they might have been elsewhere, comes the story of the mermaid saint, Muirgen. Originally a girl named Liban, Muirgen was swept away in a flood along with her little dog. Alone beneath the waves, she prayed to be turned into a salmon so that she might have companions. She was instead turned into a salmon-tailed woman and her dog transformed into an otter. They lived at sea for three hundred years until they were found and brought back to Ireland by a monk named Boec. Muirgen was taken to the local church and baptized before she died. Local fishermen, merchants and pirates began to call on her to ease storms and bring them luck. Her miracles caused the local Bishop, Comgall, to declare her a saint and images of the mermaid were set up in sea ports and carried aboard ship. Some stories say that she was especially dear to the Irish pirate queen, Grania ni Maille - Grace O'Malley.

And with that I will close the book on the Saints of the sea, and ask them - as I'm sure my ancestors did - to preserve us and give us safe crossing. But we're not quite done. There was a second part to the question. Next time: folk heroes and outlaws evoked and remembered by the brigands of the sea.

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Storm Petrel

A petrel is a fairly common bird to sailors. To landsmen, particularly those who live in the far Northern Hemisphere and inland, it may not be familiar at all. They are cousins to the albatross but are generally smaller. All are some pattern of black or white and they eat - you guessed it - fish.

The thing about petrels is that they tend to mass around a ship in blue water when a storm is coming up. Even before the humans aboard can identify what is going on, the petrels are staying close to the thing they perceive as a wooden island, ready to settle down on deck during the worst of it. Wayward seagulls and even huge albatross have been known to do this too, but not with the frequency that petrels do.

So, over the years, the smaller, predominantly black birds that are most common around ships and shipping came to be called storm petrels. Because sailors, like so many others who do hazardous and dirty jobs, are superstitious to the core, the title "storm petrel" came to mean someone who brings bad luck or trouble. Just as the presence of the bird around the ship meant a storm was coming, the presence of the person meant bad luck for ship and crew alike. Time to plan a marooning, perhaps.

Finally, and most humorously to me, the bird is sometimes referred to as Mother Cary's chicken. This particularly among English speaking sailors who had seen service in the Mediterranean, leading linguists to believe that the term is a corruption of the Latin mater cara. The words mean "dear mother" in deference to the Virgin and may have been uttered by Catholics in the face of a storm. Or a storm petrel.

One final extrapolation finds sailors using a similar slang term for snow: Mother Cary's chickens.

Mind your storm petrels, mates. And don't count your eggs before they're in the pudding. See you tomorrow for Seafaring Sunday

History: Superstitious To The End

I've said more than once that there is probably nothing on Earth more superstitious than a sailor. I'm pretty sure athletes run a close second in our current era but even now sailors take the prize. Since we're celebrating a New Year tonight, and there are a lot of superstitions that surround that as well, I thought I would offer some shipboard "do's and don'ts" for your enjoyment and edification.

Let's start off with the do's:
Bring only odd numbers of things on board (eg: barrels, sails, some even include shoes and bring three).
Invite children to sail with you (remembering that boys as young as seven or eight were frequently aboard ship).
Throw bread overboard in a storm (an obvious sacrifice to the Gods of the sea).
Place a coin under the heel of the mainmast (as above).
Put a naked woman on deck during a storm (ditto; the upshot of this one is that so many figureheads are half-naked women).
Step on board with your right foot first (probably a variation of the Celtic "first foot" tradition where one should step over the threshold of a new house - or a friend's home on New Years Day - with the right foot first).
Get underway on a Tuesday (very good luck!)
Name your ship after a place (eg: USS Philadelphia, Renato Beluche's La Popa, etc.)
Give your ship a woman's name or - even better - name it after a specific woman (to a lesser degree, after a specific man.)

And here are a few don'ts:
Carry an empty coffin on board (coffins were pariah to seaman, who generally wrapped their dead in hammocks and buried them at sea).
Sneeze.
Say the word "pig" (if any of you all know why, leave me a comment).
Lose a water bucket overboard (this had to do with angering the sea Gods for mucking up their home with human detritus. Interestingly, they didn't seem to mind sailors using the head.)
Comb out and braid your hair at night (hair and the Devil have a long coexistence at sea so best be careful.)
Step on board with your left foot first.
Get underway on Friday (this is still considered "bad juju", as anyone who has watched Deadliest Catch - or Danger Crabs! as we call it around here - knows.)
Speak of a prize as yours before she's taken (this is the same as not counting your chickens, etc.)
Name your ship after a storm (either the storm itself - Typhoon - or, in the modern age, the storm name. Stay away from Katrina, mates.)

And finally, some simple ways to improve luck or turn aside bad luck:
Whistle when in a calm to call the wind.
Touch wood if you have said or done a "don't" (the wood absorbs the negativity of your thought or action).
Sneeze to the right (this somewhat minimizes the bad luck of the sneeze.)

Happy New Years Eve, Brethren. I hope that your evening is full of love and laughter and at least one little superstitious tradition that will bring you luck in 2010. Huzzah!