Sailors are superstitious people. Sometimes even too much. Boat International has published a list of eight of the strangest superstitions to which people are exposed, often forced to rely on the will of the elements.
Sacrifice to the Queen of the Seas will bring back luck.
One of the richest businessmen in Brazil donated 130 thousand pounds in the hope of calming the queen of the seas and breaking the black stripe in his life.
In 2012, personal assets of Eike Batista reached $34.3 billion, he was the seventh richest man on the planet. However, in just 18 months, the entrepreneur lost 30 billion, and his empire collapsed due to debt and the fall in the value of shares of his five companies led by OGX oil. In despair, Batista turned to a medium who advised him to make a ritual sacrifice to calm the queen of the seas and restore his reputation and fortune. «Most of his recent business projects were related to the ocean. You can't pump useful redeemable people out of the Earth without giving anything back»," the sorcerer said.
To perform the ritual, Batista rented a yacht and launched a small boat full of coins. In total, he gave 700 thousand Brazilian reals to the sea lady.
Bananas on a boat are in trouble.
You thought the woman on board was unfortunate? In fact, the main threat to sailor's luck is bananas. In 2015 in one Scottish city in preparation for the traditional boat festival bananas were banned altogether, arguing that the fruit loved by many brings misfortune.
This sailor's superstition is hundreds of years old. There are many versions of how it originated. According to one of them, the roots of superstition go back to the 1700s, when the merchant boats transporting bananas across the Caribbean Sea had to move at maximum speed that the bananas did not have time to override and spoil. As a result, sailors were unable to resupply fresh fish and were more likely to be malnourished and sick. According to another version, bananas were disliked because they contributed to the rapid maturation of other fruits, triggering the rotting process earlier and reducing vital food supplies.
Bananas are still prohibited on some fishing boats.
If you change the name of the yacht, your luck will turn its back on you.
Obviously, this rule does not apply to superyachts: it is normal and common practice to rename boats after a change of ownership. On smaller boats, however, renaming is considered a bad idea that brings bad luck. It is believed that Poseidon writes the name of the ship in a special Book of Depths. To change it, you must first erase the past name from the Book by destroying any mention of it, including pennants and any things with a monogram. Otherwise, you can bring the wrath of Poseidon upon yourself.
The cats on board bring good luck.
On dry land, black cats are not loved and try never to cross its path, saying it is unfortunate. But on the sea, a cat of any color brings good luck. British and Irish sailors even had a special position as a ship's cat. The tails of the crew fought rats and predicted the weather. To this day cats are considered as talismans and best friends of sailors.
For a double dose of luck, you can get a polydactyl cat born with more than the usual number of fingers on its feet. Cats like this have been kept on their Hemingway boat - it is believed that they can better maintain their balance when rocking with extra fingers.
A shark follows a yacht - to be in trouble.
Of course, the shark spinning around your boat is a really nervous sight, given the many stories of how these big fish attack the floats, but still the bulk of the fears associated with the sharks that haunt your boat is dictated by superstition: they say their appearance warns of near death.
The woman on the yacht - unfortunately.
In today's world, there are women even among the owners of the largest superyachts. But this has not always been the case. For a long time, many sailors considered the presence of women on board a harbinger of failure and did not let them on board. However, a female figure with naked breasts often decorated the nose of the ship as a symbol of luck. It is also customary to refer to the yacht as a female, so sailors pay tribute to the mothers who carried and fed them.
Red sky - to luck or failure, depending on the time of day.
The red-colored sky in the evening promises good luck. Red sky at sunrise is trouble, the proverb says. This omen is associated with weather prediction. In order for the sky to turn red during sunset, the sun's rays must come from the west without any hindrance. This promises no clouds and good weather. A red dawn means that the sky in the east is clear and there are clouds from the west carrying bad weather.
Flowers on a yacht - unfortunately.
Who would have thought the beautiful bouquets that decorate a boat could fail. A quick glance at the generous use of floristry in the interiors of modern superyachts clearly indicates that this prejudice is outdated. In earlier times, however, flowers were perceived as part of the funeral ritual. Sailors did not allow flowers even as presents before long voyages, and after receiving the bouquet, they threw them overboard.
