Thanks to the recent news coverage of the pirates near Somalia, the world has become aware of an age-old problem that many seasoned mariners have come to accept as an inevitable occupational hazard. Piracy has always been a serious risk for the commercial ships that cruise through international waters. But many of the historical and Hollywood depictions of pirates have cast them as glamorous, fun-loving, pranksters that we secretly rooted for in their battles with the British Navy. But as the struggling worldwide economy and instability of certain countries has increased the frequency and severity of these pirate attacks, the whole world can see that these modern-day pirates are anything but glamorous and fun-loving, and their grenade launchers and automatic weapons classify them as much worse than pranksters.

This picture was taken aboard a German expedition of the Atlantic in 1925 showing off the nearly 9-ft. wingspan of a captured albatross. Albatross are considered good omens, generally, but not if you kill one. Photo courtesy NOAA.

When I reflect on the bad omen this resurgence in piracy represents for the boating and shipping industry, this gets me to thinking about what type of things a captain can do to circumvent the potential for disaster among his or her own vessel.

I jotted down a list of things that were considered unlucky by many an ancient mariner, and also the present day sailor, to give you readers a good chance of surviving at sea. I’m not sure if boaters are more superstitious than other folks, but they certainly have their own unique beliefs. During my research and compilation of items that were bad luck on board a boat, I came across three of the most common bad omens:  bananas, suitcases and women. However, perhaps like my outdated vision of pirates, it’s also time to discard our old boating superstitions and replace them with some practical idiosyncrasies that are better suited to modern boating.

Now bananas I can understand.  Apparently, fermenting bananas do give off methane gas, which could conceivably get trapped below deck and kill any crew members unlucky enough to be working in the hold. But this doesn’t explain why hundreds of banana boats sail without incident into the Port of Wilmington, DE each year. In fact, they must make pretty good time because the bananas are still green when they hit the supermarket.

So, I think we should replace the banana superstition with one more fitting in our modern world. Now, if I was to ban any kind of food on a boat, it would be liver. Few people like liver anymore, and I’m not sure we should really be eating it, so why not leave it at the dock.

The origins of the suitcase superstition are muddy; some sailors are superstitious of all luggage, while others claim that only black suitcases are considered harbingers of death. Black bags are considered bad because black is the color of death and a metaphor for the depths of the dark, cold sea. Even when the camera crew boarded crab boats to film Discovery Channel’s reality series Deadliest Catch, they were asked to leave their equipment suitcases on the dock.

But again, I ask you, what about the hundreds of cruise ships that sail uneventfully (and heaven knows many of them could probably use a good event or two to spice things up) with thousands of suitcases on board? I say if you’re going to ban any bags on board, a good choice would be those little plastic grocery bags.  I mean, they can fly out of the boat, strangle a bird, choke a fish or wash up on the shoreline. When’s the last time you saw an empty suitcase washed up on the beach?  Well, I mean without a body in it?

My favorite superstition to debunk, of course, is the one that claims a woman on board a boat is a harbinger of bad luck. I agree that everyone should harbor a healthy fear of women, but I don’t think we should be leaving the ladies on land.  If women are such bad luck, then why are boats referred to as she?  But if we have to ban some types of women, I would say to ban all the blondes.  Since gentlemen prefer blondes, they will most certainly jump ship and you can have the entire boat to yourself.

Some animals are considered good luck on boats. Spiders are good (nonpoisonous, I would imagine), but killing one is bad luck. It is generally considered a good omen to have an albatross follow your vessel. However, in Samuel Coleridge’s poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a sailor does the unthinkable one day by shooting an albatross with a crossbow and is forced by his shipmates to hang the large dead bird around his neck when calamity befalls the ship. It’s too bad they didn’t have one of those little plastic grocery bags to put it in. At any rate, this is how the saying having an albatross around your neck got started. As we don’t generally get albatross here on the Upper Bay, I think we’re probably safe.  But if you should see one, don’t shoot it.

In addition to the long-standing superstitions I found in my research, I know that many folks out there have their own personal superstitions. My fishing buddy, Mike, advises that a 150-pound mako shark, a .357 Magnum and half a bottle of Jack Daniels were a bad combination on the boat he used to have.

Last on my short list of shadowy sea myths, if someone says “good luck” to you when you begin your voyage, it is most assuredly a bad omen and sure to bring about bad luck.  My understanding is that the only way this can be countered is by drawing blood.  A swift punch in the nose is usually sufficient to reverse this curse.

So, the next time you hit the water, check your old superstitions at the dock and sail forward without trepidation, without liver, without plastic grocery bags, Jack Daniels or blondes.   If anyone bids you farewell and ends with “good luck” simply hit them in the face and shove off, you’ll be sure to have fair skies and pleasant winds—and in the distance, you might just see the beautiful wing-span of a distant albatross guiding the way.