I’m not the least bit superstitious. It’s not that I walk under ladders mind you. Only an idiot would risk a can of paint or a 10 Kg. rubber hammer on the head. It’s the silly superstitions I don’t care a rat’s backside for. Things like tossing spilt salt over my shoulder or saying bless you when some slob sneezes in my beer. I believe in proven and tested scientific facts, not groundless myths.

After all what am I supposed to do if a black cat crosses my path, turn around and walk the other way? I even shared my boat with a black cat once. Notice I didn’t say, “I owned a black cat ”? That is because I doubt anyone has ever owned a cat in any sense other than economic. Mind you I know a few cats that own people.  It’s a bit like people who claim to own boats, when in reality it’s the boats who own them.

In the interest of nautical safety I have diligently researched several maritime superstitions and here are my results.  True sailors are not the least bit superstitious. They tend to be hard working pragmatic souls who haven’t time to waste in bars, on old wives tales, or on ancient myths. That’s why over the century’s seafaring folk developed a set of very practical rules and customs that simply work on the water.  As Shakespeare once said, “there is behind heaven and earth more than we mere mortals can understand”, or some such gibberish.

As an example let’s look at the age-old custom of not sailing on a Friday. Many novice sailors and coffee farmers scoff at the ban against sailing on Fridays, until they try it and learn the hard way.  Mind you it’s not always the uneducated that fall foul of this rule. In the 19th century the exalted British Admiralty decided to scientifically prove that sailing on Fridays was perfectly safe.

To do this they laid the keel of a new ship on a Friday and promptly named that ship HMS Friday. That not being enough the ship was launched on a Friday, commissioned on a Friday, and started her maiden voyage to the Friday Islands on a Friday. The ship was skippered by Capt. J. L. Friday. Even the ships cat was named Friday. The results of this scientific experiment were clear. Neither the ship nor her crew was ever heard from again! I sailed on a Friday once and wound up in Cyclone Garfilo with winds to blow the hair off your head and seas to make a whale sick.

Through out history the old boys had several very practical methods of getting a breeze when they needed one. They would lightly scratch backstays for a small increase of wind and whistle softly to revive a failing breeze. I have tested both methods and can state that with out any doubt at all they sometimes work. In fact I once used this valuable technical knowledge to wipe the eye of my opponent in a race between Gambia and Dakar.

I was skippering an ancient coasting schooner with rags for sails and a heart of gold. The yacht in question was an almighty fancy sloop with more bells and whistles than a MegaToy store.

So how did we beat that shinny new sloop’s crew to the bar? The answer is simple. I had my whole crew whistle the 1812 overture; complete with bells and cannons, while scratching our back stays with wood rasps.  It worked. The wind jumped to 35 - 40 knots, right on the nose.  So while our friend was taking in reefs and loosing his windward power we were cruising along nicely under all our working sails. That, with a little judicious local knowledge of the tidal streams and counter currents, had us in the bar drinking on our opponents tab for a full two days before he arrived. 

Now let’s look at the old adage that women on a boat bring bad weather and worse luck. I’m not at all sure about that one. You see mates in my experience some of the best sailors afloat are women.  This may well be due to that other adage, that a beautiful woman can calm a raging sea. Which is why so many old ships had bare breasted women as figureheads. In any case I had the chance to confirm this bit of wisdom once when a howling storm tossed us about so long that I began to dream of buying a date farm in the Sahara.

Suddenly one of our rain gear clad crewmembers fought her way to the bow where at great risk she flashed her bare breasts to the seas and screamed something unintelligible. At the time I wasn’t sure if she was just over heated or mad as a hatter, but within an hour the winds started dropping and the seas began to subside. Then and there I decided that when offshore all girls should go topless. It’s purely for their comfort, and in the interest of safety at sea, mind you.

That leaves us with one final custom; that of tossing a copper coin into the sea then making a wish while knocking on wood as the boat leaves port. Those actions would seem to be useless superstitions. In fact they are not. Both have practical, and I might add useful, purposes. It took me a while to understand our nautical ancestors wisdom. You see the secret is in the copper of the coin. Copper is the active ingredient in the best anti fouling paints. So by tossing a copper coin over the side the hull was somewhat protected from fouling.

Knocking on wood was easier to fathom. By knocking on a piece of wood one can hear if it is sound or rotten. What better way to set out on the seas than by checking if the hull is about to fall apart, or not?