Sailor culture

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As a sailor culture is specifically referred to in the seafaring established, historically grown cultural characteristics. They arose largely from the tendency of seafarers to fill an environment that was experienced as unpredictable and limitless with myths and customs , in order in this way to make the big, unknown, frightening - as which the "foreign element", the sea , was experienced - with familiar things to fill and thus reduce the individual's fear of it.

Francis Cadell : Two Sailors

Traditions

Ship christening

The naming ceremony is a solemn act at the launching of ships. A bottle of sparkling wine or champagne is smashed on the ship's hull and the ship is given its name. A speech is also often given. Only then is it released from the stack, i.e. into the water.

Sailor salute

The greeting is called dipping . It consists in bringing down and raising the national flag . All merchant ships have an obligation to give the first greeting to warships of all states. Merchant ships only greet each other if they belong to their own shipping company or line or if there is a friendship between the captains. The duty to be the first to say hello when passing by:

  • The overtaking ship versus the overtaken one.
  • The one underway opposite the one at anchor.
  • The one on the exit opposite the one returning home. Here the returnees, who in earlier times had the adversity of a long, arduous sailing ship voyage behind them, is honored by the emigrant.

The dipping salute is not given among warships because it is derived from the sweeping of the sails (or the flag ; surrendering the ship to the enemy), the symbol of submission and submission. The greeting used between warships is the front .

See also: ahoi as a verbal greeting or as a question, opposite arriving boats and the Willkomm-Höft ship greeting system .

Salute

If warships of different nations meet, a salute is fired (on official occasions) . The number of shots corresponds to the rank of the person to be greeted. For solo drivers it is four shots, for a fleet unit and its commander it is up to 17 shots (e.g. German Reich ). The maximum number of 21 shots received only heads of state and the holder of the Apostolic See in Rome. The gun salute is a sign of peaceful sentiment: when calling at foreign ports, people used to announce that their own guns had burned down, as it took a long time until the muzzle-loading guns were ready to fire again.

House flag

Old HAPAG flag

The house flags (shipping company flags) of the shipping companies , they appear for the first time in the third decade of the 18th century, initially served as a distinguishing signal, as the sailors were often similar. The first letters of the shipping company can usually be found in these shipping company flags, icons are rare.

Flags - handling and symbolism

Sailing ship in sackcloth and ashes

In principle, every ship is obliged to fly the flag of the state in which it is registered on the flagstock during the day. It is at sunrise hoisted (seated) and burglary dusk hauled down . The exceptions are standards of the heads of state, admiral flags and commanders pennants, they are illuminated by the moon and sun. The raising and lowering of the flag is honored on warships with a festive flag parade . It is accompanied by music if a music corps is available, otherwise a special instrument comes into action, the boatswain's whistle .

The half-masted flag is a holdover from the time when people on board mourned in sackcloth (for example when the captain had passed away). Then the yards and rigging were deliberately disordered.

The Rickmer Rickmers in Hamburg, flagged over the top

The flag gala (also flag decoration ) is set on festive occasions. The signal flags are lined up fore and aft over the tops (mast tops). This is also called over the top flags .

The national flag of the state in whose waters the ship is located is placed under the starboard spreader of the main mast on sailing ships, in a comparable position on motor ships, but always higher than your own. When entering the first own port, a gala consisting of all flags of the countries called on en route can be set.

The farewell signal on a ship that leaves port within 24 hours is the signal flag  P , known as Blauer Peter , which used to be used to prompt the crew to get on board immediately.

Sailor's yarn

Tales of seafarers about their experiences, this term explicitly standing for exaggerated or lying stories. A nice example of this from new times are the stories of Captain Bluebear .

Weather wisdom

Ship barometer

Many an old sailor is still skeptical about the weather forecasts from the so-called weather frogs , they prefer to stick to the classic wisdom of driving people when the barometer goes crazy.

If the sea ​​fowl stays on the beach, the
weather will be fine.
But if it moves far into the country,
the gods will soon “whistle”.

If the glass falls like a stone from the tower,
then there comes a storm.

When it is low, the climbing of the glass shows
increased strength from storms and weather.

Elmsfeuer - electrical discharge during thunderstorms , in the form that small flames - actually upwardly propelling gas discharges - arise on the tops of the masts , the spars , etc. This phenomenon, known from ancient times, found the most varied of interpretations among superstitious seafarers before the real connections could be explained. It ranges from the fire devil (ship fire) to signs for good or bad weather to the advance notice of the imminent death of a crew member.

dress

Japanese school uniform , based on a sailor suit with a collar and a scarf

The ex-collar (underwear aft ) is a large collar on sailor blouses , reminiscent of the time when crews and NCOs still wore tarred or oiled braids . It should prevent the braid from soiling the outer clothing (see ribbon cap ). Many trading and marine nations adopted the British tradition of adding three white stripes to the collar. They were intended to commemorate the three great naval battles of Nelson at Abukir (August 1, 1798), Copenhagen (April 2, 1801) and Cape Finisterre and Trafalgar (October 21, 1805). A black scarf was worn to mourn Nelson, who had fallen at Trafalgar, and which in some fleets received an artistic knot or is designed as a narrow black bow. The white ribbon on the knot later lifted the grief.

Sailors around 1854 with flat hats

In earlier times, the crews, with the exception of the officers, were not yet in mandatory uniform on warships . The captains could, however, stipulate such, but then had to ensure that the people were given appropriate opportunities. Most of the time, the sailors sewed their gowns themselves, often using light canvas (especially for tropical clothing ).

The ribbon cap is the name for a flat headgear with two dark ribbons hanging freely at the back for sailors. The ribbons are intended to remind you that in the past centuries the crew and NCOs put on tarred or oiled braids and wrapped them with a black, tarred ribbon. In the past, so-called plating hats , which were possibly made waterproof with tar, were often worn by seafarers . ( See also tar jackets )

Ship names

It used to be an exclusively male domain to go to sea, so it could be that the need arose to have something feminine around you. In the Middle Ages ships preferably had “real” female names. In English maritime history it is a matter of course to describe ships as female, and this tradition could have reached Germany as well. Ship hulls have always been reminiscent of feminine shapes, especially during the Middle Ages. For example, the stern of a ship is also referred to as the stern stem (actually the rear bow, as the stem can be both fore and aft). This term is also used for the female buttocks , at least in Low German . In addition, a female figurehead was usually far more popular with the almost exclusively male crew than a neuter or masculine sculpture.

There are, however, exceptions to this rule. A ship that bears or is to have an animal name is definitely called z. B. "The Falcon", "The Lion", or it was often referred to as male by the crew, here as an example, the Prinz Eugen , who was only referred to by her crew as the "Prince" or "Eugen" (e. B. not Harald Jarl ). Furthermore, namesake often disregarded the unwritten law; so that made HAPAG at the request of Kaiser Wilhelm II. the " Emperor " "The Emperor" baptized. There are also ships that were sponsored by a “saint”. There were e.g. B. some ships with the name of St. Andrew .

Everyday seafaring life

This is basically very strongly influenced by the traditions of the once world-ruling Royal Navy ( Britannia rule the waves ).

  • The captain's cabin (in the seaman's language it is called the captain's chamber) is always on the starboard side , because this is considered the “good” side. The exception here is the Portuguese Navy : there it is on port because Vasco da Gama was aiming the Cape of Good Hope on port. The motto for the two sides of the ship and the associated colors (green and red) is: "Red is the forecastle" because the boatswain's mate reached out to the cabin boy , who could not remember this, with his right hand, whereupon the left cheek (cheek) of the boy “red” discolored (with left-handed boatswain mates there is of course a problem).
  • Hammock : This was usually limited to the crews, the officers mostly had swinging booths , i.e. boxes open at the top that hung on ropes. The crews, on the other hand, had so little space (14 inches in the English Navy) available for their berths that they could mostly only lie down watch after watch.
  • Guard : This takes at sea four hours and by the bells of the ship's bell announced. One more beat every half hour, starting from 12:00 noon (8 glasses). A possible exception is the ( docked ) dog watch , which begins at midnight (8 glasses) and can then last until six in the morning (4 glasses), which corresponds to a double watch shortened by two hours.
Sailor and Rum by Joe Machine
  • The sailor Sunday is Thursday at which there is a very good food (for sailor conditions) and usually a pudding or cake in the afternoon.
  • Grog : From the 17th century until 1970, rum (rare arrack ) was given to the crew as provisions on the ships of the Royal Navy . Indiscipline and drunkenness were not infrequently the result. In 1740 - and also because of increasing shortages on the often long war voyages - the English Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon (1684–1757) only allowed his sailors to drink the rum diluted with water. Later, the drink was also mixed with sugar and lime juice (counteracted the widespread scurvy on long trips , and without rum many would not have drunk the lemon or lime juice). Vernon's nickname was "Old Grog" because he usually wore a warm cloak made of grogram , a coarse fabric made of silk and wool . This name was soon carried over to the new drink. In the colder climate of Great Britain , the grog was then drunk hot. The drink has also been known in Germany since the beginning of the 19th century . For a stiff grog, the old seafaring rule still applies: "Rum must, sugar can, water doesn't need" . The term “groggy” originally referred to the feeling of having drunk too much grog, and is now also used to describe a state of exhaustion. According to another interpretation, the word grog stands for "Grand Rum of Grenada" and was coined by the English after the conquest of the Caribbean island in the 18th century. This version is probably based on a subsequent attempt to explain, similar to the wrong interpretation for SOS as "Save Our Souls". Overall, the consumption of alcohol, in whatever form, used to be very common in every Christian navy. Fittingly, a saying from the north German coast, which is still often found in local pubs today:

God protect us from storm and wind
and glasses that are full of ink!

  • A bosun's whistle, or mate or bosun's whistle depending on the application (according to the NCOs of the German Navy ), is a signal whistle that was used in the time of sailing since the Middle Ages as a means of passing on commands to the crew, as better means of communication such as on-board radio did not yet exist . She has a very high, piercingly audible tone that can still be heard in the rigging of the foremast even in bad weather . Today it only plays a role in most cases at ceremonial occasions such as receptions on board (“whistle to the side”) or on training ships such as the German sailing training ship Gorch Fock .
  • Shanty is the sailor's song that is sung especially when operating the capstan . (German example: " Ick heff mol een Hamborger Veermaster sehn, to my hooday, hooday, hoo hoo ... " ) On the chorus , "all hands" apply force to the capstan or the rope to be fetched (set sail or reef ) given.
  • Hornpipe : A solo dance to the sound of a flute or fiddle, popular with sailors in the 17th to 19th centuries .
  • Äquatortaufe : A seafaring ritual by which members of a crew who for the first time the equatorial be run over, baptized in rough shape. The equatorial baptism has its origins in the time of the expeditions of the Portuguese, who wanted to reaffirm their courage and their faith with a new baptism when crossing the dreaded equator . Not everyone was convinced of the spherical shape of the earth , but rather feared falling into an abyss at the equator.
  • Bottle ship : The art of "conjuring up" things in a bottle ( bottle ) is almost three hundred years old. In the Allgäu and the Ore Mountains there was already the so-called Eigerichte , also known as the patience bottle . Nativity scenes and passion scenes , Christ , Mary and all the other saints were built into bottles; you filled in the long winter evenings and earned a few groschen . One suspects that at some point an Erzgebirge man went to sea, watched his colleagues build ship models there and had the idea of ​​logically putting these ships (as Erzgebirge) in a bottle. This cannot be proven, because the oldest known seafaring bottle ships are not much older than a hundred years.
    US Navy Recruitment Poster 1917
  • Press gangs were sent out by their captains or the port admiralty to force every man who had a maritime tattoo , for example , into the service of “King and Fatherland”, that is, into the navy. In addition to this team recruitment measure , men also liked to get shanghai , mostly by getting them drunk, pulling a club over their heads or, popular in brothels , adding knockout drops in their drink. The innkeepers then collected a bounty from the captains, while the next morning, before they knew what happened to them, the victim had to be tipped out of the hammock by the boatswain's mate and then found himself at sea. Shanghai was also popular with merchant ship captains. As a result of these practices, almost half of the crew on a ship was sometimes pressed, Shanghai or criminal offenders. In the past, the latter were often given the choice of boarding a ship or facing deportation , death or long prison sentences. That already existed in the days of the galleys . A mutiny was caused by these methods. Later, more subtle methods such as advertising (see picture) were used to get their teams up to their target .
  • Mutiny : In seafaring, mutiny was almost always punishable by death for centuries. “A (meant is ... even if it is so nonsensical ...) command that you carry out is service. An order that you do not carry out is mutiny ” , is said to have been a saying of British sailors of the 18th and early 19th centuries.
  • Running through the daggen is a flogging with an approximately 80 cm long rope end, comparable to running the gauntlet .
  • Rigging up the grating meant that a wooden lattice was pulled up on the rig in order to tie a sailor to it and to beat the nine-tailed cat with a special whip . The usual number of blows ranged from a dozen to 500, with the man then usually being sentenced by a court martial to be whipped through the fleet , which was practically the equivalent of a death sentence.
  • Keel hauling is pulling through under the keel at sea. On old sailing ships this was a punishment for the seaman, whereby the chances of survival differed depending on whether the seaman was keeled lengthways or across the keel and whether one pulled slowly on the rope - which had previously been pulled through under the keel - at the end of which the seaman was pulled was on a leash so that he had the chance to swim or dive himself (if he could swim at all, which was by no means common) and thereby maintain a certain distance from the trunk, or whether the rope was hauled in so quickly that he could had no chance of doing anything himself. Seafarers usually did not drown while hauling the keel, but instead injured themselves on the clams that were on the underwater hull. Quickly hauling in the rope while the seaman was being keeled in the longitudinal direction of the ship was fatal, as he would then normally succumb to his serious injuries. Slowly hauling in the rope while the seaman was keeled across the ship, the chance of survival was much higher.

Legends

The great age of figureheads began in the 17th century and lasted until the beginning of the 20th century. In the 18th century, the figurehead was called the ship's picture . The number of figureheads is large, and besides the lion (on Dutch ships you can always find a lion as the coat of arms of the country) mermaids and mermaids were preferred, but also warriors, knights , princes , shipowners , merchants in top hats and delicate and powerful female figures . The figurehead was seen by the crew as a patron saint, a talisman . The success of a trip depended on her; Their damage or even destruction was a bad omen and signaled great misfortune; the ship became a ship of misfortune.

Seaman's stories, as different as they are in detail, give us a good idea of ​​the strangely real significance that figureheads had for the spirit of the crew at the time: the crew of the British frigate Brunswick excitedly announced that it was their figurehead, the Duke of Braunschweig in Scottish national costume, the hat was shot from the head. “It is not appropriate,” said the seafarers, “for the noble lord to face his enemies bareheaded” . The captain , himself badly wounded, did not hesitate long and provided his gold-trimmed hat as a replacement. It happened on June 1st, 1794. Before the sun set, the British fleet had won a decisive victory over the French.

The privateer General Armstrong carried a figurehead of great portrait resemblance to the popular war hero . When the ship had to be sunk at Faial ( old spelling "Fayal" ) in order not to fall into the hands of the enemy, the crew insisted on rescuing the old general . Despite heavy cannon fire, the figurehead was sawed off and brought to safety in a boat.

Than once a sailing ship did not run, as the captain it wanted to, he ordered a sailor who figurehead, a racy beauty, with the swab to tickle gently the face and say it: "! Loop, min lass, loop to" (Run, my girl, run to / in the sense of: now do it). After a few moments a more favorable wind came up and the ship was sailing well.

Contrary to popular belief, eye patches were also used to cover healthy eyes. Pirates used them, among other things, to train their eyes for the night. By keeping one eye in the dark during the day, they could see better at night - or so they believed. However, many sailors used to go blind in one eye through the use of the Jacob's staff , with which one has to aim at the sun, which is probably why some people wear their eye patch wore over a really blind eye. Since there are often serious differences in brightness on a ship, between the lighting conditions on deck, in the blazing sun and the dark, barely lit rooms below deck, many seafarers used to wear eye patches in order to save the otherwise long waiting time, especially in critical situations. until the eye got used to the darkness. ( A common procedure also in modern submarine warfare of the Second World War , where red light (or eye patches) inside the submarine that was easy on the eyes resulted in the guards being ready for immediate and possibly urgent readiness before boarding the bridge. )

Wooden legs are not an invention from pirate literature. In the Royal Navy at the time , it was customary to give deserved and disabled seamen the job of ship's cook .

This possibly belongs in the realm of myth

Seafarers liked to bring birds and other exotic animals with them as souvenirs from their travels in the tropics. Parrots enjoyed particular popularity . They used color accents in dreary, dingy surroundings, learned to speak to the amusement of sailors and were easier to keep on board a ship than monkeys and other animals. In addition, trade in these birds flourished in London in the 18th century and they fetched good prices.

Going over the plank : The fact that pirates drove prisoners into the sea over a ship's plank is not mentioned in any report from the 17th and 18th centuries, this practice comes more from the field of myths in literature. Only one report is known from 1820: pirates had boarded the Dutch brig Vhan Fredericka , the crew was tied up, their eyes were blindfolded, cannonballs were attached to their feet and the sailors were then forced to jump one by one into the sea when they did Do not reveal the hiding place of the gold. Only one is said to have survived, who finally revealed the hiding place.

Patron saint

Superstition

Siren as a symbol of evil, around 1130 Switzerland, church painting in St. Martin zu Zillis / Graubünden

Superstition is widespread among seafarers.

  • Women on board, like priests , were viewed with suspicion, both supposedly bringing misfortune. Nevertheless, it happened that there were women on board who pretended to be men, see e.g. B. the pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read . On the other hand, even on warships it was quite common for women to accompany their husbands on the voyages, just as they traveled as passengers.
  • Fishing boats are often "disguised" as sea animals in order not to irritate the sea creatures. Ancient ships were often painted with eyes for this reason.
  • Whistling with the mouth on board was not allowed, you could whistle a storm .
  • Scratching the stay should bring wind.
  • At the start of the journey, coins were thrown overboard in order to get a good trip.
  • The nailing a shark fin on the bowsprit or whale tail on whaling boats should transfer power and speed of the ship or boat.
  • The unlucky day is Friday, you didn't leave the port, Sunday was always the good day.
  • Cats on board brought good luck (and helped ship hygiene and protect valuable and scarce food by getting rid of mice and rats).
  • The souls of dead sailors reside in albatrosses , seagulls, and petrels .
  • Klabautermann - a small goblin who is invisible on board the ship and who knocks and rumbles in the ship and either, by his appearance, indicates the ship's sinking or who sees order in the ship and indicates disaster by his disappearance. As long as he stays on board, the ship is on a safe journey. The Klabautermann worries about the ship, his presence protects the ship. Turning the hourglass prematurely while glassing to shorten one's own watch was considered anti-social behavior on board . It was said that at rückfälligem shortening the hobgoblin will appear and the sailor beat up .
  • Mermaid : Usually it is a soulless or damned being that can only be freed from its fate through the love of a human husband.
    It is difficult to differentiate the mermaid from similar beings:
    • Water women (aspect of motherliness or love)
    • Mermaids / Sirens (Threat / Seduction Aspect)
      The previous three are possibly all confused with manatees , as these animals tended to look at ships out of curiosity with only their heads sticking out of the water and making strange siren-like sounds gifts.

Sea monsters

Sea monsters are fictional beings who appear in various forms in the history of seafaring .

Especially in the past, seafaring had to contend with great dangers such as storms and apparently inexplicable natural phenomena (e.g. white squall or whirlpools, see also Saltstraumen ). The fear of the seafarers formed in their imaginations the shape of sea monsters and ghosts as an explanation for their distress.

Many ship accidents came as a surprise and remained unexplained, which contributed to the formation of legends. Sometimes, however, factual descriptions were dismissed as a seaman's thread, for example the existence of monster waves until 1995, as well as giant octopuses, was not recognized.

Known sea monsters

Say

Maritime literature (exemplary)

See also

literature

  • D. Wachsmuth: Pompimos ho daimon. Investigations into the ancient sacred acts during sea voyages . Dissertation. Free University of Berlin , 1967.
  • Olaf Höckmann: Ancient seafaring . Beck's Archaeological Library, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-406-30463-X .
  • Ekhart Berckenhagen: Shipping in world literature. A panorama from five millennia , Hamburg (Kabel) 1995. ISBN 3-8225-0338-X

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Batavia Cahiers, Stichting “Nederland bouwt VOC-Retourschep”, Lelystad 1990–1995, ISBN 90-73857-01-5 to 90-73857-05-8