Bananas are indeed delicious and good for you, but please don’t bring them on R U 4 Reel. We may even throw them overboard…why?
Boaties, particularly those that fish can be a superstitious lot! Bananas are thought to bring bad luck to a boat and fishing. Many early fishermen came to believe that if bananas were on board, the fishing would be rubbish.
It turns out that “bad luck bananas on boats” is one of the oldest, longest running, and controversial fishing and boating superstition out there
This is indeed an old superstition, and there are a few explanations as to how it began…Back in the 1700s and 1800s, there was no Coast Guard …and there certainly wasn’t high-frequency radio or cell phones. So when a ship went down, it usually went down without anyone else knowing about it .
And when another ship came up to the spot that a ship had sunk, only to see a ton of bananas floating amongst the other debris, you can imagine how easy it would be to assume bananas were bad luck……. before you know it, that story gets passed on and elaborated upon until everyone in town believes that bananas caused the wreck.
Another reason that bananas are seen as bad luck involves smell. When a ship left with a cargo full of bananas, speed was key. The sailors knew that they only had so many days before the bananas would go bad, which meant their cargo would be worthless. But it also meant that when a bad storm, huge waves, or another problem delayed a ship, the bananas on board began putting off an odour… and the odour that bad bananas put out doesn’t just make your nose twitch, it also can kill other produce around it.
So the bad bananas were killing off much of their existing food supply, many times the crew ran out of food. If they were out at sea long enough, it could mean death. The stories the sailors came back with to their families and friends involved the mention of the “bad luck bananas”, furthering the “No Bananas on Board” superstition.
A further problem with bananas? When loading boats with bananas, snakes and spiders stowed away with them…needless to say the crew were not impressed, bites and stings could be deadly…..another reason not to trust bananas on board.
So that’s why bananas are not welcome aboard!