The New England Mariner Tradition: Old Salts, Superstitions, Shanties and Shipwrecks

For over three centuries, New Englanders have set sail in search of fortune and adventure—yet death lurked on every voyage in the form of storms, privateers, disease and human error. In hope of being spared by the sea, superstitious mariners practiced cautionary rituals. During the winter of 1779, the crew aboard the Family Trader offered up gin to appease the squalling storms of Neptune. In the 1800s, after nearly fifty shipwrecks on Georges Bank between Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Nova S...