What people say
Bananas aboard bring disaster; renaming a ship invites it.Performance · 70 searches a month
Sailing superstitions
Bananas aboard bring disaster; renaming a ship invites it.
When it actually starts
How old is this one
First recorded
Antiquity; most surviving rules from the age of sail
That makes it
about 2,526 years old
Rank by age
5 oldest of 40 dated here
Category
Performance
Searched
70 a month
Sailing was the most dangerous common occupation for centuries, and the rules multiplied accordingly: no whistling, no bananas aboard, never rename a ship, never sail on a Friday.
Why it stuck. Danger plus no control is the strongest generator of ritual known, and sailing had both in a degree no other trade matched.
What is going on
The banana rule has a real basis — fast banana boats sank with all hands more often because speed mattered more than safety, and bananas release ethylene that spoiled other cargo.Where it applies. Shared across nearly every maritime tradition, which is unusual for superstitions this specific.
Other performance superstitions
Recorded around the same time
Sailing superstitions is the 5th oldest of the 40 dated superstitions here. Of those, 6 are younger than a century and 5 predate the common era.
First-recorded dates are the earliest documented appearance in written sources, not the earliest possible origin — an unrecorded practice can be older. How the dating works and where it is uncertain →