Saltwater Etiquette

Etiquette on the water is expected between ships. To be without any manners, and showing courtesy to others on the sea, captains and their crews would find themselves as welcome as drivers on the worlds’ highways would be without exhibiting courtesy and manners behind the wheel. To use the word “unwelcome” would be an understatement!

Punctiliousness as Seen Between Ships, 

Big and Little, at Sea

How the Master of an Indian Liner and the Yankee Skipper of a “Cordwood Coaster” Exchanged Greetings

The Atlantic ocean is, streaked from one side to the other with the long, black, trailing smoke plumes of the big, rushing “record breakers” and “ocean greyhounds,” and few are left of the gallant old white winged craft that carried the flag and the fame of the nation to every part of the world, save some scattering “oil sleds” which the sailors, or to speak more correctly, the deckhands on the liners contemptuously refer to as “wind jammers.” 

Here and there, however, will be seen an occasional East Indian semi-clipper, either bound out to China or the East Indies, loaded with case oil, or coming home with a cargo of hemp, jute, linseed, rattan or some other of the fragrant and valuable products of the gorgeous east. But through all the changes in the size and rig of vessels, through all the vicissitudes of a life on the ocean wave, the captain of a ship, be it big or little, is, as a rule, as punctilious in the matter of etiquette as a Spanish grandee. And the etiquette of the sea is a wonderful thing. 

A hail from a little 75-ton “fore and after” will be answered with as much regard for the proprieties by the East India ship of 2,000 tons as it would be by one of its own size, and when the big ship has been run through storm and fog by “dumb luck and dead reckoning,” the appearance of the little one is hailed with delight, as affording a means of rectifying possible errors in reckoning. 

An instance of this kind occurred off Cape Cod a short time ago, when the captain of a ship with a valuable cargo and a crew of twenty-five men, as the fog lifted about noon of the seventh consecutive day without an observation, saw almost under his bows a little “cordwood coaster” creeping along under mainsail and jib, with her skipper at the wheel and her crew (one man) vigorously hauling away at the jib sheet. “Ship ahoy!” roared the skipper.

Back from the deck way above him came the answering call, “Ahoy there.”

“Where ye from?” was the next question. “Calcutta, bound for Boston,” was the reply.

“What's yer cargo?”

“Linseed, spice and jute butts.”

“How long ye bin out?”

“One hundred and sixty days,”

“Gosh!” said the skipper, and then came the chance of the big ship’s captain.

“Schooner ahoy!” came down from the deck of the “lime juicer.”

“Ahoy there,” went back the answer “What's your longitude?”

The skipper knew where he was and the master of the Calcutta ship was uncertain. So when the answer was given he was much relieved, for it showed that he was nearer home than he had reckoned. But he was going to have his talk out any way, and although the little fellow had his jib to windward he roared out:

“Where you from?”

“Gloucester, bound for New Bedford.”

“What’s your cargo?”

“Rocks and bilge water mostly.” “How long you been out?”

The skipper was stung by the sarcasm of the question, and with a look of scorn at the big ship bellowed out: “Bin out all night, by thunder, and I wish I hadn't. Draw away your jib!” and the sheet block went over to the lee rail with a bang, the sail filled, and the last the Indian man heard of the schooner was the skipper’s shout from the stern of his boat, “Ye think ye’re darn smart, don't ye, jest cause ye’re big!” -New York Tribune, 1894

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia