maritime tradition
Sailors' inherited practice
Maritime tradition encompasses the customs, practices, and knowledge passed down among seafaring peoples—navigation techniques, shipbuilding methods, ceremonies, and codes of conduct developed over generations at sea.
It includes practical skills like knot-tying and reading weather, but also rituals, superstitions, and the unwritten laws governing life aboard vessels: The captain's authority derives from maritime tradition as much as from law.
- scrimshawEngraved whale ivory art
- riggingRopes controlling ship sails
- crow's nestElevated ship observation platform
- compassDevice showing cardinal directions
- shipbuildingConstructing maritime vessels
sea shanties · knots · mermaids · figureheads · Viking longships · sail · ship logs · Davy Jones · sextant · bosun · old salt · press gang · dead reckoning · East India Company · superstitions · crossing the line · burial at sea · Magellan