Sailors are a superstitious bunch of folks… even the most practical people will follow at least a few superstitions or traditions “just in case”. We already learned our lesson about renaming a boat and we’re definitely going to be following the procedure to a tee for our new boat! But we can’t do that until she’s in the water and ready to go! I can’t adhere to the old adage of “no bananas on the boat” because they’re delicious and we’re definitely making smoothies!
Another thing I remember reading about a while ago and promptly forgetting was that placing a coin under the mast was good luck. I wasn’t thinking about this while I was vacuuming the dirt and debris out of the area left under the mast after it was pulled out… until I heard a loud “thunk” of something fairly large getting lodged inside the shop vac hose. It was a coin! A very corroded and disgusting coin, but a coin nonetheless!
Upon further research the practice of putting a coin (head’s up!) under the mast is called “mast stepping” and is observed by pretty much everyone from the smallest day sailor to the largest Navy ships!
I definitely want this to be a lucky boat, so I scrounged up a nice shiny new 2020 quarter (not easy to do in a pandemic with banks closed and a change shortage!).
The quarter I found was for American Samoa, which is a place we could even theoretically take our boat to! 🙂
Now that the mast is in, that good luck coin isn’t going anywhere! 🙂