Cats at Sea

For as long as there have been ships and seafaring, cats have accompanied humans on their voyages across the oceans.

Mariners are said to be of a superstitious disposition and the reason dwhy they like to have cats on board a ship was originally because of luck. In those good old days cats were considered a good luck charms by sailors who believed them to have extraordinary powers that could care for ships in dangerous weather and safeguard against various sea-monsters. But they also had other powers; if a cat met a sailor on deck it meant good fortune but if it only went halfway and then retreated it was a bad omen.

Naturally there was also the benefit that cats would keep the population of rats and mice in check. And of course a cat is a playful, affectionate and entertaining companion. It is surprising that even though cats generally dislike water (of course, with some notable exceptions such as the Bengali), they seem to be happy to make ships their homes and this has helped cats spread a population around the world since ships first started crossing the ocean

Actually, the connection between cats and sailors goes back to ancient Egypt. Cats’ skills as rat catchers meant that they were important and respected “crew members” on any ship. The weeks, months and even years that ships spent at sea meant that their crews tended to make up their own beliefs – a mixture of practicality with some superstition thrown in. Even though the church condemned cats as being representatives of devil, sailors were far too practical to pay attention to this.

Many of the beliefs surrounding cats at sea was that they had some magical power over the weather. It was generally acknowledged that this power was stored in the cat’s tail. Because of this power, sailors thought it best to keep ship-cats well fed and content so they would grant favourable weather and good luck to their ship. The stupidest thing you could do as a sailor was to throw the ship’s cat overboard – the ship would run into a dreadful storm and you would have nine years of bad luck.

Nowadays, we know that cats actually can feel changes in the weather before these changes becomes apparent to humans. The ship cat’s storm predictions were likely nothing more than a restless and nervous reaction to the low atmospheric pressure.

Images by EatYourGreens (feature image),  P.Leon and Leonid Mamchenkov