{"id":2281,"date":"2023-03-28T11:02:04","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T18:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/?p=2281"},"modified":"2023-03-28T11:02:10","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T18:02:10","slug":"nautical-terminator-horse-latitudes-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/nautical-terminator\/nautical-terminator-horse-latitudes-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Nautical Terminator – Horse Latitudes (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In 1967 The Doors released their second album, Strange Days<\/em>, which included a creepy song called Horse Latitudes<\/em>. The song alludes to live horses being \u201cjettisoned\u201d from ships and suffering in \u201cmute nostril agony,\u201d presumably to lighten the load or because provisions have run too low to sustain them.  Composer Jim Morrison based the song on seemingly solid nautical sources; the phrase is explained similarly by W. H. Smyth in his 1867 lexicon, in reference to the Azores High. There\u2019s no doubt that the calms associated with this high prolonged the voyage for many ships heading to the New World and that the trip was dangerous. The mortality rate for humans could range to 30%. Still, many authorities question this interpretation of the phrase for the following reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1) The Azores High is much closer to\nEurope than the equatorial calms, making the Doldrums an even more likely area\nfor cargo to be thrown overboard. Why do we not locate the practice there? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2) A ship\u2019s consignment was\ndocumented in the manifest. Horses were not incidental items that could be\nglossed over when they failed to materialize at their destination, but highly\nvalued ones. Their absence would have required a thorough accounting to the\nship\u2019s insurers from the captain, who took responsibility for their safe\ntransport. Yet as far as I can determine, no record of an insurance claim for\nthis type of loss has been documented, while we have records of other losses\ndue to storms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3) Horses were not the only animals\ntransported. Cows, pigs, chickens, goats, sheep, and oxen were also among the\nanimals needed to be supplied to America, which lacked them. Why are only\nhorses singled out in this phrase?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4) Even if the ship\u2019s water stores\nneeded to be rationed, there remained the potential for rain, which could come\nat any time. Why jettison live animals, while there was still hope that they\ncould be revived with fresh water from a rainstorm?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5) However unappealing it may be to\nmodern Americans, horsemeat is still consumed in Europe and would have been\nmuch better fare than the salted, often rotten meat which was commonly\nprovided. With supplies running low, would the captain order this important\nfood source thrown overboard?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     As\ncommon as Morrison\u2019s interpretation of this phrase is, logic cries out for\nanother explanation. We\u2019ll see if we can come up with one next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1967 The Doors released their second album, Strange Days, which included a creepy song called Horse Latitudes. The song alludes to live horses being \u201cjettisoned\u201d from ships and suffering in \u201cmute nostril agony,\u201d presumably to lighten the load or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nautical-terminator"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2281"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3292,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2281\/revisions\/3292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}