{"id":2283,"date":"2023-04-02T11:19:21","date_gmt":"2023-04-02T18:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/?p=2283"},"modified":"2023-04-02T11:19:24","modified_gmt":"2023-04-02T18:19:24","slug":"nautical-terminator-horse-latitudes-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/nautical-terminator\/nautical-terminator-horse-latitudes-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Nautical Terminator – Horse Latitudes (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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When last I wrote about the Doors\u2019 song, Horse Latitudes, <\/em>I was skeptical about the practice of jettisoning live horses at sea, or even dead ones, for these reasons: They could be used for food if all provisions had run low; they may revive in a rainstorm if the ship was low on water; they were among many animals transported to America, so it\u2019s puzzling that horses be singled out to be thrown overboard; I can find no cases of insurance claims for this cause; and the so-called Horse Latitudes are closer to Europe than the Doldrums, so provisions would be more likely to run out in the latter calms. Admittedly, the wide acceptance of the \u201cjettisoning\u201d account of the term\u2019s derivation, and its mention in print as early as 1777, means we cannot completely rule it out. Still, more reasonable explanations exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One is that the phrase \u201cdead horse\nmonth\u201d referred to that time at the beginning of the voyage when the sailor was\nworking off wages paid in advance. The ordinary seaman often spent this money\nbefore leaving, so at the beginning of his duties at sea he felt he was working\nfor nothing. A ceremony, described in the Sailor\u2019s Lexicon of 1867, was\nperformed when wages finally began being credited to his account, at an area\nthat came to be associated with the celebration. An effigy of a horse was\ndragged around the deck, hoisted to the yardarm, then cut away and cast adrift,\nall attended by much merriment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another explanation is that the area\nbetween Spain and the Canary Islands was called El Golfo de las Yeguas <\/em>by the Spanish, meaning \u201cthe gulf of the\nmares.\u201d This gulf is at about 35 degrees north, consistent with the Horse\nLatitudes. But this region is known for gales, not calms, and in any case, the\nquestion of why it is named after horses remains unresolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More often than not, the phrases of\nthe sea were created by men who could not read or write. Many evolved for\ncenturies before showing up in literature, which today is our only source of\ninformation. Some of you, enamored of the original macabre poetry from the pen\nof Jim Morrison, will stick with his reading. \nBut as with many important issues in our sport, sometimes it is best to\nfollow that great nautical sage Captain Ron, and wistfully confess that \u201cnobody\nknows.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When last I wrote about the Doors\u2019 song, Horse Latitudes, I was skeptical about the practice of jettisoning live horses at sea, or even dead ones, for these reasons: They could be used for food if all provisions had run … 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-2283","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\/2283","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=2283"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3296,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2283\/revisions\/3296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}