Banana boat (ship)

They were designed to transport easily spoiled bananas rapidly from tropical growing areas to North America and Europe.

[3][5][6] United Fruit operated a large fleet, advertised as The Great White Fleet, for over a century until its successor Chiquita Brands International sold the last ships in a sale with leaseback in 2007 of eight refrigerated and four container ships that transported approximately 70% of the company's bananas to North America and Europe.

[7][8] At one time the fleet consisted of 100 refrigerated ships and was the world's largest private fleet with some being lent to the Central Intelligence Agency to support the attempted overthrow of the Castro regime in the Bay of Pigs landing.

The English cricket team that toured the West Indies in 1959–1960 used banana boats to travel across the Atlantic and between the islands.

[citation needed] They were better known for bringing West Indian immigrants to Great Britain, and to say that someone came off a banana boat was a derogatory phrase used by those who objected to their arrival.