Keelhauling

Keelhauling (Dutch kielhalen;[1] "to drag along the keel") is a form of punishment and potential execution once meted out to sailors at sea.

The earliest known mention of keelhauling is from the Greeks in the Rhodian Maritime Code (Lex Rhodia), of c. 700 BC, which outlines punishment for piracy.

There seems to be no record of it in English ships' logs of the era, and naval historian Nicholas Rodger has stated he knows of no firm evidence that it ever happened.

In 1880, George Shaw Lefevre was confronted in Parliament with a recent report from Italy of a keelhauling on HMS Alexandra, and denied that such an incident had taken place.

[14] It was an official, though rare, punishment in the Dutch navy,[15] as shown in the painting The keelhauling of the ship's surgeon of Admiral Jan van Nes.