Line-crossing ceremony
[1] The tradition may have originated with ceremonies when passing headlands, and become a "folly" sanctioned as a boost to morale,[2] or have been created as a test for seasoned sailors to ensure their new shipmates were capable of handling long, rough voyages.
Equator-crossing ceremonies, typically featuring King Neptune, are common in the navy and are also sometimes carried out for passengers' entertainment on civilian ocean liners and cruise ships.
"[5] The French author François-Timoléon de Choisy crossed the equator in April 1685 (aboard the Oiseau bound for Siam), and had the following to say about their tradition: "...we had the ceremony this morning.
His Excellency the Ambassador appeared before the court first, and promised, with his hand on a map of the world, to observe the ceremony, if ever he recrossed the Line, and in order not to be doused he put in the basin a fistful of silver.
On the voyage of HMS Endeavour to the Pacific in 1768, captained by James Cook, Joseph Banks described how the crew drew up a list of everyone on board, including cats and dogs, and interrogated them as to whether they had crossed the equator.
[7] Captain Robert FitzRoy of HMS Beagle suggested the practice had developed from earlier ceremonies in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian vessels passing notable headlands.
FitzRoy quoted Otto von Kotzebue's 1830 description in his 1839 Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle between the Years 1826 and 1836.
[12] Later, during World War II, the frequency of the ceremony increased dramatically, especially in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, where the service's fleet operations grew enormously to counter widely dispersed Japanese forces.
[13] As late as World War II, the line-crossing ceremony was still rather rough and involved activities such as the "Devil's Tongue", which was an electrified piece of metal poked into the sides of those deemed pollywogs.
Beatings were often still common, usually with wet firehoses, and several World War II Navy deck logs speak of sailors visiting sick bay after crossing the line.
Wogs (all of the uninitiated) are allowed to capture and interrogate any Shellbacks they can find (e.g., tying them up, cracking eggs or pouring aftershave lotion on their heads).
After crossing the line, Pollywogs receive subpoenas[15] to appear before King Neptune and his court (usually including his first assistant Davy Jones and her Highness Amphitrite and often various dignitaries, who are all represented by the highest-ranking sailors who are Shellbacks), who officiate at the ceremony, which is often preceded by a beauty contest of men dressing up as women, each department of the ship being required to introduce one contestant in swimsuit drag.
During the ceremony, the Pollywogs undergo a number of increasingly embarrassing ordeals (wearing clothing inside out and backwards; crawling on hands and knees on nonskid-coated decks; being swatted with short lengths of firehose; being locked in stocks & pillories and pelted with mushy fruit; being locked in a water coffin of salt-water and bright green sea dye [fluorescent sodium salt]; crawling through chutes or large tubs of rotting garbage; kissing the Royal Baby's belly coated with axle grease, hair chopping, etc.
[citation needed] In the PBS documentary Carrier, filmed in 2005 (Episode 7, "Rites of Passage"), a crossing-the-line ceremony on USS Nimitz is extensively documented.
Wogs then returned to the forecastle, where they were hosed off by firehose and then allowed to kiss, in turn, the belly of the sea-baby, the foot of the sea-hag, and the ring of King Neptune, each personified by Shellbacks.
[citation needed] SUNY Maritime occasionally holds a Blue Nose ceremony for its cadets after crossing the Arctic Circle.
[citation needed] Colorado State University's Semester at Sea Program holds a line-crossing ceremony twice a year for its students when their vessel, Blue Dream Star, crosses the equator.
