Mariners are the superstitious sort, and it's no wonder why. The sea is ancient and enormous, mysterious and powerful – both a giver to life and taker of souls. For centuries, sailors have courted her favor and warded off bad luck with an odd assortment of traditions. Some have roots in practicalities, and others are a sunken riddle whose meaning will likely never resurface.

Below we've compiled a few of the most famous, culled from books and websites, and attempted to offer an explanation – and sometimes even an antidote – lest you tempt the Fates. How much you observe and believe is, of course, up to you.

Women were considered distractions in old seafaring days.

One of the best-known superstitions is also the simplest: Rename a boat, and risk bad luck. Where this superstition comes from is anyone's guess. But it is much talked about today in boat forums. Renaming a boat is said to bring on the wrath of the sea gods. As we all know, some boats are lucky, others are unlucky. Superstition holds that the unluckiest of all are those that have received a new name.

Fortunately, there is a way around it: dename and rename. John Vigor, writing for Good Old Boat magazine, couldn't find much information when he wanted to rename his newly purchased 31-foot sloop a few years ago. One yacht owner dismissed Vigor's worries about giving an already-christened boat a new name. He said he'd bought and sold two dozen boats without bad luck.

But Vigor wasn't taking chances.

Through "research," he determined there ought to be a renaming ceremony for such events. And he reasoned it ought to consist of five parts: an invocation, an expression of gratitude, a supplication, a rededication and a libation. So he wrote his own ceremony. It worked for him, and it's been followed by thousands. It's called Vigor's Interdenominational Boat Denaming Ceremony.

GOING BANANAS

Here's one that sounds strange, but has a perfectly reasonable explanation. Back in the day of wooden ships and rowing slaves, bananas were often part of the cargo sailing from the tropics to less-exotic locales. All sorts of pests accompanied the bananas – bugs, snakes, spiders. It didn't take long for the creepy crawlies to make themselves at home aboard the vessel, infecting the crew with all sorts of maladies and diseases.

Those sailors soon spread the afflictions to their ports of call. It didn't take long for ships' captains to figure out that bananas were the cause of all their troubles. For good measure, many banned all fruit as cargo.

Better not bring bananas aboard; creepy crawlies hiding in the bunches used to make sailors sick.

COINS UNDER THE MAST

Search under the mast of older wooden ships (yeah, not easy), and even some new ones, and you will sometimes find coins. This tradition dates back to antiquity and likely originated with the Romans, whose custom it was to place a coin in the mouth of the deceased. The money was to pay Charon, the boatman who ferried souls to Hades, the land of the dead, across the river Styx.

The U.S. Navy has, from time to time, observed this tradition, according to Answers.com. In 1933, the USS New Orleans was commissioned with 33 coins under her masts. In 1999, the destroyer USS Higgins launched with 11 coins, some of them rare.

You can observe this tradition, too, if you like. Just select a coin with some meaning, and, when you can, snug it under the mast with some 5200. It's a cheap price to pay for some good boating luck – or a trip to Hades.

DON'T DEPART ON FRIDAY

This seafaring tradition has a legend attached. The story goes that in an attempt to disprove the myth that departing on a Friday brings bad luck, the British government took action. They laid the keel of a new vessel on Friday, launched her on a Friday and named her HMS Friday. They placed her in command of one Captain Friday and sent her to sea on Friday. And the ship was never heard from again. Not true at all, it turns out. But the mythology of Fridays still holds today. There are those who won't set off for a cruise on the last day of the workweek.

Figureheads were thought to be able to see through fog and therefore ensure a ship's safety.

UNLUCKY COLORS

There is a superstition that holds that it is unlucky to paint a boat blue or green, the colors of the sea. But this observance seems to have died a natural death, sacrificed on the altar of Awlgrip. Look around any marina, and you'll see a bevy of colored cruisers, with Navy blue among the most popular. Look at small center consoles, and pastel blue and green have proliferated. 

THE SHIP'S EYES

Early ships often boasted a figurehead of some sort carved into the bow – naked women, mythological monsters, the heads of patrons. Ship's crews believed the eyes of the figurehead could see through fog and dark nights where they could not. Today, many Chinese junks are still painted with eyes upon the bow.

This salty old tradition also has a legend attached. As the Navy tells it, a captain once bought his wife two beautiful emeralds, but she didn't like them. He placed them in the eyes of the female figurehead of his ship instead. But his wife had a change of heart and stole the emeralds one night. A day after her husband set sail, his ship sank in a typhoon. The wife cried for days, fell asleep and woke up forever blind. Or, so the story goes.

WOMEN ABOARD ARE BAD LUCK

Here's where the female figureheads don't make much sense. There's an old superstition that women make the sea angry and therefore should never be let upon a vessel. It likely harkens back centuries, when women aboard ships were a rare sight, and one that would cause a big distraction among the crew. But apparently, naked wooden women on the bow were okay – and so were ships with female names.

LEFT FOOT, RIGHT FOOT

Here's an odd one, with no basis in reality we can find. This tradition holds that you should always step off your boat with your right foot, never the left. But never fear, there's an antidote if you get it wrong. Simply walk backwards to where you started, take off your shoes, put them back on the opposite feet and disembark again – this time with your right foot, of course.