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Was Keelhauling Actually a Thing?
Running the gauntlet. Starting. Flogging with the cat ‘o 9 nine tails.
Gagging. Clapping in irons. Hanging from the yardarm. While this all
might sound like a super fun Saturday night with the misses when the
grandparents are watching your kiddos for you, it turns out these are
actually just a few of the dizzying array of corporal and capital
punishments inflicted upon sailors of old - both navy men and pirates -
to enforce discipline and punish a wide variety of crimes. But while
most of these punishments are fairly well-known, you may have noticed
two notable practices missing from the list: that old staple of pirate
movies, “walking the plank”… and keel-hauling. Perhaps the most infamous
of all nautical punishments, keel-hauling struck such fear into the
hearts of sailors over the centuries that the term survives to this day
as a byword for particularly harsh discipline. But what was
keel-hauling? How did it work, who invented it, and was it actually a
real thing? Or, like so much popular seamen lore, was it just the
product of some adventure writer’s imagination? Well, put on your
eyepatch and tricorn hat, strap on your peg-leg, as we dive into the
reality of one of the Age of Sail’s most barbaric practices.
Author: Gilles Messier
Producer: Caden Nielsen
Host/Editor: Daven Hiskey
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
View all episodes
By Cloud10
4.9
13701,370 ratings
Running the gauntlet. Starting. Flogging with the cat ‘o 9 nine tails.
Gagging. Clapping in irons. Hanging from the yardarm. While this all
might sound like a super fun Saturday night with the misses when the
grandparents are watching your kiddos for you, it turns out these are
actually just a few of the dizzying array of corporal and capital
punishments inflicted upon sailors of old - both navy men and pirates -
to enforce discipline and punish a wide variety of crimes. But while
most of these punishments are fairly well-known, you may have noticed
two notable practices missing from the list: that old staple of pirate
movies, “walking the plank”… and keel-hauling. Perhaps the most infamous
of all nautical punishments, keel-hauling struck such fear into the
hearts of sailors over the centuries that the term survives to this day
as a byword for particularly harsh discipline. But what was
keel-hauling? How did it work, who invented it, and was it actually a
real thing? Or, like so much popular seamen lore, was it just the
product of some adventure writer’s imagination? Well, put on your
eyepatch and tricorn hat, strap on your peg-leg, as we dive into the
reality of one of the Age of Sail’s most barbaric practices.
Author: Gilles Messier
Producer: Caden Nielsen
Host/Editor: Daven Hiskey
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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