September 26, 2007
I was watching one of my favourite TV shows “Firefly” during the week. For those that don’t know, Firefly was a TV show created by Joss Whedon of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” fame…
Damn the Studio Executive “Suits” who axed it…
It was an awesome show… with well thought out dialogue… and a nice balance of characters and personalities. It is arguably a mixed genre concept… you could call it Sci-Fi Western… with a hint of Maritime… or Sci-West-Maritacular… as it is technically called…
If you get the chance… check it out… it is well worth a look…
Anyway… I was watching an episode the other night… and the Captain “Mal” was punishing “Jayne”… one of his crew… for betraying two other crew members… and by betraying the crew… he was ultimately betraying him… as Captain…
Mal explained that they used to keelhaul traitors back in the day, but this was as close as he can get on his spaceship.
Which piqued my interest…
I’d heard of the term “keelhauling” before… and had a rough idea what it was… but thought I’d Google it to find out more… and this is what Wikipedia (the undisputed authority on all things everything) told me:
“Keelhauling (from Dutch kielhalen; “to drag along the keel”) was a severe form of corporal punishment meted out to sailors at sea.”
“The sailor was tied to a rope that looped beneath the vessel, thrown overboard on one side of the ship, and dragged under the ship’s keel to the other side. As the hull was often covered in barnacles and other marine growth, this could result in lacerations and other injuries. This generally happened if the offender was pulled quickly. If pulled slowly, his weight might lower him sufficiently to miss the barnacles but might result in his drowning. If the rope snapped, the Captain could conclude that the punishment was not done properly and order it carried out again.”
“Keelhauling was legally permitted as a punishment in the Dutch Navy. The earliest official mention of keelhauling is a Dutch ordinance of 1560: the practice was not formally abolished until 1853. While not an official punishment, it was reportedly used by some British Royal Navy and merchant marine captains, and has become strongly associated with pirate lore.”
Hmmm… harsh but fair…
So it got me to thinking… what process was followed to reach the point where a sailor was to be subjected to the “corporal punishment” of keelhauling… (I must say there appears to have been a fine line between “Corporal” and “Capital” punishment in those days…)
Now bear in mind… being a sailor was the guy’s job… so there must have been some sort of Industrial Relations protocol to adhere to prior to the meting out of any punishment… dependent obviously upon the particular specifics of his workplace agreement…
So clearly there must have been a succession of written warnings first… handled in conjunction with the ship’s HR representative… or H Arrrrrgh!!!… as they referred to it in those days…
No doubt for it to have reached this stage, he must have been lackadaisical in meeting his KPI’s (Key Pirate Indicators)… so there was likely a period of focussed scrutiny by his immediate supervisor… I say focussed scrutiny… because it was likely done through one eye… ostensibly because of the patch…
So if… after this level of process… he was still unable to meet his performance criteria… then I think it is clearly safe to say… he had a good hard keelhauling coming to him…
Actually… there are a couple of people in my office I’d like to keelhaul… if only we had a keel…
Hmmm… not sure I can get away with that now-a-days… a nipple cripple is considered cruel and unusual punishment in our workplace…
Sigh… the times… they are a changin’…
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Stick-i-pedia |
who knew you were so aggressive….hhhhmmmmm! a nipple cripple…outrageous!!! REALLY!!!!
Comment by pinkie t — October 1, 2007 @ 5:29 pm
Well we had to try something after they outlawed the wedgie…
Comment by Stick — October 2, 2007 @ 11:38 am