Banana boat (ship)

For other uses, see Banana boat.
United Fruit Company's Veragua as USS Merak (AF-21)
SS Abangarez, a United Fruit banana boat, circa 1945

Banana boat was a term, a descriptive nickname, given to fast ships also called banana carriers engaged in the banana trade designed to transport easily spoiled bananas rapidly from tropical growing areas to northern markets that often carried passengers as well as fruit.[1][2] During the first half of the Twentieth Century the refrigerated ships, such as SS Antigua and SS Contessa, engaged in the Central America to United States trade also operated as luxurious passenger vessels. Surplus naval vessels were converted in some cases in the search for speed with Standard Fruit converting four U.S. Navy destroyer hulls, without machinery, to the banana carriers Masaya, Matagalpa, Tabasco and Teapa in 1932.[3][4] Transfers to naval service served as transports and particularly chilled stores ships such as USS Mizar, the United Fruit passenger and banana carrier Quirigua, and the lead ship of a group that were known as the Mizar class of stores ships. Modern banana boats tend to be reefer ships or other refrigerated ships that carry cooled bananas on one leg of a voyage, then general cargo on the return leg.

The large fruit companies such as Standard Fruit Company, United Fruit Company in the United States and Elders & Fyffes Shipping, which itself came under control of the United Fruit Company in 1910, in the banana trade acquired or built ships for the purpose, some strictly banana carriers and others with passenger accommodations.[3][5][6]

1916 advertisement for the United Fruit Company Steamship Service

United Fruit operated a large fleet, advertised as The Great White Fleet, for over a century until its successor Chiquita Brands International sold the last ships in a sale with leaseback in 2007 of eight refrigerated and four container ships that transported approximately 70% of the company's bananas to North America and Europe.[7][8] At one time the fleet consisted of 100 refrigerated ships and was the world's largest private fleet with some being lent to the Central Intelligence Agency to support the attempted overthrow of the Castro regime in the Bay of Pigs landing.[9]

In modern usage the term has been associated with a derogatory term for immigrants. As the main produce of the West Indies was bananas they were also used as a form of cheap transportation and the English cricket team that toured the West Indies in 1959–1960 used banana boats to travel across the Atlantic and between the islands. They were better known for bringing West Indian immigrants to Great Britain, and to say that someone 'came off a banana boat' was a derogatory phase used by those who objected to their arrival. It fell out of use in the 1980s as by then most of the British African-Caribbean community had been born in the UK. During this century It has been used to express how you feel if you are taken for a fool Quote: Do you think I have just arrived on the Banana Boat. Answers:I am not stupid, Do you think I am Green, I was not born yesterday, I am not wet behind the ears, come on I am not falling for that, Come on the other one has bells on it, these are all non-racial connotations of the original sentence.

The term "banana boat" is perhaps best known today in the context of Harry Belafonte's 1956 song The Banana Boat Song (Day-O).

See also

References

  1. ↑ S. Swiggum and M. Kohli (September 21, 2009). "Fruit Shipping Companies / Banana Boats". TheShipList. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  2. ↑ Naval History And Heritage Command. "Recollections of Ensign Leonard W. Tate Recounting His Service in the US Navy Including the Invasion of Southern France and with SACO [Sino-American Cooperative Association] in China During World War II". Naval History And Heritage Command. Retrieved 14 September 2014.
  3. 1 2 S. Swiggum and M. Kohli (August 28, 2013). "Standard Fruit Co / Vaccaro Brothers". TheShipList. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  4. ↑ Naval History and Heritage Command. "Osborne". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Naval History and Heritage Command. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  5. ↑ S. Swiggum and M. Kohli (November 23, 2006). "United Fruit Company". TheShipList. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  6. ↑ S. Swiggum and M. Kohli (November 9, 2007). "Elders & Fyffes Shipping, Limited—Fyffes Group, Limited / Fyffes PLC—Geest Line". TheShipList. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  7. ↑ Baker Library—Historical Collections. "United Fruit Company Photograph Collection, 1891–1962". Harvard University—Baker Library. Retrieved 16 September 2014.
  8. ↑ TMC News (May 2, 2007). "Chiquita sells remaining Great White Fleet". Informa Martime Trade and Transport. Retrieved 16 September 2014.
  9. ↑ Chapman, Peter (May 15, 2007). "Rotten fruit". Financial Times. Retrieved 16 September 2014.

External links

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