United Kingdom Line-crossing ceremony aboard Méduse on the first of July 1816.īy the eighteenth century, there were well-established line-crossing rituals in the British Royal Navy. In the Royal Canadian Navy, those who have not yet crossed the equator are nicknamed Tadpoles, or Dirty Tadpoles an earlier nickname was griffins. The coverage provoked widespread criticism, especially when the videotape showed some of the submarine's officers watching the entire proceedings from the conning tower. A videotape of the ceremony was obtained by the Nine Network and aired on Australian television. One sailor was then sexually assaulted with a long stick before all sailors undergoing the ceremony were forced to jump overboard and tread water until permitted to climb back aboard the submarine. Sailors undergoing the ceremony were physically and verbally abused before being subjected to an act called 'sump on the rump', where a dark liquid was daubed over each sailor's anus and genitalia. In 1995, a notorious line-crossing ceremony took place on the Royal Australian Navy submarine HMAS Onslow. Most modern navies have instituted regulations that prohibit physical attacks on sailors undergoing the line-crossing ceremony.

Throughout history, line-crossing ceremonies have sometimes become dangerous hazing rituals. They are also performed in the merchant navy and aboard sail training ships.

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. The tradition may have originated with ceremonies when passing headlands, and become a 'folly' sanctioned as a boost to morale, or have been created as a test for seasoned sailors to ensure their new shipmates were capable of handling long, rough voyages. The line-crossing ceremony is an initiation rite that commemorates a person's first crossing of the Equator. JSTOR ( July 2016) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.įind sources: 'Line-crossing ceremony' – news Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This article needs additional citations for verification.

World war two navy pacific tattoo