Evidence status: WELL SUPPORTED — exact origin uncertain
A fair wind.
A loaded ship.
A willing crew.
And yet, if the calendar said Friday, some captains would rather wait in harbour.
For generations of sailors, the day itself could be enough to make a voyage feel doomed before it had begun.
The Short Answer
The belief that it was unlucky to begin a voyage on a Friday was firmly established among British and American sailors by the nineteenth century.
It was not an exclusively maritime superstition. Friday already carried negative associations in wider European Christian culture, particularly because Good Friday commemorated the crucifixion of Jesus.
Sailors appear to have absorbed that broader suspicion and applied it to one of the most dangerous moments of a voyage: leaving port.
Historical accounts describe captains delaying departures, sailors refusing to sail and later mishaps being blamed on a Friday start.
What we cannot identify is one precise moment when Friday first became a forbidden sailing day.
What We Know
The superstition is well documented.
An account quoted by nineteenth-century maritime folklorist Fletcher Bassett describes the belief as already long established in 1841.
The writer observed that sailors had traditionally regarded departure on a Friday as something likely to bring disaster. If a voyage that began on Friday subsequently went badly, the misfortune would be blamed on the day of departure.
A naval chaplain writing in 1847 reported that even some commanders in the United States Navy avoided sailing or beginning a new period of duty on a Friday.
By 1896, Fanny Bergen's Current Superstitions could record simply:
seafaring men would not sail on Friday.
The belief required no explanation because readers already recognised it.
Walter Runciman, writing about seamen of the 1850s and 1860s, recalled knowing sailors who would actually leave a vessel rather than sail on a Friday.
That is considerably stronger than merely joking about bad luck.
How It Became a Habit
Departure is psychologically important.
Once a ship has sailed, weather, current, machinery, navigation and chance take over.
Before departure, however, there is still time to control something.
You can choose when to leave.
That makes the starting date an ideal place for superstition to attach itself.
If a vessel left on Friday and later encountered storms, accidents or illness, the connection was obvious to anyone already suspicious of the day.
If the voyage went perfectly?
That successful Friday departure was less likely to become a sea story.
The superstition therefore had exactly the same advantage as many other bad-luck beliefs:
failure confirmed it far more memorably than success disproved it.
The Story Everyone Tells
There is one spectacular story about the Royal Navy trying to destroy the superstition once and for all.
According to the tale, the Admiralty ordered a ship to be built specifically to prove Friday was harmless.
Her keel was supposedly laid on a Friday.
She was launched on a Friday.
She was named HMS Friday.
Her captain was supposedly a man named Captain Friday.
And she finally sailed on her maiden voyage on Friday the 13th.
She was never seen again.
It is almost the perfect maritime legend.
There is just one difficulty.
HMS Friday never existed.
The story is a modern maritime myth, not Royal Navy history.
Interestingly, Frank Bullen was already retelling a version of the legend in 1901, describing an imaginary vessel built, launched and sailed on Fridays before disappearing with all hands.
Even then, it was presented as the sort of tale “old sailors” enjoyed repeating rather than as a documented naval event.
What the Evidence Actually Says
The historical superstition is genuine.
The legendary ship is not.
The deeper explanation is probably connected with the much wider European suspicion of Friday.
Benjamin Taylor wrote in 1900 that Friday was the sailor's particular aversion but pointed out that the prejudice was widespread on land as well.
He suggested, as earlier folklorists had done, that Friday's association with Christ's crucifixion may have helped make it an unfavourable day for beginning new ventures.
That explanation fits the culture in which the maritime superstition flourished.
But it is still difficult to establish a single historical chain beginning with the Crucifixion and ending with one first sailor refusing to raise anchor.
So:
DOCUMENTED: Nineteenth-century sailors and captains sometimes refused to begin voyages on Friday.
DOCUMENTED: Mishaps on Friday-started voyages could be blamed on the day of departure.
WELL SUPPORTED: The maritime taboo belonged to a much wider European superstition surrounding Friday.
PLAUSIBLE: Christian associations with the Crucifixion helped strengthen Friday's unlucky reputation.
FOLKLORE: HMS Friday was not a real Royal Navy experiment.
UNKNOWN: There is no identifiable first origin of the sailor's Friday taboo.
Different Elsewhere
The belief was never universal.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, steamships were helping destroy it.
A sailing captain might have some flexibility over departure.
A commercial steamship working to schedules could not necessarily sit in harbour for twenty-four hours because the crew disliked the date.
Bullen observed that commercial pressure was making the old rule increasingly impractical.
He nevertheless noted that some masters of British sailing vessels still tried to avoid Friday and that the superstition remained strong among some Mediterranean sailors.
Technology did not prove Friday lucky.
It simply made superstition expensive.
Why It Stuck
Friday already arrived carrying a cultural reputation.
Sailors merely gave that reputation a particularly dangerous place to operate.
At sea, the consequences of a bad decision could be enormous.
That made delaying departure by a day seem cheap insurance.
After all, if nothing supernatural happened, the captain had merely waited until Saturday.
And if something did happen after sailing on Friday?
Everybody knew exactly what had caused it.
Related Curiosities
Why Is Friday the 13th Supposed to Be Unlucky?
Why Is Whistling on a Ship Supposed to Bring Bad Luck?
Why Are Bananas Considered Bad Luck on Boats?
Why Is Renaming a Ship Considered Bad Luck?
Sources & Further Reading
Fletcher S. Bassett, Legends and Superstitions of the Sea and of Sailors — nineteenth-century documentation of sailors refusing to begin voyages on Fridays, including earlier accounts from 1841 and 1847.
Frank T. Bullen, A Sack of Shakings (1901) — experienced sailor's account of the Friday taboo, its decline with steamships and the legendary ship supposedly doomed by repeated Fridays.
Walter Runciman, Windjammers and Sea Tramps — recollections of nineteenth-century sailors who would rather leave their ship than sail on Friday.
Benjamin Taylor, Storyology (1900) — places sailors' fear of Friday within the broader folklore surrounding the day.
Last checked: 19 September 2026