10 Nautical Tattoos And Their Meanings
Tattoos and ships. Which designs are associated with seafarers and what do they mean?
In the modern era, having visible ink or being heavily tattooed is becoming more mainstream. Celebrities, film stars and the ordinary person on the street are far more likely than ever before to be sporting some art on their skin.
The freedom that people now have to express themselves in this way is a good thing and as such, there will be no sneering or judging within this list.
Genres of music, lifestyle choices and even previous history were at one time portrayed prominently on the skin of only the people that indulged in these practices. Step back a few more decades and those with heavy coverage were displaying themselves at carnivals and freakshows as painted men and women.
Obviously, tattooing has a rich and storied history across the many forms it takes. You need only look at the Japanese and Polynesian traditions to see how much weight they carry both socially and historically. In the Western world, it used to be presumed that if you had tattoos, you were a criminal or a sailor.
So what are these traditional nautical themes that showed up on sailors bodies? And what did they mean? Let's find out.
10. Nautical Star
Easily one of the most prominent on display in the modern age, the simple design is aesthetically pleasing. A five-pointed star with a black and white colour base, it has been used by the US Navy, Marine Corps and Coastguard.
Worn by members of any of these organisations and many sea-farers in general, this is perhaps the greatest example of a nautical tattoo that has been adopted by wider society as a whole.
Historically, the idea was that in an age where navigation was done by the stars in the sky, a sailor would always be able to navigate back to his home port. While the use of the night sky as a method of plotting routes and planning journeys has taken on a far lesser role in a modern age, what the stars represented to mariners remains the same.
Tying in with the traditions of wishing on stars, there is much to be appreciated about a simple design that reminded a sailor that they would always have a way to make their way home. While the effectiveness of plotting a course via a tattoo on your skin remains to be seen, the sentiment remains.