The history of rum and sailing is a story of suffering and tradition, adventure and maritime culture. Since the first sugar cane plantations were established in the Caribbean in the 17th century, the high-proof distillate has characterised seafaring. Initially used as a practical solution to drinking water problems at sea, rum quickly became an integral part of sailors' everyday lives - from the Royal Navy's legendary "tot" (daily ration) to its medicinal use against scurvy.
Two rum days
Rum is commemorated twice around the world.
- World Rum Day - 12 July: The first World Rum Day was celebrated in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1999. The date was chosen to celebrate the anniversary of the repeal of a high excise tax on rum in the islands.
- National/International Rum Day - 16 August: 16 August is originally National Rum Day in the United States, but is now celebrated internationally as International Rum Day.
Interestingly, the August date (16 August) is not linked to a historical event. The recognition of this date has mainly developed through public holiday calendars. So both days are legitimate holidays with different origins that honour the importance and history of rum in their own way. You could say that rum enthusiasts have reason to celebrate twice a year!
Drinks and on-board bar
Special article on the topic:
The rum story
YACHT author Marc Bielefeld took a closer look at the spirit (YACHT-Classic 2/2021):
Rum - a spirit steeped in maritime history
If there is one drink on earth that deserves the attribute "full-bodied", it is rum. And this is by no means due to its minimum strength of 37.5 per cent. No other drink in living memory contains so much besides the actual ingredients. No gin, no whisky in the world is able to rob its connoisseur of his senses in such a legendary way.
Famous personalities and their relationship with rum
The names of those who savoured the elixir from the West Indian palm paradises were correspondingly big. Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy allegedly drank rum on a regular basis, Ernest Hemingway used to reach for a mojito in the morning, and Fidel Castro not only smoked Cuban cigars but also favoured the local tongue loosener. Even Wilhelm Busch must have fancied the famous sugar cane product at one time or another. One of his poems reads:
It's the same with tobacco and rum: first you're happy, then you fall over."
Rum on board - a maritime tradition
With all its maritime credentials, it's no wonder that rum is an almost guaranteed passenger in the locker, especially on sailing yachts. It starts with the bottles. Magnificent sailing ships cruise towards the drinker on the front of the rum bottles, with anchors, nautical charts and steering wheels emblazoned on the labels. And so every crew, from Barbados to Bornholm, from Cape Horn to Kühlungsborn, seems to have internalised an unwritten law forever and ever: A sailing ship without rum on board is like a fish sandwich without fish on it.
But where does the run on rum actually come from? Where does the undisputed image of this sea-going, drinkable warhorse come from?
The origins of rum - From Brazil to the Caribbean
The history is confusing. What is certain is that Brazilians were the first to produce alcohol from sugar cane juice. There is evidence that the first sugar factories were established in Portuguese-occupied Brazil as early as 1533. In São Jorge de Erasmos, Madre de Deus and São João, the plantation owners used copper stills to distil aguardente de caña, the sugar cane spirit also known as cachaça in Brazil, from the garapa azeda, the sugar cane wine. Dutchmen brought the export product to the Caribbean. More precisely: to Barbados. Sugar cane plantations were soon established here and the high-proof spirit was distilled, with the methods becoming increasingly sophisticated. Within a short time, a supposed waste product was utilised: molasses. The first rum was distilled from its juice in the 17th century. Barbados became the cradle of genuine Caribbean rum.
Rum conquers sailing ships - a nautical success story
The secret of production quickly spread to many of the other islands. And people everywhere were soon competing in distilling. Martinique, Jamaica, Cuba, Guyana, Trinidad: people everywhere wanted to produce the best product. The colonists supplied themselves and their home countries in Europe with more and more new supplies, which led to a veritable rum industry and to rum conquering the sailing ships.
From then on, probably no boat left the harbour without a few barrels of the intoxicating drink. Anyone navigating through the Caribbean was loaded up to the neck with the noble stuff, as the barrels only had to be rolled on board from the distilleries, which were usually located close to the harbour, over the planks and gangways. And the stuff probably flowed down the throat of every sailor, whether sailor or pirate.
Rum as a survival aid at sea
Rum became the fuel of the seafarers. And there were very mundane reasons for this. At the time, ships had to make do without refrigeration, which is why water on board quickly rotted and algae grew. Beer didn't last long in the heat either, and brandy was generally only available to the French from domestic production. The Caribbean spirit, on the other hand, was available in large quantities and lasted the longest in tropical latitudes.
Rum was soon served everywhere on board as an energising drink - if the water was still drinkable, usually in diluted form. Privateers and naval captains even paid out part of their wages in the form of rum rations, often during the voyage. Duhn was full of ducats: That was just fine with most salt humpbacks. But it wasn't just the effect and flavour that made rum so valuable. The sailors had also discovered that rum could be used to preserve fruit and other foods and that it could be drunk with lime and lemon juice. It was a veritable remedy for scurvy, which is why rum even passed as medicine for a long time before missionaries later condemned it as the devil's water all over the islands.
The Royal Navy and its rum tradition
The British even made drinking rum compulsory on their navy ships. Not only were the exact times specified when rum was served to the crew, but the exact mixing ratio was also meticulously prescribed. And what sounds almost fabulous today was a daily routine at sea back then: reaching for the bottle several times a day became an integral part of the Royal Navy's military routine. Well, the British sailors didn't say no either. Getting a buzz while on watch at state expense, in the name of the Queen - there were worse things!
The English tradition of daily rum drinking at sea lasted for more than 300 years, even if many a logbook stated that this led to considerable indiscipline. It was only after many, many decades that the custom came to an end. On the Royal Navy destroyer "HMS Fife", pallbearers lowered a large, round piece of wood decorated with the Union Jack into the sea on 21 July 1970. Ceremonial marching music was played on board as the last rum barrel symbolically went overboard on "Black Tot Day". For centuries, the daily rum ration on board had been referred to as "tot" or "grog". But that was finally coming to an end.
Modern rum consumption at sea
Today, paragraphs try to tame the blissful magic. In theory, drink-drive limits apply at sea, not only in merchant shipping but also on board yachts. If you have one in your boat, you have to hand in your licence - unless you are cruising through the lawless deserts of the sea somewhere between the Arafura Sea and the Roaring Forties.
Nevertheless, rum is and remains the drink of choice when a good sip makes the rounds on board - a small one for Rasmus, the rest for the crew.
Rum today - from cheap to luxurious
And there are now a huge number of bottles, varieties and brands: Today, rum is sold under over 450 different labels, with the most expensive bottle reportedly changing hands for 100,000 euros. An Italian buyer purchased the exquisite drop of the traditional Clément brand from the island of Martinique, vintage 1966, an amber-coloured brown that sloshed in a crystal bottle decorated with gold and diamonds.
The dark history of rum - the legacy of slavery
But whoever takes a sip of the old sugar cane juice today, whether brown or light-coloured, sinfully expensive or as a blend, should pause for a moment. For as colourful as the Caribbean world may seem at the moment of consumption, the blood of the slaves sloshes in every glass; without them, rum would probably never have become what it is today. After the first saplings were imported by Columbus, the Caribbean became the main sugar cane-growing region: according to estimates, up to 15 million Africans were brought to America as part of the Atlantic slave trade. Many millions of them ended up in the Caribbean, where they were deported and sold to grow the stubborn plant on the plantations from which rum is still made today.
The conditions under which the African Caribs had to work were unimaginable. They were separated from their families, exploited, whipped and raped - and often simply killed. This was also and especially in the name of rum.
Flensburg - Germany's historic rum metropolis
In the cellar of the Flensburg Maritime Museum, it still smells a bit like the historic "Sorgenbrecher"; a few decades ago, large oak barrels of "Pure Rum" from the West Indies were stored in the former customs warehouse. This was mostly still white and transparent, only acquiring its brown colour through storage in the wooden barrels.
Today there is a museum here that does not conceal the painful history of the drink, even though Flensburg was a rum stronghold. As early as the 18th century, more and more raw rum arrived in the Nordic trading town with the Danish West Indies fleet, where the Flensburg rum manufacturers blended, refined and sold it for a lot of money. In the city's heyday, there were over 200 rum houses in Flensburg, where pepper sacks and sailors could calmly drink their fill.
The original rum of the slaves - the origins of "Killdevil"
Meanwhile, things were different on the plantations in the Caribbean. Under the scorching sun, the Africans cut the rock-hard plant and soon learnt how to make their own rum. They took the chopped sugar cane, left it to ferment, added water to the liquor - and drank it wherever they could for a few undisturbed seconds. This was the original rum, the most genuine and hardest of all. The slaves called it the Taifa, the Guildive or the "Killdevil" - the devil's killer.
For a few priceless moments, he soothed the worries, dispelled the agony in a blessed intoxication. The devils were then dead, the gods of Africa danced. That's how it was with Caribbean gold, and that's how it is today. Rum comforts the soul, preferably in wind and storm.
The sailing regattas and the rum
Mount Gay Regattas
The connection between rum and sailing goes back centuries and today manifests itself in various prestigious regattas around the world. The best-known association is probably with Mount Gay Rum from Barbados - whose coveted red regatta caps are considered a status symbol among sailors and are only awarded to participants in official Mount Gay regattas. In the "Mount Gay Round Barbados Series", sailors can even win their body weight in rum if they break a course record.
Other important rum sailing traditions can be found in the "Wednesday Night Gosling Rum Races" in Florida or at regattas organised by major rum brands such as Pusser's (named after the rum-pouring "purser" of the Royal Navy) and Goslings be sponsored.
Rum Regatta
In Flensburg, the former rum metropolis of Germany, the "Rum Regatta" has been held since 1980, in which traditional gaff sailors compete for unusual prizes - the runners-up receive a 3-litre bottle of rum, while the winners are humorously honoured with "bulky waste".
Route du Rhum
The Route du Rhum is one of the most prestigious single-handed sailing races in the world and owes its name to a remarkable marketing idea: in 1975, Bernard Hass, then General Secretary of the West Indies Rum and Sugar Producers' Union, was looking for a way to promote the rum industry, which was in crisis at the time. During a lunch with his friend Florent de Kersauson (brother of the famous sailor Olivier de Kersauson), the latter suggested organising a transatlantic sailing race to the West Indies.
The Route du Rhum was launched in 1978 with the aim of creating a transatlantic race in which individual sailors could put their skills to the test. The route, which starts in Saint-Malo and ends in Guadeloupe, was named after one of the Caribbean island's most representative products: Rum. It is now the fourth most famous sporting event for the French, and each edition writes its own myths - such as the legendary final of 1978 with only 98 seconds difference between first and second place or the astonishing record of 2006 (7 days, 17 hours, 19 minutes). The Route du Rhum brings together one of the largest offshore sailing fleets on a common starting line, and the regatta village in Saint-Malo attracts around two million visitors every four years.
Alcohol on board - what the law says
Blood alcohol limit
The legal basis for the alcohol limit on German maritime waterways is the German Maritime Waterways Regulations (SeeSchStrO). Section 3 (4) stipulates that no one with 0.25 mg/l or more alcohol in their breath or 0.5 per mille or more in their blood may drive a vessel or perform bridge, deck or engine duties as a crew member. This regulation applies to all vehicles, including non-motorised ones. Similar regulations apply to inland waterways, which are set out in the Inland Waterways Regulations (BinSchStrO). One exception is Lake Constance, where a higher drink-drive limit of 0.8 applies.
Special regulations
Stricter regulations apply to certain areas of shipping. A zero alcohol limit applies when transporting passengers or dangerous goods. Both the skipper and all crew members on bridge duty must be completely sober while on duty. In addition, a level of 0.3 per mille or more can constitute relative unfitness to drive if symptoms of alcohol impairment occur.
Consequences of violations
Violations of the drink-drive limit can be punished as an administrative offence or a criminal offence. As a rule, values between 0.5 and 1.09 per mille constitute an administrative offence, provided that there are no symptoms of alcohol impairment and no danger to others. In the case of inland shipping, fines of between €350 and €2,500 may be imposed, and between €750 and €2,500 in the case of maritime shipping. For skippers of passenger ships or those transporting dangerous goods, the offence starts at 0.01 per mille.
An offence against the blood alcohol limit when boating can also have consequences for the driver's licence for motor vehicles. In the case of serious offences or a criminal offence, there is also a risk of revocation.
Criminal offences
A value of 1.1 per mille or more constitutes absolute unfitness to drive, which is punishable under Section 316 of the German Criminal Code (StGB). This applies regardless of the occurrence of symptoms of impairment. In such cases, a fine or prison sentence may be imposed. In addition, a medical-psychological examination (MPU) may be ordered. The offence of endangering shipping traffic according to § 315a StGB is particularly serious. Anyone who is unable to drive their vehicle safely due to the influence of alcohol and thereby jeopardises health, life or significant property is liable to a prison sentence of up to five years or a fine.
Loss of insurance cover
In addition to criminal law consequences, there are also civil law consequences: In the event of alcohol consumption and a subsequent accident, the insurance company may reduce or refuse benefits, especially if alcohol consumption was the cause of the accident. A blood alcohol concentration of 0.3 to 1.09 per mille may constitute relative unfitness to drive, which can lead to a proportionate reduction in insurance benefits. Above 1.1 per mille, absolute unfitness to drive is assumed, which generally releases the insurer from the obligation to pay benefits. Skippers are then personally liable for damages. In the worst case, a drink-drive can therefore jeopardise your financial existence. (You can read more about this in this special article...)
