Custom of the sea


A custom of the sea is a custom that is said to be practiced by the officers and crew of ships and boats in the open sea, as distinguished from maritime law, which is a distinct and coherent body of law that governs maritime questions and offenses.
Among these customs is the practice of cannibalism among shipwrecked survivors, by the drawing of lots to see who is to be killed and eaten so that the others might survive.

Historical examples of "agreed" cannibalism

''Essex''

After a whale rammed and sank the whaling ship Essex off Nantucket on 20 November 1820, the survivors were left floating in three small whaleboats. They eventually resorted, by common consent, to cannibalism to allow some to survive.

''Mignonette''

The case of R v Dudley and Stephens is an English case which developed a crucial ruling on necessity in modern common law. The case dealt with four crewmembers of an English yacht, the Mignonette, who were shipwrecked in a storm some 1,600 miles from the Cape of Good Hope. After a few weeks adrift in a lifeboat, one of the crew fell unconscious due to a combination of hunger and drinking seawater. The others decided then to kill him and eat him. They were picked up four days later. The case held that necessity was not a defense for a charge of murder, and the two defendants were convicted, though their death sentence was commuted to six months' imprisonment.

In popular culture

The practice was parodied in a Far Side cartoon in which the passengers of a lifeboat, three men and a dog, draw straws. One of the men loses and so he is presumably eaten instead of the dog.