The Banana phobia was created from stories of long-ago fisherman and sailors who believed that bananas brought bad luck. The story is that many, many years ago a sailing ship entered port with supplies bound for a fishing fleet. Among the supplies were bushels of bananas. After loading their supplies the fishing boats raised their sails and headed for the open ocean, unaware that the banana bushels were infested with black widow spider nests. Many aboard did not return alive!

Henceforth, bananas have been considered taboo on sailing and fishing boats, and became associated with bad luck. It is forbidden to have bananas on board my boat!