What is "banana boat"

n. 1 (context nautical English) An inflatable recreational boat meant for towing, often yellow and banana-shaped 2 (context nautical English) A ship designed to transport bananas 3 A cocktail made from a melon liqueur, a banana liqueur, curacao and pineapple juice

n. a ship designed to transport bananas

Banana Boat is a Polish a cappella sextet, authoring and performing original songs representing the genre of neo-shanties. Being one of the pioneers of the new genre, the group retains its simultaneous focus on contemporary interpretations of traditional sea shanties and maritime music. Owing to its characteristic six-part, jazzy harmony, departing from the traditional sound of the music of the sea, the group has become one of the emblems of what the international artists of the maritime stage have informally come to dub as the Polish style maritime song. With maritime music constantly in the focus of its activity, since 2004, Banana Boat has also been experimenting with other musical genres, including popular and jazz compositions, inviting other artists to participate in individual projects. The group is a Member of International Seasong and Shanty Association (ISSA).

A banana boat is a traditional campfire treat consisting of a banana cut lengthwise and stuffed with marshmallow and chocolate, then wrapped in aluminium foil and cooked in the embers left over from a campfire. Sometimes the banana boat is topped with caramel sauce prior to cooking.

A banana boat (or water sled), is an unpowered, inflatable recreational boat meant for towing. Different models usually accommodate three to ten riders sitting on a larger, main tube and resting their feet on two laterally flanking tubes which stabilize the boat. The main tube is often yellow and banana-shaped. Some models have two main tubes.

Banana boat was a term, a descriptive nickname, given to fast ships also called banana carriers engaged in the banana trade designed to transport easily spoiled bananas rapidly from tropical growing areas to northern markets that often carried passengers as well as fruit. During the first half of the Twentieth Century the refrigerated ships, such as and , engaged in the Central America to United States trade also operated as luxurious passenger vessels. Surplus naval vessels were converted in some cases in the search for speed with Standard Fruit converting four U.S. Navy destroyer hulls, without machinery, to the banana carriers Masaya, Matagalpa, Tabasco and Teapa in 1932. Transfers to naval service served as transports and particularly chilled stores ships such as , the United Fruit passenger and banana carrier Quirigua, and the lead ship of a group that were known as the Mizar class of stores ships. Modern banana boats tend to be reefer ships or other refrigerated ships that carry cooled bananas on one leg of a voyage, then general cargo on the return leg.

The large fruit companies such as Standard Fruit Company, United Fruit Company in the United States and Elders & Fyffes Shipping, which itself came under control of the United Fruit Company in 1910, in the banana trade acquired or built ships for the purpose, some strictly banana carriers and others with passenger accommodations.

United Fruit operated a large fleet, advertised as The Great White Fleet, for over a century until its successor Chiquita Brands International sold the last ships in a sale with leaseback in 2007 of eight refrigerated and four container ships that transported approximately 70% of the company's bananas to North America and Europe. At one time the fleet consisted of 100 refrigerated ships and was the world's largest private fleet with some being lent to the Central Intelligence Agency to support the attempted overthrow of the Castro regime in the Bay of Pigs landing.

In modern usage the term has been associated with a derogatory term for immigrants. As the main produce of the West Indies was bananas they were also used as a form of cheap transportation and the English cricket team that toured the West Indies in 1959–1960 used banana boats to travel across the Atlantic and between the islands. They were better known for bringing West Indian immigrants to Great Britain, and to say that someone 'came off a banana boat' was a derogatory phase used by those who objected to their arrival. It fell out of use in the 1980s as by then most of the British African-Caribbean community had been born in the UK.

The term "banana boat" is perhaps best known today in the context of Harry Belafonte's 1956 song The Banana Boat Song (Day-O).