Mail buoy
A mail buoy is a non-existent object in the United States Navy typically used as a prank for junior sailors, Midshipman, and sometimes inexperienced junior officers.
The prank[edit]
Within the U.S. Navy, sometimes as an initiation rite, senior sailors and chief petty officers will instruct an unsuspecting crew member that mail has been delivered to the ship and has been dropped off on top of a buoy, moored at the entrance to a channel or harbor. The victim of the prank will then be told that they have been selected for "mail buoy watch" and will stand at the very tip of the ship's forecastle with a hook to retrieve the mail buoy.[citation needed]
Victims of the mail buoy prank will typically be overdressed in safety equipment such as cold weather gear, life preservers and other nautical gear such as helmet, binoculars and sound powered phone, to appear as impractical and cumbersome as possible. The prank may last for just a few minutes or several hours, where an entire watch will be spent waiting for the mail buoy.[citation needed]
Coast Guard[edit]
The mail buoy prank has also been carried out by members of the United States Coast Guard, in relatively the same manner.[citation needed]
References[edit]
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