Boat names

[David Morton]

I like the idea that a boat retains it's name through ownership changes if possible,

I had bought my first Cape Dory, 25D, from a nice older Dutchman who had named his boat " Wielewaal", the Dutch name for the European Oriole. The name was related to a favorite children's story of his recently departed wife. After hearing this story I didn't have the heart to change the name. Several times over the past few years I would hear excited voices shouting to me in Dutch from a passing dinghy or boat. I usually would just smile and wave. Had no idea what they were saying... !

[David Patterson]

Anthony Bailey in his 1967 The Thousand Dollar Yacht has a great section on boat naming. I found the selection in Brian Anderson's Small Boats on Green Waters. Those who enjoy nautical readings will like them both. Anderson also includes Weston Martyr's famous £200 Millionaire, perhaps the best Depression-era retirement story ever. Bailey settled on BILLY RUFFIAN as his small boat's name.

[Dick Villamil]

We have always named our boats with names starting with "V" since that is how our last name starts. Vagary, Valkyrie, Victory and the Typhoon is Victoria. I wanted to name the CD10 with an acronym from the grand children's names so when the last grandson was recently born we had enough letters for a name - I chose MARS since it also has a nautical sound. Then when the oldest grandchild saw it she said to me: Grandpop, why didn't you put the letters in birth order sequence? OOPS - so we agreed to name the old unnamed rowboat ARMS - and she is happy as a lark! The sunfish has a yellow deck and is appropriately named "Sunny Side Up".

[mgphl52]

A few years back while dealing with being laid off, I crewed with a good friend doing deliveries. Taking a motor boat from Pensacola to Ft Lauderdale, we encountered a much larger motor boat named Sleepover?. Prior to that there was a sport fisher in the marina named Scholarship.

When i got my 2nd Typhoon, she came with a bare butt and i named her Babette which was my now ex-wife's middle name (which she didn't like)...

Then I got my 2nd CD25, also unnamed, and argued with same ex-wife over several names until I finally named her Brigitta as in my imaginary mistress... Then, just a few years later, we found KAYLA with her name beautifully done one her stern and agreed it was perfect.

And it was! However, a year + later I was single again but was able to keep KAYLA.

Then along came Tranquil and my new wife and I decided to plan for long range cruising.... (long story not worth gonig through..)

Just this October we were fortunate to repurchase KAYLA and will never consider a name change!

Basically, I'm one of those that believe 'cutsie' names are fine for motorboats but a proper sail boat should have a proper name.

[wsonntag]

Names I have liked over the years:

Millennium Falcon - on a 18 ft sailboat
Send Limes - desperation had clearly ensued
Drama Queen - both boat and crew I assume
Dire Wolf - "six hundred pounds of sin"
Sea Tractor - a motorsailer
Surprise - our boat, after O'Brian and to the delight of my 4 year old (at the time)
Easy Wind - "cross the Bayou today"