I recently bought a West Wight Potter 19 sailboat named Star Gazer. It is what is called a pocket cruiser. I have taken some ribbing from my paddling friends about this purchase. Some think I have gone over to the dark side. I don't think so as for me the dark side is "jet skies"! ;O)
I sailed some as a teenager and always thought I would own another sailboat one day. My recent trip to Islesboro, ME and seeing a Dark Harbor 20 while paddling on West Penobscot Bay rekindled that desire. I hope to return next year and spend some time on this sailboat camping and gunk holing around the area.
Well I happened to say I might change the name of Star Gazer when I acquired her. I was told that is bad luck to change the name without going about a ritual to appease the wrath of the sea gods. Sailors are a superstitious lot. So I decided Star Gazer was a fine name after all as I did like it.
While researching the names of boats I came across a site with funny boat names quite a few had me belly laughing. The one I found the funniest was on a dingy used as a means to come ashore from a big sailboat. It's name was "Row vs Wade"! Another funny one was on the back of a fast sailboat "Blew BY You"!
I am not in the habit of naming my canoes and kayaks. However, as my son and I were building a stitch and glue sea kayak kit several years ago and listening to the radio the news came on, and we heard they had just found the anchor of the legendary pirate Black Beard. We had been joking about whether we were actually capable of building a boat that would float. On hearing of this discovery I smiled and said we should name this kayak "Black Beard's Anchor". The name has stuck, and we now affectionately refer to it by that moniker.
I would be interested in the names you have called your boats or any interesting names you have seen on the sterns of boats over the years
Stitch and glue kayak I built
Maid Maicelph
Bought lettering from a sign company and put the name on both sides of the bow.
No name
I had a big sailboat for many years and never could think of a name I liked. It remained nameless for all those years.
I do remember a name I saw on a couple of sailboats--"Average White Boat". Not too inspiring, but maybe better than no name at all.
I haven't officially named any of my kayaks, but I do refer to them as the "Big One", the Sirocco, the "Yellow One" and the one I never use.
my cruiser/racer sailboats
were named “Blue Moon”, as that’s when I figured I could acquire one. Hurricane Gloria helped me get the first, a guy walking away from his bills got me the second.
Growing up, the family cruisers were “Irish Rover” for the first, “Serenity” for the second (anything but, sailing a 1942 built Alden), then a series named “Gypsy Lass” in honor of my moms Hungarian ancestry.
excellent!
Love the name Andy.
I have a North Shore sea kayak. A joke I enjoy sharing with people paddling with me who haven't heard it goes like this.
How much does a pirate pay for an ear of corn?
If they don't know the answer I say well look at the bow of my kayak. The model name there is a Buccaneer!
That sounds like people who name
Their cat "Cat" or their dog "Dog". Magooch, I guess by default you called your sailboat "Sailboat". ;O)
It seems that Serenity
Is one of the more popular names for sailboats. I like the humor in Blue Moon. Serendipity would have been appropriate also.
Kruger canoe
I have a friend who paddles Krugers and we have on a few occasions been joined by some of the folks from the Kruger production crew.
One of the Krugers they paddle is a beat up looking green one that looks a bit rough compaired to the others.
It seems Verlen Kruger did a lot of clean-up paddles in Michigan’s Grand river (if my memory of the story serves.) He’d recruit paddlers to help with the clean up on sections of the river and in the evening set up a beer tent on an island to finish off the day’s work. Seems that green canoe was used to ferry cases of beer out to the island for the festivities. It apparently went down one evening with 29 cases of beer on board and was lost at sea. Several years later there was a drought and the boat turned up stuck in the mud on the river bottom. It was brought back up and returned to service.
They named it the Betty Ford since it had hit its bottom and returned. Its still going as far as I know.
Treated and Released
I was in an accident that was someone else’s fault. I was treated and released from the nearby hospital. With the insurance settlement $ I bought a new sea kayak. Hey, it’s a treat to be released from the daily grind and go play for awhile.
photoworthy
this one caught my eye one day.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=705973079430289&set=a.505999749427624.128171.100000528099885&type=3&theater
“Thanks Mom”
Was on a large sailboat in Coconut Grove..
We traded in a sailboat named "Tangaroa" (try figuring that one out before the internet) owner said it sailed more like a "Fred".
name them all
All my boats have earned themselves distinctive names, as well as my cars and even my vintage Singer treadle sewing machines (the latter are “Nefertiti” and “Cleopatra” since both are early 20th century models decorated with lush gilded ancient Egyptian motifs.)
The youngest member of my kayak fleet is a Pakboat folding kayak, bright yellow, black on the bottom with grey ends and a deck that can peel off via velcro – what else could I name her but “Chiquita”?
My “slinky” long thin deepwater-green Inuit type skin-on-frame has sharply upturned bow and stern and is named “Sisiutl” for the fierce sea serpent in Northwest Coast legends that has a head on each end as well as one in the middle.
The bright Spring green Brit style swoopy-lined 15’ Easky is “Snow Pea”, the red Feathercraft Wisper is “Kokanee” (the term for the red phase of male sockeye salmon) and my little Pakboat 12’ Puffin is rather unimaginatively named “Puff”, though that is somewhat in recognition of the respiratory effort required to inflate its sponsons.
Past boats were a swirly tie-dye looking blue, white and purple Dagger Magellan, named for legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix and an orange RPM whitewater boat dubbed “Screaming Mango”.
My beloved 1992 Volvo 740 was “Abe the Blue Box” and the glowering black 850 turbo wagon with which I stupidly replaced “Abe” was “Darth”. Red Hyundai was “Kimchee” and the repair-plagued Subaru Outback became “Aku no Remon” (“wicked lemon” in Japanese).
So far my new dark grey Mazda CX5 has not exhibited enough quirks to earn a name. Open to suggestions, though…
I love the information age
I am fairly good with the western civilization gods and goddesses and even some of the Sanskrit ones. I didn't know Tangaroa was the Maori god of the sea.
When they came to New Zealand from across the sea they brought with them pigs etc. But when they established themselves there the local fauna was so numerous they shortsightedly ate all their pigs. Then as they multiplied they killed off all the Giant Moa. That fact and their overpopulation led to fierce fighting over resources and cannibalism. An object lesson for all of us in todays world.
I bought a Subaru a couple of years ago.
I call it my little boat totter. Named her Sue B. Ruby.
So Far
I have the Hogged Backed Saint, an aging and well traveled Disco 158 named not by me but by others at Raystown many years ago. Ask them not me!
Next I have the Lettman 39 year old tandem turned into a solo for sailing that a friend gave the moniker of The Caddilac. Very comfortable and fun!
My lastest hull is the Bell Roby Roy which I’ve named Satan due to a gunwale issue that has haunted me for more then a while now! Still yet to be resolved.
The MR Courier that I spent 7 month rebuilding patching 120 holes in it got the name of Colander given to it by Topher. The name stuck! By far the sweetest WW boat I’ve ever owned.
My two Malecites remain unnamed to date. Love em but ya know…just no name outta them.
The remaining boat is a slooooow work in progress. Carbon fiber hull started by Stowe and finished by Adirondack Canoe both long gone now. I call it the Dak.
dougd
"Ekimi"
Means quiet (ekimi), the absence of noise in Mbuti the Pygmy language.
I had it on my Pygmy Arctic Tern.
If it’s not on the boat/car it’s not a name. It’s just what you call it.
We Have a Winner
Abe the Blue Box.
perfect.
Forester
My Forester is named Woody. Even the guys at the garage know who Woody is.
It’s more a…
,Divine Situation, Comedy, actually, involving the suffering soul of a man (Or is that suffering the soul of a man?) within his boat, rather than just the boat, alone:
A Hogged Backed Saint,
saint it ain’t,
just because some hull
wears them letters in paint.
It’s more some fool situation
standing-up to scrutinization,
from some duckheaded bishops
that aim their canonizations.
You put some other fool in her - this one here, for example - and it’s just another, “Disco Here, Disco There.” Yes indeed, it’s the Saint inside that makes the boat!
Of course, I see…
…you seem to be renouncing your own Sainthood often these days, favouring those more secular and luxurious trappings of the paddling species, as in that “Cadillac” you traipse about in per whims of the wind. Must be from all that free associatin’ you’re having with that Beelzebub of Bath Time Barco Loungers, the devil of darksidin’ decked canoes! The Satan of the Sea Wimp!
St. Douglas, you’re conflicted!!! Get thee to a nunnery! (I hear St. Mother Teresa has this saucy little associate there named Lucinda, or Sister Lu. She paddles a wicked Pungo!)