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About my boat name "Valinor"

Mikebat

Member III
At the end of Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the elves, Gandalf, Frodo and Bilbo travel to the Grey Havens to board a ship. The place they were bound for is Valinor. Valinor is part of the continent Aman, also called the Undying Lands, to the west of Middle Earth across the Great Sea. Valinor was founded by an immortal race called the Valar, who created most of the peoples of Middle Earth. It is also where lesser immortal beings like Gandalf, Saruman and Sauron came from. It is where the Elves are travelling to, though they did not come from there.

Valinor isn't mentioned in the movies, and it is only hinted at in the book trilogy, in the songs and poems. There's no passage in Lord of the Rings along the lines of "...and so the Ring-bearer sailed with the Elves to Valinor..." But there's more about Middle Earth and Valinor in the supplemental books called The Silmarillion. It's in these stories where the mythology behind the world of Hobbits and Elves and magical Rings is fleshed out. An interesting thing about Valinor is that, among the inhabitants of Middle Earth, the Elves are the only ones who know how to sail there. After the Downfall of Númenor, the world assumed its round shape, except for Valinor, which left the Bent World. Mortals sailing to the west eventually circled the world and returned to their starting point. But an Elven ship sailing to the west could leave the Bent World and travel through the air 'as it were on a mighty bridge invisible' eventually making landfall on Tol Eressëa, the Lonely Isle, and then crossing the Bay of Eldamar to reach the shores of Valinor.

shoresofvalinor2.jpg


Kinda looks like the West End of Catalina, doesn't it? :egrin:

I thought of naming my boat Tol Eressëa (pronounced TOL ehr-ESS-ay-uh) but I think I'll save that for the dinghy. Might be too hard to understand over VHF, I think. So is the name of Eärendil the Mariner, (ey-AR-ndeel) the first Elf to sail the Straight Road. His name is Elvish for 'Sea-Lover'. His vessel was Vingilot - 'Foam-flower' in Elvish. Good name for a boat. After his mission in Valinor, the Valar hallowed Eärendil and his ship, and they now sail together in the sky shining as the evening and morning star.

So anyway, that's why I named my boat Valinor. And because besides all that, I'm a big geek. :egrin:

Before I submitted my documentation papers, I checked the USCG registry for any other boats with this name. Look it up here: http://www.st.nmfs.gov/st1/commercial/landings/cg_vessel2.html

There were none in January, so I thought mine was going to be unique. But wouldn't you know it: someone else named their boat Valinor at the same time I did. The very same month my USCG registration went through, someone on the East coast also registered a boat named Valinor. And the other Valinor is also an Ericson!
 

u079721

Contributing Partner
Interesting Story

Interesting story Mike. Just be thankful that you don't live in the UK, where their documentation service requires all registered names to be absolutely unique. Which is why, I was once told, you see names like Serenity on Tyne, and not just Serenity.

Valinor on LA wouldn't have quite the same Middle Earth ring to it, would it?
 

gareth harris

Sustaining Member
Valinor is a good idea for a name, and I doubt you will run into the other one on your part of the ocean.
'Serenity on Tyne' is a contradiction in terms if ever there was one (at least southerners think so).
G
 

soup1438

Member II
Naming conventions...

There's usually a fair amount of creativity required in naming a boat, and, for men, it seems to be more involved than naming our... ummmm... member. (laughs)

In any case I've noticed that some folks don't put much thought in it-- i.e. a lot are unsubtle puns or obvious double entendres.

Some are amusing; in a thread about bottom work on an E-25 someone posted a picture of such a boat w/ the name "Blow Me" which is amusing but a bit "obvious".

Some names, admittedly, are so obscure that they _have_ to be explained... because, face it, some things are only meaninful to the *namer* (and, admittedly, my boat's name falls into that category).

I will admit that working on a name *does* seem to work well as a family bonding event given the consensual nature of accepting a name.
 

Geoff Johnson

Fellow Ericson Owner
Based on experience, boat names after a few years never seem quite as clever as they did when they first came to mind. That's why I am glad that the name of my boat was sufficiently unobjectionable when I bought it that I could keep the name and deflect any derision toward the prior owner.
 

Nick Reynolds

Member II
Amen to that, Geoff.

It's not that mine was unobjectionable, it's that we could never achieve the concensus of what WOULD work. Different side of the same coin. I can still deflect blame to the prior owner!

Sisiutl - E27
 

bayhoss

Member III
hello! I'm a new member... and I'm the east coast "Valinor". Great name selection!

:egrin:
At the end of Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the elves, Gandalf, Frodo and Bilbo travel to the Grey Havens to board a ship. The place they were bound for is Valinor. Valinor is part of the continent Aman, also called the Undying Lands, to the west of Middle Earth across the Great Sea. Valinor was founded by an immortal race called the Valar, who created most of the peoples of Middle Earth. It is also where lesser immortal beings like Gandalf, Saruman and Sauron came from. It is where the Elves are travelling to, though they did not come from there.

Valinor isn't mentioned in the movies, and it is only hinted at in the book trilogy, in the songs and poems. There's no passage in Lord of the Rings along the lines of "...and so the Ring-bearer sailed with the Elves to Valinor..." But there's more about Middle Earth and Valinor in the supplemental books called The Silmarillion. It's in these stories where the mythology behind the world of Hobbits and Elves and magical Rings is fleshed out. An interesting thing about Valinor is that, among the inhabitants of Middle Earth, the Elves are the only ones who know how to sail there. After the Downfall of Númenor, the world assumed its round shape, except for Valinor, which left the Bent World. Mortals sailing to the west eventually circled the world and returned to their starting point. But an Elven ship sailing to the west could leave the Bent World and travel through the air 'as it were on a mighty bridge invisible' eventually making landfall on Tol Eressëa, the Lonely Isle, and then crossing the Bay of Eldamar to reach the shores of Valinor.

shoresofvalinor2.jpg


Kinda looks like the West End of Catalina, doesn't it? :egrin:

I thought of naming my boat Tol Eressëa (pronounced TOL ehr-ESS-ay-uh) but I think I'll save that for the dinghy. Might be too hard to understand over VHF, I think. So is the name of Eärendil the Mariner, (ey-AR-ndeel) the first Elf to sail the Straight Road. His name is Elvish for 'Sea-Lover'. His vessel was Vingilot - 'Foam-flower' in Elvish. Good name for a boat. After his mission in Valinor, the Valar hallowed Eärendil and his ship, and they now sail together in the sky shining as the evening and morning star.

So anyway, that's why I named my boat Valinor. And because besides all that, I'm a big geek. :egrin:

Before I submitted my documentation papers, I checked the USCG registry for any other boats with this name. Look it up here: http://www.st.nmfs.gov/st1/commercial/landings/cg_vessel2.html

There were none in January, so I thought mine was going to be unique. But wouldn't you know it: someone else named their boat Valinor at the same time I did. The very same month my USCG registration went through, someone on the East coast also registered a boat named Valinor. And the other Valinor is also an Ericson!

Methinks I have made an error between "title" and "posts" !!!!
 

Sven

Seglare
Great title, great post, and great name ...

Can't think of a better start in this forum :egrin:



-Sven
 

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Q m s

Not having any inspiration other than music... and then only rock n roll.... and worse yet, hippie music....

Our prior boat (for a decade, and several owners later it STILL has the same name) was/is Quicksilver.

Present boat, since we named it in '95, is Fresh Air.

Yup, I (almost) remember the late 60's... !
:rolleyes:

IMHO, David Crosby still has the top name award, tho..... "I have my ship and all her flags are a flying.
She is all that I have left and music is her name.."

And a tip of the Viking helmet to Jeff for the recent link to that schooner.


Loren

ps: here's a title picture link from the web, since the original thread link broke.
http://tednasmith.mymiddleearth.com...las_and_Gimli_Reach_the_Shores_of_Valinor.jpg
 
Last edited:

Jeff Asbury

Principal Partner
Valinor is a good idea for a name, and I doubt you will run into the other one on your part of the ocean.
'Serenity on Tyne' is a contradiction in terms if ever there was one (at least southerners think so).
G

God "Serenity" has to be the most over used name, especially for a sailboat. No offense to any one here with a boat named "Serenity". Just saying. I think I have counted at least a dozen here in SoCal alone. I think my next dog will be named "Spot". :devil:
 

Jeff Asbury

Principal Partner
Not having any inspiration other than music... and then only rock n roll.... and worse yet, hippie music....

Our prior boat (for a decade, and several owners later it STILL has the same name) was/is Quicksilver.

Present boat, since we named it in '95, is Fresh Air.

Yup, I (almost) remember the late 60's... !
:rolleyes:

IMHO, David Crosby still has the top name award, tho..... "I have my ship and all her flags are a flying.
She is all that I have left and music is her name.."

And a tip of the Viking helmet to Jeff for the recent link to that schooner.


Loren

Hey Loren, my boat has a hippie name. :jawsdown: Just Google it. :egrin:
 

Jeff Asbury

Principal Partner
It never seemed to bother Jerry G when I saw him on the road......lol!

Yeah, but Jerry never wore tie dyes. His T-shirt collection consisted of one black shirt, one red shirt and on rare occasions, one that had the letters "FUM" on it. :egrin:
 

Rick R.

Contributing Partner
Yeah, but Jerry never wore tie dyes. His T-shirt collection consisted of one black shirt, one red shirt and on rare occasions, one that had the letters "FUM" on it. :egrin:

You are correct! It was EVERYONE else wearing them (in the audience). I knew that all night drummers circle in Philadelphia was a mistake....:0
 

adam

Member III
My boat is Polé Polé. I added the accent marks to help Americans pronounce it, but without the accent marks it's a Swahili phrase which literally translates to "Slowly slowly", but more generally refers to an entire East African culture of being really chilled out and relaxed.

Here's the boat's theme song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjiazO_oW3I

There are a couple of other Pole Pole sailboats out there, but none in the US that I know of.
 

Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Wonderful sound! And the irony is it could go right into Paul Simon's next album. The Africans just have a mortal lock on that rolling, lilting, joyful rhythm, it's really a stunning contribution to world music.
 
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