Renaming a Sailing Vessel

Terra Nova was originally Cynosure (alternative name for the North Star. Excellent name for the snobbish highly educated amongst us). The previous owner changed it when the boat was moved to Canada. My first boat was incapable of going out on any sea so it was called Seven Seas. The next boat was bought as a shell and it originally had no color or even ports and my wife thought it looked like a Ghost so the name stuck. The dingy was Casper. The current Terra Nova is new land for Newfoundland. The dink is Terra Bite.

The most important thing about a name is that it be understood when shouted on the VHF in an emergency. You don't want your potential rescuers saying "Huh" please repeat. The politically correct namers of our recent Washington State Ferries haven't realized that yet.

It is important to keep Neptune happy (or at least not angry) but it is even more important to make sure you pick a name that can be easily understood in not so good circumstances.

You guys should see the names of some of the sport fishing boats around here. Like "Amy's Wine House"

lonokai said:

As I progress through the various stages of boat ownership (this Ericsson 27 is my first boat), I am preparing to consider a new name for her.

I have read numerous articles on the so-called "re-naming process" and it is quite interesting. What is, I surmise, most important (according to some), is to ensure appeasement of Neptune.

Do any of you have any thoughts or experiences or advice in renaming your boat?

Thanks
Eric

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I'm a classicist, i.e. a specialist in Latin, Greek, and the history and culture of classical antiquity. There are many persons on various sailing forums who speak with great confidence about rituals to appease Neptune, the Roman god of the sea, when renaming a boat. You'll notice that no two persons agree on the rituals, and you'll also notice that not a one of them ever makes reference to an ancient writer as an authority on the subject. The reason for this is that there is not, to the best of my knowledge, any ancient writer who associates the renaming of a boat with bad luck or who describes rituals to appease Neptune, Poseidon, or any other divinity of the sea. I spent a fair amount of time digging into this at some point in the past, and I would welcome anyone to correct me, by quoting Herodotus, Polybius, Plutarch, Pliny, Tacitus, etc., as an authority. I plan to write an article on this subject on my Ericson 25 blog, but for right now, I'll simply say that it appears from my research that the rituals to appease Neptune for the renaming of a boat date to the relatively recent past, specifically the late 19th or early 20th Century. If I had to wager a guess, I'd say that they were developed by the members of various yacht clubs and perpetuated primarily as an excellent excuse to have a raucous party. I'm not opposed to raucous parties, but when I renamed my boat, Oystercatcher, I opted to use the short and simple statement used by the British Navy (and I believe the United States Navy) for the naming and renaming of its vessels. See my words below that I scribbled on a simple note pad.

Roscoe

davisr said:

I'm a classicist, i.e. a specialist in Latin, Greek, and the history and culture of classical antiquity.

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Roscoe,
We need to talk! I tried to PM you (so as not to bore the rest of the list) but I got an error message saying that you do not receive private messages. I believe we have some overlapping interests and I'd like to discuss them with you. You may e-mail me at alanXgomes@biolaXedu. (replace X's with dots).

Will do Alan. Will get in touch. Would love to speak further.

Roscoe