By the same author Non-fiction Don’t Shoot the Albatross! Nautical Myths and Superstitions How to Snog a Hagfish! Disgusting Things in the Sea Final Voyage: The World’s Worst Maritime Disasters Fiction The Thieves of Pudding Lane
Adlard Coles Nautical An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com www.adlardcoles.com ADLARD COLES, ADLARD COLES NAUTICAL and the Buoy logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2017 Š Jonathan Eyers, 2017 Illustrations Š Rose Reynolds, 2017 Jonathan Eyers has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication data has been applied for. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4729-4437-5 ePDF: 978-1-4729-4435-1 ePub: 978-1-4729-4438-2 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Typeset in Meridien by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
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Contents Introduction
1
1 Pun Intended
4
2 Common as Muck
14
3 A Bit of Pedigree
30
4 Don’t Even Go There
63
5 Word Piracy
86
6 Myths, Legends and Gods
103
7 The Devil’s Own
125
Acknowledgements
135
Index
136
vi
What’s in a Name?
Boaty McBoatface invited the non-sailing public of Great Britain to have a good laugh at those of us who didn’t actually need a good reason to take to the water to get away from them in the first place. Naming a boat suddenly became a joke among people who would gleefully point out that only teenage boys (and assorted manchildren) name their cars. But there’s a reason Second World War air crews used to name their planes, too. These weren’t just vehicles or machines, and a name wasn’t just a romantic affectation. The crew’s
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lives were metaphorically in their plane’s hands, and a name afforded her due appreciation and respect, acknowledging her role and importance. She wasn’t a beast of burden – she had responsibilities to the men who flew her. The same is true of a boat or a ship. A unique registration number would do for the purposes of insurance companies, paper-loving government bureaucrats and, of course, coastguard and rescue services. But a number would be soulless, denying a vessel an identity. A name can capture a boat’s spirit and personality, and acknowledges that she is more than just a floating platform that can be tacked or gybed in various directions. Yacht insurance companies are good for at least one thing (besides enriching themselves off the back of wobbly-rigging worries, that is): they provide the hard data about which are the most popular registered boat names each year. With over 12 million private boats owned in the US, another million in the UK, and millions more along the coasts of Europe, this data could come particularly in handy for anyone convinced they’ve come up with a highly personal name, but who really should know that there are thousands of other Libertys out there already. This book explores names that are very popular (and perhaps too popular) and names that are very rare (and perhaps for good reason). It features famous vessels with equally illustrious skippers as well as boats with unique names you may wish you had thought of first. Ultimately the book will answer perhaps the most important question boat owners should ask themselves: what does this name say about me? All other considerations aside, however, there’s only one thing a new owner really needs to bear in mind when naming (or renaming) their boat: the possibility that you might, at some point in the future, need to issue a distress signal. ‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, this is sailing yacht Shoot Low They’re Riding Chickens, Shoot Low They’re Riding Chickens, Shoot Low They’re Riding Chickens…’ is going to take up enough of your
INTRODUCTION
precious time as it is, but if water’s already up to your ankles when you press that DSC button, and you’re then asked to spell out the name using the phonetic alphabet, let’s be honest, you’ll have sunk long before you even get to the first Charlie. And then you, and your seemed-like-a-good-idea-atthe-time boat name, will enter the pantheon of unfortunate anecdotes guffawed over at every yacht-club bar from Hong Kong to Miami.
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IF YOU THINK THE STERN OF YOUR BOAT IS A GOOD PLACE to advertise to your sailing mates how funny – or unfunny – you are, then treat yourself to a pun. Boat names don’t get any more divisive than these. To some, the pun is a form of wit lower even than sarcasm. The more polite will pass no comment at all on a strikingly unoriginal name they have seen a dozen times before. Some of these puns are perennially popular boat names; the better ones, the more original ones, are rare – and actually can be quite witty and clever. Everything else aside, puns are a good way to indulge in a little cheeky innuendo, hiding the sauciness in plain sight so that when you get a dirty look from the marina puritans, you can quite innocently claim it’s all in their own filthy minds.
PUN INTENDED
A Crewed Interest
One of many boat names to allude to the financial blight you may have endured to get her, and one of the cleverer puns. Overstretching the borrowing to pay for a new boat is, of course, something any financial adviser worth his sea salt will warn you off. Plenty of boats were sold off quickly and (too) cheaply after the financial crisis of 2008 to pay off loans and stave off repossession. Although this is a less bland name than Overdraft, a better alternative might perhaps be Loan Ranger (see page 10).
Aquadisiac
More original than Aquaholic (see below), though it will prompt the obvious question about what is the real object of your lust. Your pontoon neighbour will wonder if it’s your wife. Your wife will worry it’s not.
Aquaholic
With the exception of 2002, when Liberty (see page 21) and Freedom (see page 19) emerged from nowhere (or from Lower Manhattan) to become the most common boat names in the world, in most years the two inexplicably popular names that vie for top ranking are both particularly cringeworthy puns: Seas the Day (see page 12) and Aquaholic. What would choosing either of these names say about you? Other sailors tend to categorise the type of person who would pick them as someone who doesn’t know their leech from their luff or their clews from their cleats, and is new enough to yachting not to know they aren’t being clever or original or funny. Like most stereotypes, somewhere within it is a knot of truth.
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In any large marina you are probably not going to be the only Aquaholic, so you must be prepared to be known as Aquaholic with the 1980s colour scheme or Aquaholic with the loud woman. Don’t know which Aquaholic has the loud woman? It’s probably you, then.
Aqualibrium
Perhaps the best of the Aqua-based puns, and one that requires little wrenching of the English language. From physics to economics to just being able to stand up without falling over, the equilibrium is that point in the middle where all the influences trying to pull in one direction or another are perfectly balanced, so that none gets to dominate. A fine metaphor for sailing and, as puns go, a suitable name for a boat.
Aquasition
Another of the better Aqua-based puns, ruined for ever by the fact that the most famous owner of a boat named Aquasition was Canadian businessman Bernard Ebbers. As CEO of WorldCom he acquired 60 other companies to build one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world, and in 1999 was on the cusp of one final merger that would have been the largest in American history. Each acquisition increased the value of his personal stockholdings, and he had fingers in many corporate pies, including yachting companies. He is currently serving 25 years in prison for fraud and conspiracy.
Baits Motel
Quite a witty name spotted in the US on the back of a boat used primarily to go fishing. The Bates Motel was of course the Californian motel run by Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s
PUN INTENDED
1960 film (and Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel), Psycho. If you’re staying aboard overnight, maybe don’t use the shower.
Bankruptsea
This joke about how much you have spent on the new boat might be funnier on the stern of a very small boat than on a very large one. A less common variation is Banchorupcy.
Catatonic
Presumably skippers who choose this name don’t really mean to suggest that the boat represents an unresponsive stupor. It’s probably better suited to a catamaran if you’re reaching for a pun. The wrenched-English version Cat-A-Tonic might also hint that sailing is the tonic for the everyday drudge that leaves you in a state of stupefied torpor.
Dun Workin
Also spotted as Dun Werkin (both variants may be one word or two), this is the nautical equivalent of the house name Dun Roamin (or Dunroamin), of which there must be two or three in any village in the south of England. Dun Workin suffers from the same lack of originality, to the extent whereby her sniggering new owner, glowing with an optimistically engorged sense of his own wit, can order pre-printed decals for the name online, without the hassle or expense of getting a unique decal printed specially. What will other yacht owners think when they find they now share a pontoon jetty with Dun Workin? Even before they meet you, they will probably envisage a newly retired skipper (and, most likely, one who refers to himself as a ‘retiree’ rather than a ‘pensioner’), someone with too much time to hang
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around the marina, awash with tales of how their Yachtmaster course is going (even though they doubt you will ever go more than 10 miles down the coast). It might be just envy. It might be accurate.
For Play
A deliciously salacious pun, this naughty name will raise a few eyebrows among the more puritanical critics of innuendo in the yacht-club bar. It’s one of the easier ones, however, to which you can plead innocence.
Gypsea
One of the most popular boat names in 2000 (long enough ago for this one now to seem more original again), Gypsea captures the free-spirited, roving wanderlust (see page 101) of the traveller, going where the mood takes him and living the selfdetermined life of the nomad (see page 43). The perhaps more obvious Sea Gypsy is actually less common as a boat name (and Ocean Gypsy even less so – presumably one only for long-distance cruisers). Various peoples around the world are referred to as sea gypsies, such as the Moken of Indonesia, who usually come ashore only during the monsoon season, and the Tanka, who traditionally live on boats along the Chinese coast.
Happy Ours
This was one of the most frequently chosen boat names of 2016. Other less common variations on the same theme include Idle Ours, After Ours and the perhaps less obsessively punning All Ours – but the options are potentially endless, almost all of them suggesting that time spent aboard one’s boat is time well spent.
PUN INTENDED
Hard-A-Tack
A rather clever pun spotted on a boat sailing out of New York in the mid-1980s – although as with naming your boat after anything that could hurt her, it’s probably best to avoid naming her after anything that could hurt you too. Nobody knows whether his lack of prescience left fate open to ground the skipper of Hard-A-Tack permanently with a cardiac arrest.
Key of Sea
Quite a fabulous musical pun, this one. And it works beyond the joke. After all, a boat named Key of Sea can unlock the escape hatch and open up the quickest route to freedom out on the water. Perhaps pushing the pun to another level with Quay of Sea was too much for the skipper of this boat.
Knot On Call
Of all the knot-related puns, this is probably one you can get away with only if you really are a doctor. If you aren’t, everyone will assume you are anyway, and then the message you might have intended to give with this name will be ignored. Expect every dolt with rope-burn caused by overly ambitious manoeuvres in heavy winds to invite himself aboard – probably at 11pm, after you’ve already gone down below. You will also get to see every ugly degree of back moles. Telling people you are actually a vet won’t help either. Then the weird lumps and bumps will be on someone’s dog instead of their neurotic wife. Despite all this, Knot On Call was one of the more popular boat names of 2008.
Knot Working
This is by far the most popular of all the knot-based puns, and indeed was one of the ten favourite boat names of 2007. It’s
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more a statement of intent than an expression of desire to escape, which might lie behind similarly work-averse alternatives such as Plan B (see page 50) and Seventh Day (see page 119). Other less common knotty puns include Why Knot (sometimes just Y Knot), Knot So Fast (perhaps better suited to a boat to be used for relaxing daysails than to a racer), Knot A Chance (definitely not one for a racing yacht), and various names where ‘knotty’ stands in for ‘naughty’, such as Knotty Buoy (see Nauti Buoy, below). There aren’t many such names that actually include any reference to the boat’s lines – the best, though also most common, might be A Frayed Knot.
Loan Ranger
Perhaps not as clever a pun as the similarly themed A Crewed Interest (see page 5), though this boat name has more going for it. You don’t need to look far into the Lone Ranger’s story to find a good metaphor for sailing – getting away from it all, wandering the wilds, and doing the right thing.
Luna Sea
There’s nothing mad about taking to the water – though this name might still be appropriate if you spent a lot more on your boat than you should have done. The best puns work both ways, but not this one unless you’re intending to go sailing at night – luna meaning ‘moon’ in several languages, including Spanish, Italian and Czech. (Meanwhile, don’t go sailing around the Baltic coast of Estonia, where luna means ‘ransom’.) Regardless, this was one of the more popular boat names of 2002.
Mental Floss
Not reserved solely for dentists (indeed, in the United States it was one of the top ten names in 2004). If dental floss can get rid
PUN INTENDED
of the build-up of potentially harmful deposits in the mouth, it’s fair to argue a boat could do the same for life in general.
Nauti Buoy
You might not mind being judged for your two-handed wielding of a couple of rather obvious puns. Your wife, on the other hand, might not enjoy the connotations. This name conjures up some notions about what exactly the Buoy has done that was so Nauti. Bought a 36-footer while trying to delude the more metrically minded missus that you went for the cheaper 30-footer instead, perhaps? None the less, you may be characterised as the henpecked husband, and she as the pecking hen – whom none of the neighbouring yachts will want over for drinks on deck at sunset. This might be both unfair and inaccurate, so be careful wielding those puns at all. The same applies for Knotty Buoy, although Nauti Buoy is more common, appearing near the top of the most popular boat name rankings in both 2012 and 2013.
Off Quay
A splendid musical pun, perhaps even better than Key of Sea (see page 9). Just make sure you do spend plenty of time away from the quay. As with the likes of Escape (see page 18) and Pier Pressure (see below), there are many jokes to be had among your marina mates if your boat is named thus but you sail her only occasionally.
Pier Pressure
Since the best puns work both ways (A Crewed Interest, for example, or perhaps even Loan Ranger – see pages 5 and 10), the reason for this name’s enduring popularity isn’t necessarily clear. What exactly did her skipper feel pressured to do by his
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peers – buy a boat? The name also leaves you susceptible to being the butt of jokes among your neighbours if the boat is tied up against the dock most of the time – a different kind of pier pressure.
Reel Time
The ‘reel’/‘real’ pun is somewhat overused in the names of boats that might be used for fishing, yet there are so many options (Reel Deal, Reel Estate, Reel Life, Reel Work, Reel Busy, Reel Success) that most aren’t especially common in their own right. The exception in 2007 was Reel Time, one of the top ten boat names that year.
Seas the Day
This perennially popular pun is frequently one of the most common (the more cynical might say most overused) boat names, alongside Aquaholic (see page 5). But the ethos behind ‘seize the day’ is at the heart of why most of us sail: grabbing every opportunity when it presents itself rather than allowing ourselves to be distracted by the churn of the everyday, inattentively waiting until we are left only with regrets about what we didn’t do. It’s surely better, after all, to regret mistakes made than opportunities not taken. Those who want to express the same sentiment without eliciting a groan or an eye-roll from the pun-intolerant might consider the Latin version, Carpe Diem (see page 91). But that’s quite excessively popular too.
Stray Cat
Probably the best of the feline-inspired pun names reserved for multihull owners, Stray Cat suggests a wandering spirit
PUN INTENDED
answerable to no one – a fine metaphor for sailing. Top Cat, also quite popular, might seem a bit egotistical to those unfamiliar with the Hanna-Barbera cartoon from the 1960s (which, you may remember, was about a cat whose get-rich-quick schemes were usually foiled). Fat Cat is probably one to avoid these days, thanks to its connotations of a greedy investment banker lolling around on his paid-for-by-bonus superyacht while hundreds of thousands go bankrupt (see Bail Out, page 64).
True Luff
One of the better ‘luff’ for ‘love’ puns, and obviously appropriate only for sailboats. The skipper who chooses this can let his wife believe she’s his true love for letting True Luff’s new owner spend all of the rainy-day fund on the real object of his desires. In this context, it should be borne in mind that luffing means steering a yacht nearer the wind – and winds do tend to change. Other puns along the same lines include: Making Luff (you will escape the full ire of the local innuendo critics only if you share a marina with a worse pun, such as Blue Bayou – see page 65); Free Luff (nobody will believe you’re really a hippie if they can work out how much you spent on her); Luff Letter; Luff Shack; Luffing Life; the overly cute Luffly Lady; and the (one hopes) ironic Luffless – which might be what True Luff gets renamed if her faithless skipper gets found out by his wife.
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From HMS Invincible to Boaty McBoatface, naming boats has always been a tradition that separates the inspired from the woefully unfunny. This book explores the fascinating history behind several famous boat names as well as the bizarre stories behind the stranger ones.
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