"She" becomes "It"

[GordMay]

SHIPS NO LONGER CHICKS
Lloyd's List decides to refer to vessels as 'it' - rather than - 'she' from now on.
British Newspaper Lloyds List Neuters Ships

[Islandmike]

Maritime tradition is just that, tradition, and I personally feel it is a mistake to change the verbiage. However, I am certainly not going to lose any sleep over it, but I wonder if it was the right thing to do? Most every name or phase in the maritime world is steeped in tradition. Even Port and Starboard, should we just say left and right? Maybe I am over reacting somewhat, but I like the many traditional aspects of the Maritime world. I know the post was an informational one and probably not meant to solicit rantings such as this, sorry.

[GordMay]

Editor Julian Bray said he is expecting a "full and vibrant array of letters"
from the newspaper's 10,000 readers worldwide.
I believe his expectations have already been met.

[Inthewind]

My ship will always be refered to as "she". I sometimes refere to it as a vessel, but in conversation, I refer to her as she. Maybe If I was a female, I would call my vessel a "he". LOL

[delmarrey]

I will always call sailing/motor vessels SHE. For who else demands so much of a mans time and money!

[SkiprJohn]

I agree with all those who complain about this change. Ships and boats are she/her.
JohnL

[GordMay]

I seem to recall that Russians call their ships "he". Can anyone confirm/correct?

[bmanley]

I know that the Bismarck was officially a "he".

~Brett

[senormechanico]

My original sailboat a Lord Nelson 35 was called "Grey Max". (The name was on it when I bought it.) Both my wife and I always referred to it as "he".

Our current boat (a Dragonfly 1000) seems like an "it".

Steve B.

[Ex-Calif]

Son - A long time ago before you were born there were rainbows in the world. Rainbows were glorious things. You couldn't touch them and you couldn't feel them but they came out after a rain when the world smelled fresh and they were wondrous and filled the sky with a glorious variety of color.

Color is hard to describe if you haven't seen it. But in those days colors could often be related to emotions. Red was a great color and was linked to being mad or passionate. Blue was peaceful and serene. Green was relaxing or could indicate envy. I know I am not describing it well but it truly was wondrous until one day we lost the rainbow.

It seems a small minority of the people were offended by purple and in the interest of trying to be "fair" to everyone we eliminated purple from the rainbow. Later a small group of people said they didn't like green to be singled out and seeing as how purple was eliminated the world should eliminate green. And so it went...

Now the world is full of greys. We are all the same now. There is nothing to differentiate ourselves and our speech. Our language is like a rainbow. There used to be an infinite number of ways to relate emotions, thoughts and actions.

Now, when a child is born we have very little language with which to describe this incredible event of God's creation. So we simply tatoo the number on it and send it to the nursery for growing.

What's God?

Well that's a story for another day.

[coot]

It doesn't bother me at all. In English, I always call boats "it".

We don't want to be too rigid about nautical tradition. The word "port" is a deviation from traditional usage (the correct word is "larboard"), but don't let a little change put you aswoggle.

In any case, we won't replace port/starboard with left/right because they do not mean the same thing!

[cooper]

There are definately some boy boats out there ..but my two are girls, and have the curves in the right places to prove it............even after several decades my folder dingy is yet to reveal its sexuality to me...........and my nester is has a split personality.

[Sandero]

My boat has no gender... but my autopilot is called Alison... it's an Alpha and from the Elvis Costello song... her aim is true. She's not much to look at, but she doesn't complain and require food, water or rest. The best crew!

[Dunkers]

Dan, that's right on the button. Our language is being hi-jacked all the time and we find in this PC society that we can't use certain words in their original context any longer.

It also seems that tradition is seen as something to be despised and those of us who like it are old farts who count for nothing. The Royal Navy, in which I proudly served for 21 years, is steeped in tradition and was the better for it. It gave us pride in our Service just as the Army regiments had pride in their histories and, to those not in the know, strange ways. Judging by the conduct of those kidnapped by the Iranians even our armed forces are no longer adhering to traditional ways of conduct which makes me ashamed of them and those in charge of them.

Even our leaders are letting the side down. Our almost Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, refuses to wear a dinner jacket at the Mansion House dinners and turns up in a lounge suit. It doesn't set a good example to youngsters to value conforming to traditions does it?

Sorry for the rant but no longer refering to a vessel as "she" is another push towards an homogenised western world where we are going to all the same and difference is to be frowned upon and not celebrated.

Must go as "she" is waiting for me at the marina.

"She" indicates that the boat is a living entity where "it" is just a thing. Those on this forum and the thousands who spend their time afloat know which is correct.

[Starbuck]

If Lloyd's changes its nomenclature in response to a shift in general usage, fine; but for them to prescribe the change before it is the common reference is an act of caving in to the pressures of political correctness. It's Lloyd's themselves who have been neutered, not the vessels they attempt to describe.

Fortunately, none of us is required to pay any attention to them.

Cooper (et al), if we assigned gender to boats according to their appearance, then every vessel with a bowsprit would of necessity be masculine.

FYI: sex refers to the disctinction between male/female (biology: if you're confused, take a peek down your trousers/skirt; gender categorizes masculine/feminine traits (think behavior) only, but not biological sex.

The term gender is now becomming a replacement for the word sex, making one's behavior, not one's chromosomes, the primary determinant of sexual identity. (shudder!)

Fair winds,
Jeff