Boat Names...point of view

[Ozwizz54]

A few names I've really loved over the years but never owned any of them:

• Witchdoctor - owned by a syndicate of five doctors and you never knew which doctor had her out on the water
• See No Evil, Hear no Evil was owned by two friends - one deaf, the other blind
• A boat painted in a deep purple hue was called Plum Crazy
• Slippery When Wet got her name from a road safety warning sign when the desperate owner had to name a new boat less than an hour prior to a national racing regatta. The inspitrational sign was just outside the yacht club and got "borrowed" and put on the transom
• My all time favourite: WAIKIKAMUKAU. It looks like a place name from New Zealand until you correctly pronounce it as WHY KICK A MOO COW

David
Down Under

[flymike]

I've been told it's wise to name a boat after your mother or your daughter - she will always be your mother or your daughter. With that in mind, we named our boat "Pearl Two" after our dead cat. She will always be our dead cat.

[Tingum]

The best one I ever saw was in Port Dalhousey, Canada. I guess his wife named it when he showed up with it: "Shell Fish Bass Turd"

[TrentePieds]

And an egregious stinkpot owned, tho never used, by a former client of mine, a copper by trade and an entrepreneur by ambition: "Crime Pays"

TrentePieds

[robert sailor]

My Ex chose this name for a boat owned by a couple of lawyers

Sosueme

[cowlum]

'Blow Me' currently resides in Burrard Civic Marina. Young guy has it now, it has a pretty decent sound system onboard.

[old pirate]

In the BVI "Sailbad the Sinner"

[CREX]

After living and speaking with so many fellow sailors with dumb names I just laugh. Especially when I have to hail them. Some pretty embarrassing, hard to get out, but still laughed. When I got my new boat many wanted to name her " Sir laugh Alot ". I decided on " Risibility ". I prefer 1 word names, 2 at most. " Dam boat" was pretty funny though.

[roverhi]

Kona is a big Marlin fishing location and the harbor mostly filled with six pack charter boats. A couple of names stand out as a play on their raison d'etre. One is called Marlin Grando. It's a play on the holy grail of marlin fishing, the 1,000 pound marlin. Another one is Marlin Monroe.

[APKetcher]

Not a primary boat name but one I saw on a tender.
"1 Ringhy".
If you got it, you remember Lilly Tomlin.

[Summitfun]

My past boat was "Dream Girl II". When asked by a girlfriend who was #1, I could always answer "YOU of course"!

[Prairie Chicken]

Final Compromise

I thought it was a pretty descriptive name.

[goat]

"Last one III" one of my favs.


goat

[JPA Cate]

For inexplicable, we saw a very small tan trimaran in the Marquesas, sailed there (upwind) from Australia: Mudslide Slim.

Worst one was UPYURS, it was difficult to get the ham net to handle the emergency traffic from them with that name, a very bad idea, imho.

Actually I think the best boat names have 3 to 7 letters, and should be readily pronounceable by a village idiot. "Bob", "Aka", and so on. Ours takes too long to spell phonetically on the VHF or SSB.

Ann

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by markpierce

USCG boat documentation requirements:


"Documented vessels do not display their official numbers on the outside of the hull, but are identified by the name and hailing port. The application for documentation must include a name for the vessel composed of letters of the Latin alphabet or Arabic or Roman numerals and may not exceed 33 characters. The name may not be identical, actually or phonetically, to any word or words used to solicit assistance at sea; may not contain or be phonetically identical to obscene, indecent, or profane language, or to racial or ethnic epithets. Once established, a vessel's name may not be changed without application, fees, and the consent of the Director, National Vessel Documentation Center. There is no rule against duplication of names for documented vessels, so hailing ports are helpful in identifying vessels."

Looking through our Australian list of 11700 'registered' ships Australia is pretty strict on the names you can apply for too.

But with local registration, meaning state registration, they don't seem to care what name you put on the side. I've seen an 'up yours' on the bow and a 'cumin thru' on the stern of the same vessel last year. Rego numbers were the same though.