The practical renaming ceremony.

[Will Gilmore]

I just remembered, my avatar pic was taken during the renaming of our first boat! I believe in the one true God a little too strongly to get too far off into the Neptune/Poseidon thing. But imbuing the ocean - and my boat - with human qualities, such as fondness for alcohol, is just fine with me.

You have an excellent perspective on life. This isn't about gods, it's about closure, about unconscious sources of anxiety, about self-fulfilling prophesy, tradition, OCD, parties and stories and fun. So relax and know that any way you feel is appropriate to rename your boat, you can't really go wrong except to look at it wrong.
Btw, great avitar pic. Looks like you had fun.
- Will (Dragonfly)

 

[Rick486]

I am not superstitious. At all. (Except for putting my right shoe on first.) I didn’t do a proper renaming ceremony with either boat I renamed. Maybe that’s why if you look at just the right angle you can baaaaaaaaaarley see where the name was.

But seriously, it’s a great excuse for a party.

Agree. Putting a shoe on first is probably superstition. However, defying centuries of beliefs and observances is simply taking unnecessary risk and does not qualify as superstition.

From Merriam-Webster:
Superstition
1 a :a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation
b :an irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstition
2 :a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary

Respect for the beliefs and practices of centuries of mariners is not superstition. I have owned three yachts in my sailing career where this issue came into play. On the first, we kept her name. On the second, we changed her name but only after extensive research and adherence to the proper procedures. On boat 3 we christened her in a ceremony presided over by the chaplain at the USCG academy, who was well prepared and knowledgeable in the ceremony. So far, so good (touch wood).

This is nothing to be toyed with when your very life and your crew's life are in the hands of your yacht and whatever Gods you may or not believe watch over you.

 

[Kermit]

Oh, is that you on the guitar?

Nah. Billy Curtington plays for money. At one time we would play for supper. We *always* ate first. You know, just in case they felt we were being overpaid.

 

[Meriachee]

Pecan. Second cousin to the pegan. I think we need to get Will punted from a few bars. Then he’ll get it.

 

[capta]

I can't count the number of boats I've renamed without ceremony, all with no apparent bad luck. However, two I did not rename. One was sunk in hurricane Klaus by another boat when I was out of town, and another was capsized at sea 3 times in a tropical cyclone off Fiji. Go figure!

 

[Will Gilmore]

All but one had a name. The nameless boat was totaled in Hurricane Isobel in 2003. So much for superstition....

How does that equate to "So much for superstition"? Are you saying the name of your boat matters or that the bad luck fell on an unnamed boat because it didn't matter?
By the way, I'm sorry to hear about the loss of you're boat.
- Will (Dragonfly)

 

[Will Gilmore]

I think we need to get Will punted from a few bars. Then he’ll get it

Actually, I quit drinking before I was 9 because after a Styrofoam cup puff beer at a boat launching party where no one watched the keg, my friends and I would be out behind the boat shop peeing the rest of the night. I only started drinking again in the last 5 years or so to keep my wife company while she had a glass of wine. I discovered that I only like expensive micro-brew dark beers and 1 glass does me in. But, I do like them a lot.
- Will (Dragonfly)

 

[Will Gilmore]

two I did not rename. One was sunk in hurricane Klaus by another boat when I was out of town, and another was capsized at sea 3 times in a tropical cyclone off Fiji. Go figure!

Poseidon woke up and started working on the back log?
I'm always saddened to hear about someone losing a boat like that.
- Will (Dragonfly)

 

[Meriachee]

dark beers and 1 glass does me in

@Kermit It's up to you bud. Me 'n Ralph can't wait around for these one beer wonders. ha ha.

 

[JamesG161]

convincing Posidon to forget the boat's old name

Whoa nelly!

You are cursing your boat!
Not only the wrong mythical deity, but misspelling his name OMG err I mean OMD...

Poseidon [name of a sunken vessel]

But...

The the most powerful deity of the Seas...

Neptune [he has a planet named after him]

Jim...

PS: OMD = Oh My Deity.
PSS: Poseidon's girlfriend was MEDUSA.

 

[Will Gilmore]

PSS: Poseidon's girlfriend was MEDUSA.

Never had to worry about anyone looking at his wife covetously.
- Will ( not the best speller, Dragonfly)

 

[Kermit]

Never had to worry about anyone looking at his wife covetously.
- Will ( not the best speller, Dragonfly)

Now that’s funny right there. I don’t care who you are.

 

[Tyler Rippel]

My wife went for it and pulled the vinyl name off of our boat. However, this was after we woke up to shoes floating inside the cabin at 4AM and pulled the boat.

At first I thought, "maybe we should do some of this ceremony stuff" at this occasion, but the boat was taking on water, so we pulled the name coldly as to give the middle finger to the previous name and will rename her this spring when she's splashed once again.

We did splash the boat again, nameless, for the remainder of the season. All was well for that time, so I think a fresh start was warranted, and worked well enough.

 

[jssailem]

Ok Tyler... Not so fast. You "woke to shoes floating inside the cabin"... What happened? Why? What needed fixing?

 

[Tyler Rippel]

A perfect storm of my curiosity, a crusty/old gasket seal on the main water ballast valve, a loose/old boat plug in the air vent hole of the ballast tank, and 5 people sleeping in the boat with gear. Slow seepage from a loosened ballast plug through the air vent hole, into the bilge, and 4 inches or so on the cabin floor. This was discovered at 4am after my wife rolled over in the aft berth and put her hand in lake water.

Replaced the main gasket seal, and more importantly, replaced the $2 boat plug in the air vent hole.

 

[Will Gilmore]

Ok Tyler... Not so fast. You "woke to shoes floating inside the cabin"... What happened? Why? What needed fixing?

 

[jssailem]

Thanks Tyler... You can not just leave us hanging. It is that type of story that triggers all of us to think about the things on our boat that we say, "I'll get to that but not today..."

Thanks

 

[Tyler Rippel]

Thanks Tyler... You can not just leave us hanging. It is that type of story that triggers all of us to think about the things on our boat that we say, "I'll get to that but not today..."

Thanks

Right, no worries.

Basically 3-4 things had to go wrong at once for that to happen, and if none of us were in the boat, I don't think the water line would have dropped to the point of the air vent hole either (the ballast just stops filling once it gets to the water line level, you seal it off, and forget about it). I loosened the plugs, the gasket didn't seal all the way, then with all the weight and the poorly fitted/old boat plug things went south very slowly. It was fine at midnight, and at 4am we had quite a bit of water. It really was a freak thing with way too many things coming together. The water ballast system is pretty slick, and pretty fool proof, but I managed to bring some excitement from it nonetheless.

We managed to get it cleaned up pretty easily by cupping water from the floor to the bilge, and I was able to clear the water from under the cabin floor as well, so no long term issues whatsoever. Mostly everything in my boat is fiberglass, and the teak/holly sole is fine as well.

 

[jssailem]

Most boating challenges are a series of little things.

 

[Will Gilmore]

Most boating challenges are a series of little things.

That is so true. As it is with most things.
While teaching a class in industrial arts to junior high kids, I wrote the equation for air resistance on the board. We were designing and building pine block style derby cars. I included, in one equation, the formula for cross sectional area resistance (2-d displacement) and skin friction. The formula took up nearly the whole width of the board. When my class filed in and I directed their attention to what I had written, there was a collective gasp from the entire room.
I then proceeded to point out that, while it was long, there was nothing in the formula they didn't already know how to do. I showed them how to break it down into parts, understand that some symbols were just missing values they could look-up and plug-in, reduce the complex looking terms little by little and finally have a solution without doing any more complicated math than what any junior high school kid should know how to do.
Most problems seem to be like that. They are either simple but, hard or easy but, complex. Very few are ever both hard and complex.
- Will (Dragonfly)