The Delicate Art of Naming Your Yacht

Congratulations– you bought a yacht! Welcome to the How The Heck Can I Spend My Millions of Dollars? club!

As the proud owner of a new yacht, you’re probably making some tough decisions, such as:

• Where will I moor this gorgeous babe?
• What prestigious races will I compete in?
• Should I learn how to sail or just hire a reputable yacht crew to handle all of the pesky sea-faring details?
• Will I wear pink polo shirts and white tennis shorts on deck, or will I go for the gold suit and ultramarine dress shirt combo as a tribute to the fabulous Simon LeBon?

Image from http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Hold on there, fella!

Before anything else can happen, you’ve got to name your yacht. Yes! She needs a name! You’ve got to register her! Sure, it was easy to spend the $750K+ to get your yacht in the first place, but that doesn’t mean it will be “smooth sailing” choosing a name. (Get it- sailing? Yacht? Little bit of filthy rich humor for you there.) Anyway. To guide you down the path of choosing the perfect name for your perfect, perfectly expensive yacht, the club has compiled a list of existing yacht names and grouped them into several categories on your behalf. Remember, all of the names listed below have already been registered* to other yacht owners, so if there’s one that really jumps out at you, try adding a “II” to the end and go from there…

Yacht-Naming Tactic #1: Go for something pretty!

Everyone loves a boat with an ethereal or nature-y sounding name. Naming your boat after a river or a woodland creature lets people know that you’re more than just a sack of dusty money– you care about the environment, too!

Some examples:

• Prairie Dancer
• Dragonfly
• Cheetah
• WindChild
• Fragile Habitat

Yacht-Naming Tactic #2: Name it after your mother, girlfriend, or wife

What woman wouldn’t be flattered to have an expensive, sleek, and sophisticated yacht bear her name? (NB- People who marry just for love: you only wish a yacht could be named after you.)

Some examples:

• Marjorie
• Red Sheilla
• Annie

Yacht-Naming Tactic #3: Sound tough!

You’re not just a pretty boy with perfect teeth and pleated pants, are you? No– you’re strong! You’re manly! Well… even if you’re whisper thin and cry during so-called ‘chick flicks’, you can still create a facade of masculinity by naming your yacht something bold.

Some examples:

• Warrior
• Icon
• Braveheart
• Freedom X
• Bulletproof

Yacht-Naming Tactic #4: Play on words!

People will love you for your intelligence, wit, and clever use of the English language. Naming your yacht something snappy proves that you’re more than just an 8- or 9-figure Swiss bank account… you’re a Harvard educated 8- or 9-figure Swiss bank account. 🙂

Some examples:

• ReignMaker
• Airloom
• SeaDuced

Yacht-Naming Tactic #5: Be honest

OK, so maybe forking over 2 million dollars for your 50′ yacht wasn’t exactly easy. Let people know this by forever naming your boat after your money woes!

Some examples:

• X-S
• Overdraft

Yacht-Naming Tactic #6: Leave some breathing room

Some names have double meanings or leave room for interpretation. Think of what would happen if you named your yacht after your girlfriend and later broke up with her. Awkward! To avoid potentially uncomfortable situations like this, it’s wise to name your yacht something more, um, open-ended.

Some examples:

• Family Affair (could mean that you sail with your sons… or that you’re leaving the door open to cheat on your wife)
• New Beginnings I (it’s easy to tack on extra “I”s in the event that your relationship(s) don’t work out)

Yacht-Naming Tactic #7: Confuse people!

Who says that filthy rich yacht owners don’t know how to have fun? Why not christen your boat with a name that will have everyone scratching their heads and thinking WTF??

Some examples:

• Free Bowl of Soup
• Muffin
• Baaad Kitty!
• Penetration

Yacht-Naming Tactic #8: Add some sass to your class

If all else fails, why not name your yacht something sassy? If you like cats, too, why not display your affection for them by including a feline reference in your yacht’s name as well?

Some examples:

• Cat Sass     (Note: can also fall under the Play on Words and WTF?? categories, especially if your yacht happens to be a catamaran.)

Hopefully this handy reference guide has helped you think of potential names for your new yacht. Remember, all of these yacht names are already taken, but there’s nothing stopping you from registering Doe-Sea-Doe or Stinky Cat Sass. Good luck!

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*Yacht names compiled from the actual 2012 Swiftsure International Yacht Race list of registrants. (The Swiftsure Race takes place in Victoria every US Memorial Day weekend.) Disclaimers: No offense intended. Stereotypes of yacht owners were unfairly exaggerated for the purpose of this post. Don’t worry, Swiftsure racers– we know you’re not all preppy pretty boys with rich daddies and a penchant for Dockers. Besides, you know I’m just jealous. 🙂

If you want to read more tongue-in-cheek mini-essays about yachts, why not re-visit last year’s Swiftsure post, where I chronicled Marty’s re-enactment of the classic Duran Duran Rio music video? Do eet!

PS: All of the photos in this post (with the exception of Mr. LeBon aboard the amazing Rio) were taken by Marty during last year’s Swiftsure International Yacht Race. Please don’t use them without permission and/or proper credit!

  

The World’s Most Interesting Man

Yacht races: what could possibly be more glamorous, luxurious, and filthy rich-sounding?

If you answered “nothing”, you would be correct! After all, Nothing sounds more rich and high-rolling than a yacht race.

The proof is in the picture!

Whenever the Memorial Day weekend hits the United States, we– the citizens of Victoria BC– are hit with a yacht race: the Swiftsure International Yacht Race, to be more specific. At the end of May each year, hundreds of luxury yachts cruise into the Inner Harbour and prepare to race up to 140 nautical miles in the Juan de Fuca Strait. Visitors pour into our humble city in the hopes of snapping some impressive photos of the yachts in action, and the locals are whipped into a frenzy as well, either because they love a good yacht race, too, or because they can’t freaking find a solitary parking space downtown, for the love of god!!!

Anyway. My dear husband– artist, entrepreneur, and general Man of Mystery– created a new, yacht-themed painting just in time for this year’s Swiftsure Race. It featured the race’s most prominent, recognizable, and well-decorated catamaran: the Dragonfly. We had it on display at our booth this weekend, and guess who scored an invitation to be an honorary crew member on a yacht because of it?

Yep: Marty!

Marty was invited to grace the Legend 45 with his handsome, interesting, and hopefully-not-seasick-prone self for the shorter of the Swiftsure races– not the full 140 nautical mile race (obviously), because that would involve suspending his better judgment for 24+ hours. The Legend 45 needed an extra crew member for the inland race, and what better crew member to recruit than a man who had never been sailing in his entire life before?

At least he can *look* the part!

“Do you have any boating experience?”, the skipper asked my dear husband.

“Nope” came Marty’s honest answer.

“Well, do you know how to handle ropes or tie any nautical knots?”

Again, “Nope” was the answer, offered with utmost sincerity.

“No matter– we’ll see you at the docks tomorrow morning at 8:30 am!”

I was pretty excited about Marty’s upcoming sojourn on the sea. How glamorous! How exotic! How luxurious! I pictured my suave partner donning a gold suit and ultramarine dress shirt for the race, his (rather short) hair whipping in the wind to the delight of his fellow 80s band crew members. There would possibly be suggestive hip-juttings and sultry poses on board as the yacht sliced through choppy waves at blistering speeds, but these questionable antics would all be in the name of High Fashion, Glamour, and Princess Diana’s Pop Music. (Hey– the only mental image I have of yacht races comes courtesy of the iconic Duran Duran video, Rio– what can I say?):

My dear husband: stand-in for the fabulous Simon Le Bon?

I could have been the Exotic Other on board, but I declined the invitation to be the Token Female amidst a bunch of crude, middle-aged sailor men. 🙂

Marty was a lot more nervous about the Swiftsure Race, however. His mental images of boats at sea were drawn more from disaster movies like A Perfect Storm and perhaps also Jaws, so he worried about getting tossed overboard into dark and churning waters or having his hands get mangled by ropes as he furiously attempted to secure something-nautical-or-other on deck:

"Watch the hands!! I need these to paint!"

Both of us agreed on one thing, though: the Swiftsure Race would be fast and the winds would be furious— our opinions only differed on the degrees to which we assumed (or even hoped?) that expensive gold suits and ultramarine-saturated dress shirts would be involved. 😉

Imagine Marty’s utter deflation, then, when this year’s race turned into a dreaded “Driftsure”– a weekend of little to no winds. The starting gun fired, and instead of hurtling forward in a dazzling display of coloured sails and skilled seamanship, the Legend 45 drifted backwards. Verrrrrry slooooooooowly. The entire inland (short) race was expected to take between 4 and 5 hours to complete, but the Legend 45 required a full 4 hours to make it back to the starting buoy— so much was it struggling against tides, currents, and a decided lack of breeze!

(Clearly, the whole point of the race is to sail, not to use any motors to power the yachts forward. The sails were up, but the wind was definitely down.)

I was at the Harbour this whole time, daydreaming about Marty’s unexpected promotion into the upper echelons of class and wealth. Marty! Sailing! Yacht race! Richness!! (I chose not to dwell on the skippers’ professed love of beer swilling in these fantasies and mentally substituted any real-life crassness or crudeness with Simon Le Bon hair and velvet 80s vocals, respectively. Her name is Rio…)  I was quite surprised– nay, shocked– to get a phone call from my dearest a full hour after he was expected to return to the Harbour, confirming that the real racing was just getting underway. Driftsure, indeed! He ended up docking at 8 pm, which meant a full 10 hours were spent at sea.

Cheap green anoraks are the new expensive gold suits, don't you know..

Luckily, the experience was not entirely for naught– Marty captured some great photos of the race and the colourful sails that he would never have been able to get from our station at the Harbour (when all the sails are down). He also got to cross “Race a Yacht” and “Re-Enact a Classic 80s Music Video” off of his Bucket List. And as for me? I had that stupid What do you do with a drunken sailor? song stuck in my head all day, and it miraculously ceased when my dizzy but victorious sailor set his sea-legs back on dry land. Thank goodness! 🙂