I was hanging out at the beach recently chatting with Barb, from Whatcha Gonna Do, when she sprang it on me, “I never realized that you were you,” she said. I must have looked puzzled. “What I mean was I never realized that “Kaylee” and “Ceilydh” were the same boat.
We’re used to this particular point of confusion. Although most people figure it out before we’ve shared meals, traded emails and arranged play dates… But whatever, Barb’s been busy.
Boat names are one of those controversial things where no one is right but everyone has an opinion. There are the proponents of the straight forward, phonetically correct single word names—the Voyager, Journey, Eagle and Totem crowd I guess you’d call them. Then there are the folks who like clever word play or ambiguous meanings—Whatcha Gonna Do, Just a Minute, Mystical Crumpet… Then there are the folks like us who steal a word or phrase from another language and make it our own (mainly because all the good names were taken)…
As an FYI Ceilydh is a Gaelic word that means social gathering or celebration…
The names that really don’t make sense to me though are the ones that cause confusion on the radio. Names like Priority, Gale Force or Lost… A good boat naming rule of thumb oughta be try the perspective name with “Mayday” attached to it. Then try play acting the whole Coastguard rescue conversation and see if it gets confusing.
1 comment:
I worked on a troller off of the west coast of Vancouver Island in the late 60's that was called RIO. The skipper really liked it because it didn't take up a lot of time when filling out forms. We recently named our sailboat ARBUTUS BEACH. It is an imaginary place in the Gulf Islands, pebble beach, protected bay, gently lapping waves and a huge Arbutus tree overlooking the whole scene. A very peaceful place. Not that I anticipate using it with Mayday, it does not cause confusion.
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