Anyone not rename their boat?

It seems most used boat buyers (I'm guessing around 90%) rename their boat. I am likely in the minority and kept our boat's name--it had a really interesting back story and I'd rather not anger Poseidon Fortunately, the name was not vulgar or overly personalized.

I am curious if anyone here kept their boat's name and why.

The person who bought our old boat kept the name. Kind of a compliment, I guess, but I also used the same name for our new boat.

So far we have changed the name on all of the used boats we have purchased. The names never worked for us.

My last boat, a Fales 30 named Boomarang has had the same name through at least four owners, the two before me and one after. Even with the quirky spelling, I think the notion that she would always made it back was appealing, and Neptune seemed to approve

My boat was renamed when my grandparents bought it from the original owner, as it was a condition of sale. They renamed it to "Hour Glass", as in "our first fiberglass boat", but spelled to go with their previous (wood) boat's name of "All Hours" (that name came with the boat). When I bought the boat from them, I kept the name as it has family history.

I've never renamed a boat or ship I've owned in almost 60 years. I was a fisherman, in my time, it was considered bad luck. I honor the old fishermen's superstitions, but probably don't really believe. Why tempt fate?

We plan to keep the name Graceland, it works for us, isn't offensive and is clear to communicate over the radio. There was a boat we missed out on that would have been renamed immediately.

Our runabout never had a name on it but we called it by a couple different names, most commonly known as "Scotch and Water", named after our beloved Border Collie mix who hated the water.

We bought a cheap steel Hartley 32 yacht in Wellington, NZ. It was called " Fenrir " after Fenrir Greyback the Werewolf in Harry Potter. The guy we bought it from had allowed his daughter to paint a 5 foot by 4 foot Wolf's head on the Port side of the bow.


We painted out the wolf's head and name very soon after purchasing her.


She is now called "Ella " for our first Grandaughter.


In the mid 1970's we bought a 40 foot canal narrowboat called " Nautilus ".


As Jules Verne's Nautilus was a submarine, we changed that too!

Badger seemed right...tough, small, belligerent, scrappy...no need to change it.

Yep I always keep the name. Don’t want to upset Mother Nature. Also I will not even look at a boat with a personal name on it.

We kept the name that the previous owners had because I guess my wife and I are sappy romantics.
When we were looking at our current boat, we found out that the son of the owner was handling the sale. He said his father had passed away unexpectedly & that's why he was taking care of it. We asked about the name Yellow Bird, and he said it was a drink (rum, Galliano liquor & orange/pineapple juice) that they had when on their honeymoon years ago and really liked it.
The boat needed a water pump impeller before we could move it and while I was in the engine area, I dropped a part into the bilge under the engine. When I felt around for the part, I came up with a laminated document that turned out to be the drivers license belonging to the owner. Ever since then, we have always kept his license ,with picture, on board with us, tucked into the corner of the teak-trimmed world map that Mainship included with it's older 34's. We greet him most every morning when we stay on board (I moved the map from the galley to the bulkhead in the stateroom) & each time we go somewhere or make an improvement we ask him what he thinks. He let's us know he's good with everything by his simile and the twinkle in his eyes.
Yellow bird cocktails are served a lot of times when we get together with friends and are kind of a treat for everybody.

My first Willard - a Willard 30 Searcher model - was named "St Cyr." The owner described she was named after a dance hall girl Lilly St Cyr, though I don't remember why. I felt no compulsion to rename her.

When I purchased my current Willard 36, the previous owners had let their children name the boat so she came named "Shy Platypus." Imagine saying that 3x over the VHF.....

"Weebles" seemed like the right name for a round-bottom boat. I since came to learn she was launched as "Taras," some sort of Greek god of dolphins or the like (my avatar pic shows here on launch-day, 1970). Apparently, she was locally well known in the Newport Beach CA area as she frequently served as committee boat. Taras was a good name - had I known at purchase, I most likely would have reverted her name back to her launch name.

Interesting rslifkin mentions name-change was a condition of sale. I had never heard of that until a few years ago when a friend bought a boat named "Quintessence" and the PO wanted the name changed. It had a very posh and expensive back-lit name on her transom. My friend renamed the boat "Quintessa" so he could reuse the hardware. PO was not amused.

I'd say 95% of the boat names reflect the owner, not the boat ("Quintessa" or "Quintessence" is nothing about the boat, just the owners' satisfaction with his/her choice). At best, some sort of play on words - an inside joke. "Never Again 2" is a cute name, but says nothing about the boat and it's doubtful a new owner would/should keep the name. On the other hand, there is a 100+ year old tugboat at the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco named "Hercules." He will always be Hercules no matter what name is on his bows.

Circling back to the OP, I think you have to look at the soul of a boat - is it a 'he' or a 'she?' Elegant or gruff? Sleek or stout? If you get those underlying attributes reflected in a name, its a bit sacrilegious to rename a boat. But owners do it anyway, likely just to mark their territory. Has nothing to do with superstition or Neptune or anything else.

I have always been drawn to older boats with flaws and strengths and history and quirks. A name can be the embodiment of all of those qualities. Unfortunately, too often, the name is an owner's whim, which is how Weebles was once Shy Platypus. Sheesh,...

Peter

I've kept the previous name when it was one I liked. I consider it a slight bonus when looking at a boat if it does have a name I would like to keep (but I would also buy a boat that had a name I wanted to change, so it's not that influential).

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I hope this isn't too much of a tangent (but it doesn't seem "new thread worthy"), but why do I sometimes see US boats for sale on Yachtworld that say "name reserved"?

As far as I know there is no limit on duplicate names with USCG Documentation (or with state registration either for that matter), so what does that even mean? Would the buyer be signing something that they (and all subsequent buyers?) would never use that name? It seems somewhat pointless, or like saying "you can buy this car as long as never drive it on Maple Street," when Maple Street is a public street.

(There places other than the US where you can't - or at least couldn't back in the day - have same name and hailing port; but that's not true in the US.)

Always wondered about that.

Frosty said:

I hope this isn't too much of a tangent (but it doesn't seem "new thread worthy"), but why do I sometimes see US boats for sale on Yachtworld that say "name reserved"?

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In the case of my friend who purchased a boat where the previous owner stipulated the name did not transfer, the previous owner was buying a larger version of the same model boat and wanted to carry the name forward on his new boat. I cannot answer why it was important to him, but it was.

Peter

mvweebles said:

In the case of my friend who purchased a boat where the previous owner stipulated the name did not transfer, the previous owner was buying a larger version of the same model boat and wanted to carry the name forward on his new boat. I cannot answer why it was important to him, but it was.

Peter

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I have heard of that as well, I would make sense for a charter business but for a pleasure vessel, it just seems pretentious. In my opinion, if the seller cares that much, they should remove the name prior to closing the sale.

my boat: Isobel K is named after the builder's wife.

The following is why we kept the name & will not tamper with it.



The builder Rod K began building her in his back yard in 1992 at the tender age of 80 & did complete her up to about 90% in about 5 years, before turning her over to the next gent, who finished her up.

Rod had previously built a somewhat larger Monk design power boat in younger days & cruised her with family to the S. pacific, I think in the early 70's.

Rod lived to around 102, and was still quite active driving at age 100 etc.


There is a bit of tragedy in the story as well, but suffice it to say that we as the 3rd owners(since 2002) have enjoyed his great craftsmanship and greatly appreciate the attention to detail throughout.


It would be interesting to hear Rod comment on the other thread "aging gracefully with a boat"

We are now on our third Bacchus and asked both previous boat buyers to rename them. It wasn't a concern for them so nothing formal needed.
In our case all 3 prior names did not work for us.

My last boat didn't come with a name, and I stuck Wayfarer on her. I think I was the fifth owner, so who knows what she'd been called. I could just make out a shadow of one of her past lives on the transom, which was Classy Lady 3 or something. It was pretty... uninspired. I'd have changed that.

I decided to keep the name that came with my current vessel. She was called Sylphide when she was new, and kept the name for 34 years and two owners before me. It just felt right to let her keep it. It's certainly not a name I'd have chosen but it suits her, and I like that it's unique. I've never seen another Sylphide before, and If I ever do:




Then I suppose then it'll either be one of two things: an epic battle to determine who can be the one true Sylphide, once and for all time...





Or like... some sort of boat wedding, I guess.



Either way, I look forward to it.

I changed two out of three. Aquarius is a bit long for my taste but without any special meaning for us, at least it is innocuous unlike boats #1 Wineaux and #2 AfterburnII.

Our first boat we bought new. When we sold her, we thought about asking the new owners to rename her so we could "keep" the name. We decided not to, and the new owners kept the name. (Bare Necessities).

We bought our last boat off of the second owner who did rename the boat when he bought her. We decided to keep the name, and when we sold her, the new owner also kept the name. Pilitak (who for a while was based in Alaska) is an Inuit word meaning "useful but not necessary". We thought it fit for a boat, and have never heard of another boat with that name.

My ex-boat, a 1972 GB42 (Calypso) has had the same name right through to today, about six owners.

So far we've owned two boats big enough to name (in our opinion). The first one was named "El Patron" when we bought it, a shortened version of drug kingpin and narco-killer Pablo Escobar's nickname "El Patron del Mal" - master of evil. Yeah, no way we were keeping that one. We changed it to Courtship, because I work for the court system and my wife is a lawyer, and we bought it on the day William and Kate got married, which seemed like a big deal at the time and kind of romantic. The current owners kept the name.

The second boat was Xanadu. We kept that name, although it had at least one other name previously (we're third owners). We kept it for a few reasons, even though it's a pretty common boat name in the registries. (1) The seller was a wonderful guy and had good memories on it and we wanted to honor the name his family chose. (2) I'm an English major and Coleridge's poem talks about the sacred river running through caverns to the sea; we keep it on the Missouri River with lots of cliffs and valleys on both sides so it seemed to fit. (3) The sparkling lettering and all the canvas was a really cool emerald green and it all seemed to fit. And (4) it's our escape from the rat race just like the poem, so it all seemed right. And okay, fine, once in a while we hang a disco ball from the upper helm awning pipe and the kids have a dock party.

Greetings,
Kept the name we bought her with. The Admiral and I could not agree on a different name we both liked.

My first boat was appropriately named so I didn't change the name. My second boat carried a name that was overly personal to the previous owner so we changed the name right quick. The third boat came with a stupid name, that was changed. The current boat came with a poor name and too much history. We changed the name to a very appropriate boat name and left all the previous owner's detractors wondering what ever happened to their arch enemy.

Have changed them on previous vessels but not this one.

Mirrors X 2, dash and switch panel are all engraved
+ Aust registered ship with name and number carved into a deck beam.

I've changed one out of five.

mvweebles said:

In the case of my friend who purchased a boat where the previous owner stipulated the name did not transfer, the previous owner was buying a larger version of the same model boat and wanted to carry the name forward on his new boat.

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I completely get that someone selling "Canvasback," might also want to name their new boat "Canvasback." Totally understandable. What I don't understand is the "name reserved" part. Since there are probably 50 more "Canvasbacks" in the US, how (why?) does that work? It's not like they are going to contact the other 49 and tell them to also remove the name from their transoms so that they can have the one and only, true Canvasback.

First was new so our choice of name went on the transom.
Second was silly, so it came off right away. Re-used the one we had for #1.
Third was someone else's significant name, so changed it to one I had seen only once before, many years ago.
Naming our dog was just as hard.

My first boat had a combination of the owner and his wife. Didn’t work for me so I changed it to Dream Weaver.
2nd boat came with the name of Kinja. It was named after a mythical island in the Virgin Islands. The name was not offensive so I kept it.

Kept the name of the boat when we go it.
We found it original and fitting the boat nicely as well as our own subject of interest.

L