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Changing a Boat's Name.


Southern Star

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I've heard it is bad luck to change a boat's name, although I am not superstitious myself.

 

If you saw the perfect boat, except that it was called "Brian and Brenda" or "Killer Canal Rapist" or somesuch, would that deter you from buying it?

 

Is there any genuine bad luck to be had from changing a boat's name?

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I've heard it is bad luck to change a boat's name, although I am not superstitious myself.

 

If you saw the perfect boat, except that it was called "Brian and Brenda" or "Killer Canal Rapist" or somesuch, would that deter you from buying it?

 

Is there any genuine bad luck to be had from changing a boat's name?

 

No.

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I've heard it is bad luck to change a boat's name, although I am not superstitious myself.

 

If you saw the perfect boat, except that it was called "Brian and Brenda" or "Killer Canal Rapist" or somesuch, would that deter you from buying it?

 

Is there any genuine bad luck to be had from changing a boat's name?

Allegedly, the superstition arises from the fact that, on a wooden sailing ship, the name is carved across the transom. To change name you would have to carve out the old one, then carve even deeper with the new name, possibly weakening the transom.

 

Someone will now find Skopes or whatever it is called and debunk this, but what the heck!

 

George ex nb Alton retired

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There is no bad luck in changing the name.

 

There are plenty of superstitions around boats of course but there is no problem. The main superstitions seem to be around sea going vessels not canal boats.

 

There are countless examples of boats having changed names over their career as commercial boats as they pass from owner to owner not least on the canals.

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Yes.

 

Unless you observe whichever superstitious boat-name-changing ritual* that fits in with your prejudices.

 

:)

 

MtB

 

 

* I once changed a boat name. Did it with the boat out of the water, and put up a plaque inside the boat acknowledging the previous shite name. Nothing bad happened afterwards so I know it works.

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it's fine as long as the new boat name is made up from the same collection of letters used for the old.

 

eg. Lovenest could be renamed, SloeVent

 

 

simples.

So if the boat was called "Cnut" ...???! I'd opt for something a bit different - perhaps "hazelnut"

Edited by stickleback
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I have been told that it isn't bad luck if the boat's name is changed when it is completely out of the water. Poppycock as far as I am concerned. We are soon to be changing ours but we aren't going to wait until it's next blacking to do it.

 

But if you are superstitious about this then I've been told that so long as you have the old name somewhere within the boat then that's okay, and I know somebody who just painted the old name on the inside of the bow locker lid. If it gave them peace of mind then why not I suppose.

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I wouldn't worry about it.

 

Much of the superstition around boats comes from the seafaring types, as another poster has said. Not superstitious myself, I can quite understand seafaring people being so. You can prepare as much as you like, have a strong boat, good charts & good weather forecasting, but when you're in the middle of the southern ocean, it'll get you if it wants to - it really can all come down to luck. I think if my life depended on luck, I might allow myself some supersticion.

 

None of this counts for much out on the cut though so, as I say, I really wouldn't worry.

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Our previous boat's name was changed without any ceremony. Since then it has only, to my knowledge, been sunk three times and burned out twice, so I'm sure there can't be anything in the superstitions.

 

Actually, to be exact, from the boat's point of view the name was simply changed. From the owner's point of view it was more complex. Having registered it as a ship in order to get a marine mortgage, they discovered that it would be costly to change the name but it would be free to declare it sunk, so they declared it sunk without trace near Llangollen. Lloyd's of London rang the Lutine Bell and declared her to be lost. The owners then just painted the new name on the bows.

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When I get my boat... I'm having the name I want ... so will definitely be changing. I think anything bad that happens can be attached to a superstition of some kind. I'm not superstitious, so if something rubbish happens following any name change... then it would have happened whether I'd changed the name or not... in my thinking that is. If you are a superstitious person, then its gonna bother you like crazy methinks (knowing what some of my 'superstitious' friends are like :P ). Hope you find some peace in it all... whatever you decide :)


Keeping up... thats a fab story :) :) :) luvvit.

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I've heard it is bad luck to change a boat's name, although I am not superstitious myself.

 

If you saw the perfect boat, except that it was called "Brian and Brenda" or "Killer Canal Rapist" or somesuch, would that deter you from buying it?

 

Is there any genuine bad luck to be had from changing a boat's name?

As others have said there's no issue with changing the boat's name, but I have been put off looking at certain boats because of the name.

 

For example, there is no way I would look at any of the vessels on the network named "Wet Dreams".

 

I cannot abide puns so "meander" and "narrow escape" to name but two are definitely out.

 

As for Llamedos and Firkham Hall...

 

There is a perfectly good boat for sale on Toilet Duck at the moment called "Pysorph". It will not sell so long as it bears that name, or at least not for what it's worth. I just don't know what goes through peoples minds when they choose a boat name that is meant to be offensive.

 

FWIW the one that really sticks in my mind is a boat i saw in a coastal marina with the moniker "Slipper 1".

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Allegedly, the superstition arises from the fact that, on a wooden sailing ship, the name is carved across the transom. To change name you would have to carve out the old one, then carve even deeper with the new name, possibly weakening the transom.

 

Someone will now find Skopes or whatever it is called and debunk this, but what the heck!

 

George ex nb Alton retired

 

 

Will this do George?

 

Whilst researching a group of Quakers who emigrated from Bristol to Baltimore in 1820, I discovered that the name of the ship they sailed on was "The Friend". On trying to reserch this ship, I was informed by the Archivist that it was not unusual for groups commissioning a ship for passage to America to also re-name the it. As far as the archivist was aware there was no ritual attached to the re-naming, just registration formalities.

 

Without checking my research papers, I believe that the ship was a Brig, and they may have had a name board fixed to the transom, rather than having the name carved into it, which would have made name changing a comparatively strightforward arrangement.

Edited by David Schweizer
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Hi.

Changed my boats name 2/3 years ago. Still floating. Did do the ritual of getting rid of the old name and renaming it. Took video and put it on u tube. If you are the slightest bit interested, go u tube and type in "Geezenstack", look under "naming my boat."

Have fun.

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Willow's had the same name since built in 1935. It's a part of the boat's history. Our previous boat was called Lucky Duck, but we never got around to changing it, not because we are superstitious but because we were lazy, and the name stuck. We became "the Ducks" too so it would have been sad to change it!

Edited by Black Ibis
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