When you talk to sailors and ask if it is appropriate to rename a boat, you are likely to get many different answers. They usually fall into two main categories: 1) No, definitely do not do it, it is bad luck…and 2) It does not matter, rename away. First, let me explain why the first group is vehemently against renaming a boat. Sailors are often a very superstitious group. There are “rules” about not leaving on a Friday, about bananas on board, and there is the belief that renaming a boat will bring her and her crew nothing but bad luck.
However, in our research into renaming a boat, we found that there is a way to appease the gods with a formal renaming ceremony. Regardless of your beliefs, (and I am not a die-hard superstitious fanatic, but when it comes to the boat I tend to lean on the side of caution. Why tempt fate?), I definitely believe that the decision to rename your boat is not trivial.
I performed a ton of research, in many languages (thanks Google translate), and distilled out our process to one that I felt best honored the boat, Neptune or Poseidon (depending on whether you lean to Roman or Greek mythology respectively) and, Boreas, Zephyrus, Eurus, and Notos (the gods of the four winds). Each ceremony that I found had the common denominator of honoring the boat and each of these gods, although the methods of doing so varied greatly. The method that is most similar to what we chose was one that I found at BoatSafe.com and required the use of a metal tag (we used a smashed penny we got in San Francisco being that it was something that had meaning to us) with the former name written on it and a bottle of champagne for the requisite offerings of libations. Apparently it is common knowledge that the gods like to drink. Bonus, we’ll all get along just fine.
Step One: The prep-work for the first ceremony, the de-naming ceremony, was probably the most tedious. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, with the previous name on it had to have that name removed or just be removed completely from the boat. I went through every locker and checked every item. Pro-tip: acetone is your friend, no matter how toxic it is, when removing a boat’s name from a plethora of shore power cables and adapters to connect to every port between Germany, Italy, France, the entire western coast of Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. (Notice that didn’t include North America, no, we had to buy that adapter, but that’s another story.) Anyway, even paperwork from long past repairs had to be checked for the old name and have it properly redacted with an insanely huge sharpie marker or just thrown away all together. That insanely huge sharpie marker came in handy when it came time for me to give up trying to remove the old name from the horseshoe shaped PFD. I tried everything from acetone to sandpaper to Magic Erasers to remove the name from that thing. In the end…I just obliterated any view of the old name with the trusty sharpie.
Once all of the removal takes place and you have made damn sure that the old name doesn’t exist anymore, anywhere, on the boat you can move on to the next step. Oh yeah, and removing that name includes the transom too! Obvious right? Also, you can’t bring anything on board that has the new name on it until all of the ceremonies are complete. So that meant that our temporary running package from the USCG agent couldn’t come aboard but since we had to turn in the rental car, it could no longer hide in the rental car either. Luckily we had a dock box that we stashed the package in until we were done.
Step Two: Perform the ceremony. After two days of working on the boat, removing the old name, getting ready to leave for sail school, and getting paperwork all complete, we couldn’t wait any longer to rename our boat! We finally were ready to dedicate the time to our new family member as she deserved. That evening we had champagne ready, our offerings ready, and I even put on clean clothes and we performed our renaming ceremony with everyone present. We read the dedication, poured champagne into the sea, dropped our metal tag into the sea, toasted the gods, drank a little champagne ourselves, and the ceremony was complete. I got a little choked up but made it through. After it was all said and done she had her new name, we had christened her Giro.
Giro – Italian word (Michelle is Italian!)
We came up with the name Around ‘n Circles many years ago… we even joked that when we finally bought our boat, we would name her “Circles” because then we would be sailing around IN Circles, and it would be hilarious… Giro’s definitions include circle, around, revolution. We plan to take our boat around the world (a circle) and Giro embodies it all. I guess technically, we did name her circles… 🙂
We are in love with our newest family member. Meet Giro!
Now we need a name for the dinghy… any suggestions? (T/T Giro may be the legal name for registration purposes but it’s not as endearing, or funny.)
It’s difficult not only coming up with a new name for the boat but researching the plethora of different rituals to perform the task. We renamed out boat but the ‘feeling’ we got from the boat and ‘Neptune’ was one of relieve. Our boat was neglected by the previous owner and her ‘happiness’ of being bought by us was very noticeable. We didn’t have a party, didn’t strip all the previous name out (the previous owner was fanatical about etching the name on EVERYTHING) and we use the most precious liquid on board to offer to the sea gods….coffee. And voila! She’s renamed!
Love reading about your adventures….we plan on up grading to a catamaran in about 3 years then only a year to retirement by then…..I’m living vicariously through you and your family right now.
Thanks Karen! I love that your boat is “happy”! You are correct that coffee is the most precious. haha. I’m looking forward to being reunited with our boat next month… We left her under the care of our super awesome marina neighbors (who also own a Lagoon 380), but we miss her. Ready to live aboard and go exploring.