Guest Blog Post: Naming Things

One of the tasks when getting a new boat is that you have to name it. On a boat of a certain size, this is a serious task. (smaller boats are exempt from this requirement and may, some would say should, have a silly name like Low Flying Patio Furniture)

Not so serious is the naming of parts of the boat, like the autopilot or dinghy. Our friends Synthia and Sylvia are the undisputed masters at this when they named the autopilot on their Hawkfarm 28 “Leona Helms-a-lee”.

On our recent visit to Saltair, Hilari and I noticed many unnamed items, so spent our on watch time coming up with some. Here is the official list:

  • The chart plotters are all named Harry, as in Harry Plotter. (there are too many of them on Saltair to give each it’s own unique name, so they’re all just known as Harry)
  • Autopilot 1 is named Tipsy Tiller (or Tipsy for short). Autopilot 1 is actually a pretty good at steering, but Tipsy Tiller is fun to say so that’s the name it gets. Ironic names are OK!
  • Autopilot 2 is named Happy Helmsman. Happy is actually not the smoothest helmsman, so in this case the name kinda fits.

There are may other items to be named (for example, we didn’t even think about naming the windlass, which is an important, but sometimes unappreciated, piece of equipment and deserves a very good name). Fortunately Saltair has many long passages (and new guests) in her future, giving plenty of opportunities to come up with good names. We look forward to hearing about them.

The dinghy may have a name, and it’s very good! But we didn’t come up with it and I’m not sure if it’s been officially adopted yet, so we shall not leak the name here. (and if you’re the mystery person who that came up with “PS”, we heartily approve and hope the name sticks).

Finally, we noticed that Adam’s happy place seems to be the nav station. We weren’t intending on naming that part of the boat, but Mariners Man Cave seems to fit.
(Adam in the Mariners Man Cave)


Timo & Hilari