Author: Seth
Picture: Our boat, renamed!
Google Earth Location: 36 57 49.62N 76 17 38.55W

Sailors are always confronted with the dilemma of renaming a boat. Most consider it bad luck, but most end up renaming their boat anyway. In the end we felt that the boat would never really, truly be "ours" if the name didn't mean something special to us, so we decided to go for it.

As we soon found out, renaming your boat is a serious endeavor. Although I can't say this with any credibility, it's almost like deciding on the name of your child as the name says as much about you as it does your boat. It's registered with the US Coast Guard and it becomes your call sign and nickname. In fact, we met a guy today whose friend introduced him as "Jim, he's got "No Clue," when in reality his boat name is "No Clew." Your name is used on every VHF radio call, so when you hail another vessel or a marina this becomes more than just your identifier, it becomes your name. Last names don't mean anything, unless it's the name of your boat, so our name had to represent both of us and it had to be something we both liked ("the Hynes" was clearly out, sorry Dad)...

So, we did what every MBA couple would do, we did our research! We looked online, we walked the docks to see what everyone else had chosen and we asked our friends for their opinions. In the end, we found that just like people, boat names can vary from mundane to fascinating and are rarely salient without being absurd. However, they always fall into the following three categories:

1) The ubiquitous, cheesy, PLAY ON WORDS. Names like "No Clew." For some reason catamaran owners seem to love this category with names like "Cat Nap," "Black Cat," "Double Trouble," Cat's Meow," and so on. It was enough to make us sick and we decided that unless we were to fully embrace the cheesiness of the category and name our boat "Cat-Tastic" we would have to pass on this category and move to category number two...

2) The GODDESS category - naming a boat after a woman. I would say that WE liked this category, but it was really Elizabeth that liked this category. After all, her name would be on the boat! But in the end we agreed that one too many a famous boat had been named "the Elizabeth" and we decided against it, despite its romantic overtones.

3) The last category is what I called the SOMETHING ABOUT YOU category. These boat names say something personal about the owner or mean something deeper about the boat's journey. We liked this category, as it remained serious and made boat ownership more personal to us. We toyed with several names in this category, but in the end decided on one name...

We chose the name "Honeymoon" as we felt it best described our objectives of the next year = to spend some time with one another following our wedding and to enjoy our first year together without the stresses of everyday life. We also felt it was fairly unique - we certainly didn't see any other boats named this. And finally, we thought it remained romantic and telling of our personalities - our reason for being (and maybe we'll score some free drinks in every harbor we pull into with such a romantic boat name!). After all, this is our HONEYMOON, right?!

A special thanks goes out to our good friend Ben Everett, who designed our "Honeymoon" boat logo. If you think he did a good job, let him know in the comments section below. And click on the right for more pictures of our "Boat Naming Ceremony." We opted out of breaking a bottle of champagne against the bow for a more casual (and careful) pour over the bow... Click the link and check it out!

Here's to a wonderful HONEYMOON!!!