Naming of Minnie B
10 April 2006
Naming a boat is more difficult than naming a child – you can hardly call a child ‘Ocean Ranger’, ‘Dun workin’, ‘Albatross of Down’ or even ‘Bereft of Ideas’. We went through stars, Greek and Roman Gods, Celtic Legends, humorous, double entendres – everything. This was proving difficult until we stopped and thought about the kind of names people have traditionally given boats, such as ‘Jessie May’, ‘Agnes D’ and so on. The obvious was to do something with the names of our daughters Anna and Julia, but that just seemed a little too easy. So we stuck with the female names and went back in time to our favourite grandmothers (you have to skip a generation) and our Ovni became ‘Minnie B’ (Minnie for Norma’s nan and B for Phil’s grandmother – Acsah Bywater).
When Brian returned from the airport with everyone, we gathered on the foredeck and Jill and Julia duly performed the rites. Since we were taking no chances, we had prayers to all of the gods that might just possibly have a hand in Minnie B’s future.
and, Jill completed the ceremony by invoking the goodwill of the wind gods:
Aeolius, Regent of the winds, viceroy of the Gods we call upon you to give safe passage to this yacht and bring good fortune to all who sail in her.
To Boreas, the North Wind; Zephyr, the West Wind; Notus the South Wind; and the East Wind, Eurus we call upon you to bless this yacht with beam reaches and broad reaches at 12 to 18 knots, sailing smoothly and blissfully across the seas and oceans of the world.
Julia wrote and said a Christian prayer:
Heavenly Father
We praise you for your power in all things. We thank you for the way that you have blessed this project so that we are standing here to-day ready to name this boat.
We pray that you will continue to bless this boat and those who sail in her. We pray for safety, fun and fellowship on board. May your blessing be upon her always.
In your Almighty name
Amen
Jill concluded with:
I now name this yacht “MinnieB”, may God bless her and all who sail in her.
Champagne was drunk and a generous quantity poured over the bow and offered to Neptune. Not that we are superstitious, but why take chances?