It's About That Name "ABISHAG"!!!!!

The Master's Personal Log:

Choosing the name for a boat is a process rife with difficulty and trouble. According to nautical tradition, you are never supposed to change the name of a boat when it changes hands. However, nowadays it seems no one is happy with the name of any used boat they acquirer and the first thing to change is the name.

Determining what to name your "new" boat is often difficult for one wants the name to be unique but not completely weird. It should say something about you and why you sail but in a way that avoid schmaltz or terminal cuteness. On the other hand you do not want a name so out there that it makes no sense. If you think about it is something akin to naming a rock & roll band. Go to your computer and get a listing of bands and the names range all over From "The Band" to " Dead Kennedys" to "Toad the Wet Sprocket." It is a wide open field.

There are actually several books on how to name your boat and if you have friends and family, the sources and suggestions are practically endless. In my 30 years of boating I have had four(4) different sailboats and have now come to the fifth that needs to be named. The first boat was a Morgan 22 which got named "SANCTUARY" courtesy of my sisters. I liked the name, a place of safety, enough to keep it for the next boat, an O'Day 27. Next up was a J/24, a pure racing boat. I bought that in attempt to find out if it was the boat or the Captain who was responsible for a rather dismal racing record.(Turns out it was the Captain!) It's name came from a shouted command that was often directed at students at the J World School in Newport. Rather than say "Hike out", the instructor of the boat I was on would yell, "Cheeks to the Teak," indicating he wanted you to sit on the teak rail that encircled the boat. When the J/24 was purchased it was the first thing that came to mind as a name, "CHEEKS TO THE TEAK." It was actually a great name. For the years I owned a boat, it was a rare sail when at least one boat did not pass by and then come back and comment on the name. Sadly when the boat was sold, the new owners changed the name was changed. How could they?

The next boat was a 27 foot Stiletto catamaran. I would have named it "CHEEKS TO THE TEAK"except for the fact that the catamaran heeled not at all, or at least not to the degree that you would need to shift weight outboard. There was also the fact that there was no teak anywhere on deck. It was all fiberglass and Air-x, Nomax, etc. I had intended to name it "CHEEKY MONKEY," simply because I liked the way a comedian, Eddie Izzard, delivered the phrase in a concert I saw, only discover there was a least one other "Cheeky Monkey" around. I just shortened it to "CHEEKY" and let it go with that.

And now the new boat. When I purchased it, it was called "BLITHE SPIRIT." Wanting to eventually take the boat outside of US waters, I wanted to officially document it. This makes it a lot less of a hassle with customs officials in foreign ports. Going through the process, I discovered that currently there were 17 US Documented boats with the name "BLITHE SPIRIT." Too many, too many, plus the name did nothing for me. I thought of going back to "CHEEKS TO THE TEAK" but the size and displacement of this boat sort of makes such a maneuver unnecessary. Should it ever become necessary, I would have other rather serious concerns, so I let it slide. Another name that was considered, and which was the last to be dropped, was "RADICAL SABBATICAL." It says a great deal about where I am these days and the journey on which I find myself, but it was, in the end, just too "cutesy."

I finally decided on "ABISHAG". It is the sort of name you come up with on a 12 hour round-trip by car between Mystic and Annapolis for the survey. For those of you who may not be as up to date on your Old Testament as you might like, "Abishag" is a name found in 1Kings 1:1-4. It is the name of a young maiden who is chosen to nurse and care for King David in his old age. My surveyor, Tommy Greaves, having completed the survey, told me, "She'll take good care of you," and now that I am getting older, my right hip is aging faster than the rest of me, it seemed strangely appropriate. So "ABISHAG" it is.