And so it’s out: our boat will be a Leopard 48! See the “About” section on the blog for details on the lengthy (Not!) decision process behind that choice. Just got word that manufacturing will start soon! We are quite excited!
Of course, even before we picked the boat, we have been pondering boat names. This decision is remarkably much harder than picking the actual boat. The main reasons are the family rules:
1. Boat name will not have pun in it. (Greg’s rule)
2. Boat name will not be cheesy reference to some sort of cat, just because it’s a catamaran. (Mel’s rule)
3. Boat name will be easy to spell and say over VHF. (General common sense rule)
4. Boat name will not be ostentatious. (Boat will take care of that all by itself!)
5. Boat name must be agreed upon by all family members.
The above rules therefore have excluded a number of neurology-inspired boat names thought up by Mel’s excited colleagues: “Migratory paresthesias”, “Witzelsucht”, “Doc’s Holiday”, “Oscillopsia”, “Hydrocephalus”, and “Synapse of the Sea.”
Of course, rapidly rejected were some bureaucratic inspirations: “Burnout”, “RVU This!”, and, of course, the Mayo slogan of oppression: “Working Differently.”
Mel was really into “Super Happy” for a while. Alas, everyone else was NOT.
Greg thought of a nice one: “Kipona Aloha”, Hawaiian for “Deep Love.” However, none of us are Hawaiian…
The kids and Greg liked “Adventure Time,” after a favorite show of theirs. Mel does not like Adventure Time. It is too weird!
We could reference our self-proclaimed appellation with “Nerd Alert,” or, “Nerds Afloat,” but then we might be dooming the kids forever…
One day, we realized we all liked Calvin and Hobbes. The kids therefore wanted to name the boat “Hobbes” and the dink “Calvin.” A quick Wikipedia search revealed we were not opposed to the philosopher Hobbes’s ideas on society, so that would work. Mel is the only one with reservations about that one. It is so simple, it feels like a missed opportunity somehow…
Still in this idea stream, Mel proposed “Tuna Fish Sandwich” and, “Lucky Rocketship Underpants.” No one wants to be known as the “Underpants” people when in port, so that was nixed. But she still likes the idea of rolling out this beautiful new boat next to “Sea Wind” and “Prometheus Unbound” and “Soliloquy II” and saying loudly, “I name thee, ‘Tuna Fish Sandwich’!” Take that, stuffy naming conventions! Oh wait…we would be the “Tuna” people…this is hard, OK!
And so we are still tossing around a few survivors of this months-long process: “Hobbes”, “Tuna Fish Sandwich” (Okay, Mel is the only one clinging to that one,) “Nerd Alert”, and the one I haven’t mentioned yet, because it makes no sense:
The Amazing Marvin
Oh yes, there is no sense behind it. Tommy thought it up one day at lunch and we all cracked up. We do not know a Marvin. None of us does magic, or acrobatics, or stunts. It’s just intrinsically funny for no apparent reason, like ducks and irritated cats. Of course, Allie is worried people will think we are magicians, but that will be easy to clear up when, instead of returning the coin extracted from behind the ear, we pocket it. And when I brought the name up again after a long hiatus from being considered, Tommy exclaimed, dumbfounded, “Are you seriously considering that?”
So, we still do not have a boat name yet.
Leave a Reply