Boat Names

[seacow]

Naming any type of vessel is a tradition that is many centuries old. See (or sea!) below. Many of us in racing today still observe this tradition. It certainly adds color to our sport and spectators seem to like it.

Please tell what names you have put on your boat or the ones you have seen on other racing rigs that you like the best.

Names that I liked in the past include a flat bottom called "Das Firespttinloudenboomer" and of course the Unlimited called Slo-Mo-Shun which was anything but slow.
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Christening ceremonies were and are meant to bring good luck to the New Ship, and those who sail on it. Christening a new ship or naming ceremony's goes back to the early days of sailing ( ceremonies involved in naming and launching ships are based in traditions thousands of years old.) in the early rituals ship christenings of the Vikings were marked by the spilling of blood. In the Middle Ages, religious shrines were on the ship and a libation of wine was offered as the vessel hit the water as a substitute for the earlier blood sacrifice. The wine was poured on the deck appease King Neptune for good luck and a safe voyage. Ancient seafaring peoples, rimming the Mediterranean, launched their ships with rituals having religious overtones. These practices, varying inform as nations and cultures evolved through the centuries, have carried over to the present christening and launching ceremonies. The current tradition throughout the world has been that women christen ships, but it has not always been this way early ceremony's were performed by officials or local religious men

The traditional christening ceremony includes the smashing of a champagne bottle across the ship's bow. And Saying something like:
SPOKEN OUT LOUD
"I name this ship ___________ and may she bring fair winds and good fortune to all who sail on her."
The ship then makes a dramatic launch into water, In ways of the Old it is ok to pour the Wine or Champagne in the water from west to east. These traditional ceremonies can be great fun for you and your family's the more people the better, just be sure to bring enough champagne

Superstition or not the Titanic was never christened! And the USS Arizona was Christened with water rather than wine or champagne. Good examples of bad luck, God Bless Their Soul

Renaming a boat or a ship is considered to be very unlucky.

[david bryan]

LIQUOR BOX i only saw it a few time on a cracker box they made him take it off for some reason

[seacow]

LIQUOR BOX i only saw it a few time on a cracker box they made him take it off for some reason

Yes, good one. That was a classic! Reg Meacham also had the same name on his Hedlund BU in the 60s.

I was going to mention that name in my post but I though BRF would also censor it.
(Because Mk75 quarantined one of my posts two years ago. He did not like me using the initials of Boat Sport even though Russ Hill used those initials as an expletive in one of his posts a year later without any problems)

[Bunker Hill]

My favorite, by far:
MY LAST BOAT IV

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Among the earliest race boat names that captivated me were the blown fuel hydros Citation and Climax. I read and reread the stories of their world record runs. Then in one of the first issues of Boating News I had bought in 1965 was a beautiful color spread and the story of Hot Toddy's Ghost. Maybe Ron knows what's behind that name.

The first boat I named was called Spider. It came from an ex Bandido member who said it looked like a spider dancing across the water. I always liked the paint scheme on the bow of the unlimited "Miss Pico". It was like the Japanese Rising Sun battle flag, but the red rays emanated from the bow handle and spread out over the white deck of the bow. The "Spider" had black rays spread over a blue deck. It was a 10-6 Marchetti hydro.

I didn't name any more boats until the first ever C,D,F Butts Aerowing. It was named in honor of my Dad, Baldy Baldwin. We called it "Hookin' Bull". Thereafter we named all our boats. Some of them had Master Oil connotations such as Penitrator, or Eradicator, and a lot of them had Spanish type names like "Quien Sabe" which means who knows, or my last boat "Vibora de Cascabel" which is Spanish (or Mexican) for rattlesnake.

One unique Tim Butts boat we later owned was Tim's personal boat named "Ruthless" in which he won the 1973 UIM World Championships with. In 1972 Tim failed to qualify for the finals at Alex, so he loaned me the boat to defend my 1971 A hydro NOA World Title. I would have repeated except for falling out and bouncing back in the boat during the first heat. I won the second heat at up the record by a couple of miles per hour. We bought the complete rig from Tim in 1974 and renamed it after painting it our racing colors of red, white and blue. When I missed most of the season in 1975 due to a bad memorial day crash, we loaned the rig back to Tim to race. After I got back to racing, we renamed the boat "Loaner" and I won a nationals with it.

Then one of my favorite all time boat was our D/F Butts Aerowing named Shadowfax. On it's maiden voyage, the name was not on it so in the record books, it had no name. In fact all it had was a seal coat to prevent water from soaking in the plywood. Tim delivered it to Kaukauna, Wisconsin, and the very first two passes I ever took in the boat we set a new 700 Hydro record and got into the Evinrude 100 mile per hour club. At that time the boat had a new feature not seen on any other Butts hydros. It had a wing on each side of the cockpit angling down to the outside chine. The purpose was to provide tail lift and high speed stabilization. The lift would be at forty five degree angles from each side. At that time the rules did not allow any lifting devices but everyone knew that every hydro out their had a deck that was an airfoil. So it wasn't really cheating Tim and my Dad were very safety concious while also trying to eliminate a rule that was being violated by every hydroplane. So we called the wings "braces" which did help support the back of the boat which was very slim. It was a revolutionary design with four or five inch afterplanes. I had read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings several years earlier, and thought about the horse named "Shadowfax" that could run as fast as if it had wings, but it did not have wings. As I thought about it, this boat had the wing at the front between the two sponsons, and also two small wings at the rear, except that they "really weren't wings" So that's how I came to name it Shadowfax. The proofreaders in Detroit though had apparently never read the Hobbit or the trilogy and so had not heard of Shadowfax at that time. So they thought I wrote the name down wrong, and the several records that were held by that boat for a number of years was listed in the rule book as "Shadowfox".

[Ron Hill]

There was a second boat called Das Firespttinloudenboomer, Again.

I always kind of liked "Snapper".....

We Go II was a boat I saw at the Winnebagland Marathon in 1953. I named me Apple Box Scooters after that boat...

My dad's C racing Runabout was called Forever Amber....Never did quite understand the name!

Danny Morehouse called his boat U-No-Sip. (Read it backward).

Ed Olsen had all his boats named "Cream Puff"........He did own a Bakery Clled Priscilla's Cake Box in Garden Grove.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Miss Nickel Eagle was the name of the first electric boat to exceed trolling motor speed. It was 1979 and she set the first kilo record for an electric powered boat.

[oldalkydriver]

Growing up around alkies in the late 40's, early fifties and some of the sixties, I remember lots of boat names;
C Service C-43 Manual Carnacis "Woisme"
Lou Morphy "Shooting Star"
Boots Morphy, "Miss Shooting Star"
Bob Jackson C Racing Hydro, "Over Easy" Don't know if it was eggs or blow overs!
John Toprahanian 'F' Runabout C-174 'Facsmile' after coping Parsons runabout.
Chuck Parsons 'F' runabout Chuck Wagon, Hydro (460) Chatter Box, later with merc; 'Toy Box'.
Someone from Hawaii in late 50's at Long Beach 'kumoniwanalaya' his other boat, 'lakanuki'. Being a young kid I didn't understand. Then came the army!!!
Alexander LA. 1976, Someone used the name; 'whataheadache'. I later name my thoroughbred; 'Another Headache'.
Arny Adams 'B' Hydro, 'whatever'
some ones 48 cu inch hydro; 'nitro express'
cracker bos or sk runabout, 'hee haw'
All of a sudden, I'm suffering a senior moment. Besides, I need to drive to the airport. Going to Guam for 26 hours.

[MooreRacing]

These aren't names I've seen, just a few I came-up with, and wanted to use...

Something running a Cleaver- "Leave it to Cleaver"

Two boats I'm looking at for COR-100:
1. For a green/redish-brown hull- "Rotten to thee COR"
2. For a red-decked, white bottomed hull- "Apple COR":

[Yellowjacket]

When Mike O'Brien was got his first Dale Hull "D" runabout he tested a couple of different props, and they were "Ok" but nothing special. Then he tested a Dewald prop and the boat just came alive. He said "after you came out of the corner the boat just lifted up and accelerated" like nothing he had experienced before he said "it felt like it was going to accelerate right out from under you", and he knew he had something really special.

He hadn't named the boat yet, and was trying to find something appropriate, and on his first race with the new prop he got a decent, but not great start and wasn't in the lead going into the first corner so he went to the outside and when he straightened out he just left the guys he was racing against with that acceleration.

After the heat one of the competitors came up to him and said, "Man I had you by a bit when we were coming off the corner, but then you just took off and you were Long Gone" At that moment he said he knew he had a name for the boat.