Badly named boats
by Steve Xoh

II’ve learnt a lot from spending so much time on the River Thames over the last year - the history of the river, how it changes over the 230 km I have kayaked along it and all about the wildlife that calls it home. But one of the things I have been surprised to discover is how many boats I have come across with terrible names.

What surprises me even more is that the bigger and more expensive-looking the boat, the worse the name seems to be. I imagine the owners of these boats as the type of people whose day-to-day life doesn’t revolve around making puns, yet they display them proudly on the side of one of their most expensive possessions and then sail it around for all to see. I think of these boat names as the maritime equivalent of a bad-taste Christmas jumper, albeit one that is visible for the entire year and costs significantly more.

Boat naming is, of course, an ancient tradition. For as long as human beings have been taking to the sea, boats have been given names that invoke gods, mythological creatures, kings and queens or locations that convey power and status. And there is a lot of superstition around boats, with rituals around naming and launching them and the idea that renaming a vessel is famously very bad luck. And whilst there have been some curiously named naval and merchant vessels over the years (HMS Cockchafer, HMS Spanker, HMS Tickler and three ships named SS Lesbian, for example), it seems that the bad puns are reserved for private boat ownership.

One of the logical reasons for this phenomenon is that powered boats on the Thames have to be legally registered and named. On top of this, the name has to be unique, which means that the more boats that are registered, the number of available names diminishes significantly. This at least explains why this phenomenon remains a boat-related one and why we don’t have cars called “I wheely love you” or houses named “A tree-mendous gnome”.

Some of my “favourite” names from recent trips have been “For Pete’s Sake”, “Seas the Day”, xxxxxxxxxx. Now I realise that my description of these names as “bad” is utterly subjective and that maybe I am just a pretentious artist who doesn’t appreciate puns. But I do wonder how secretly embarrassed the owners become once the excitement of buying and naming a boat fades.

I therefore propose a test that all boat owners should have to pass before naming their vessel. It is inspired by an idea that the comedian Stephen Merchant came up with to test whether a band name is good or not. Merchant proposed that every band should have to imagine their name being announced in front of a huge festival crowd and would only be regarded as acceptable if they didn’t feel any level of cringe. (e.g. “Please welcome to the stage FRUMPY BUTTER”). I propose a similar test where boat owners are required to put out a VHF Mayday call to the coastguard and are only allowed to name their boat if they experience a total absence of embarrassment at telling them that NIGEL’S LITTLE NAUTI BOY is in danger.