Capella, Gandalf, Reprise, Swallow

Apropos of nothing, I am thinking this morning about sailboat names. It's a sort of a habit with pretty words, to test them against the rules I learned from my father about the best name for a yacht:
1) It may not be named for a living person.
2) It is best if it is exactly seven letters long.
3) It is best if at least one set of letters repeats; more repetition is better (e.g. Reprise, Capella, and Swallow are better than Gandalf because the first three have two sets of repeating letters while the last has only the repeating "a"s).

Those are the rules as I learned them. Of course I broke them when naming the Hooked On Tonics with my boat partner, who has a quite different naming philosophy. But I thought for a long, long time about what I might name the boat that would conform to the rules. The name I liked best was "Celeste", because my boat has a grey hull, evocative of the skin color of the queen of the elephants herself.

Comments

[monica]

yay for names that have to do with music! capella is great, but i think the boat would have be replacing another one in order to name it Reprise.

[Milbarge]

I know it doesn't fit your rules, but I would name a boat "Milbarge."

[mallarme]

When I was a kid we had a boat that I wanted to paint green and name "Toxic Waste". I don't know why they wouldn't take my suggestion.

[TPB, Esq.]

I suppose the Achile Lauro and Nostromo are right out, eh?

I like how the Brits name their warships. For each line, a theme is chosen (i.e., "Compass Rose," "Tudor Rose," etc.; "Iseult," "Guinivere," "Heloise"), and the only rule other than consistency of theme is that no male names may be used.

Of course, since the Brits started the grog and/or gin rules on ships, they definitely were on to something when it came to sailing.

[Slithery D]

My step-dad's old Hunter 27 was the "Bacchus," which is pretty close to ideal under your rules, and of kin to "Hooked on Tonics."

[Michael Toy]

For the obscure reference how about "Olorin" which is another of Gandalf's names (i think), but also has a "boat-y" feel to me, whatever that is.

[Amy]

I like Celeste. She is the sort of long-suffering overlooked character (read "mother") who ought to have a boat named after her.

My dad has a sailboat named Larke, which doesn't fit the rules but has a nice feel. We have a 17 foot powerboat named Howahya which seems to fit the rules except it's much too silly for a noble and lovely sailboat.