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| Your help wanted! |
For everyone who made suggestions for boat names—thank you! I stopped counting at 100 suggestions. Let me know if you’d like to see the whole list and I will post it.
When we first started out, we were looking at a Pearson 365, like the one we sailed halfway around the world in, spending 5 years living aboard her, before we sold her in Australia. After living the last 3 years in 300 square on a trawler, I just wasn’t up to committing to spend another 5 years living in 150 square feet of living space, especially if we found ourselves quarantined aboard for some indefinite period.
When I asked for name suggestions and gave our criteria, we’d made an offer on a big sister to the Pearson 365, a Pearson 424. We were concerned about how much work the 424 would require.
Here’s the boat we decided on. We’re a bit nervous, the boat we picked is a lot more boat than we initially planned on, but we’re excited. Maryann and Don are friends, and they put a lot of thought and love into the many improvements they made on the boat.
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| Gulfstar Hersch 45′ exterior image from SailboatData.com. |
Yesterday, we completed our in-water inspection. There are a few items to attend to and some of the reports are still to come but no showstoppers. We also still need to see the boat’s bottom side out of the water, though we’re reasonably confident there will be no show-stoppers when that happens.
The boat name needs to not only fit us and how we expect to live on the boat, but the boat name also needs to fit the boat, too. Some names that seemed perfect for a fixer-upper boat aren’t right for a well-maintained boat, which is what we’re buying. The Gulfstar is a zipper sailing craft than a Pearson, and her interior is more elegant.
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| Gulfstar Hersch 45′ interior layout from SailboatData.com. |
We’ve decided to make Collins Beach our homeport—the location posted on our transom (the back of a boat). We anchored the last three summers off Collins, on the Columbia River between the Oregon and Washington border. Collins is more than just a place, it’s a lifestyle. With Collins already on our transom as our home port, we wanted the boat name to speak more to our boat’s personality and our sense of travel. Our plans are to sail to the Bahamas in February, the US eastern seaboard mid-May to November, then the Caribbean West Indies after that.
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| Me and Wayne in a hot spring at the ocean’s edge in Guadeloupe, 2012. We plan to return to this area in about a year. We also wanted a name that rolled easily off the tongue when we needed to repeat its name three times, back-to-back. |
Given that. we’ve narrowed the names down to these three (or you can suggest an alternative):
- Gallivant: traveling for pleasure
- Kelefesia: a magical place we visited in Tonga (click here for a 5-minute video of that), which translates to “many islands”
- Luna Canto: singing moon
Or—you can suggest an alternative—though we’ve already received over 100 names.
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| Off St. Martin, 2012. We plan to return to this area in about a year. |
Location Location
The boat is in Jacksonville, Florida at N30 16.646 W81 42.774. We’re in Fort Pierce, Florida, ~ 3 1/2 hours drive south of JAX. We plan to haul out in Green Cove Springs, Florida.
Well…Collins Beach being what it is and all…seems "Jaybird" lends itself to an applicable phrase…
That is good!!!
Kelefesia. "Many islands" and "magical" sound like a perfect fit.
That is pretty freakin' approp!
Thanks!
Agree! Fits us, not as much the boat.
Have you heard of this naming firm? I heard that they have a new online course that will guide you throughout the process and will also give you some tools to use on your own. click here