Boat Denaming Ceremony

We have had several requests for copies of John Vigor’s Boat Denaming Ceremony. John Vigor is a boating writer and resident of Bellingham, Washington. Below is an excerpt for the denaming ceremony from his book  “How to Rename Your Boat…and 19 Other Useful Ceremonies, Superstitions, Prayers, Rituals, and Curses”

<Christening ceremony of our first catamaran named Zuri

Here is an alternative, longer and more complete boat de-naming and re-naming ceremony.

Excerpt from the Denaming Ceremony

I once knew a man in Florida who told me he’d owned 24 different yachts and renamed every single one of them.

“Did it bring you bad luck?” I asked.
“Not that I’m aware of,” he said. “You don’t believe in those old superstitions, do you?”
Well, yes. Matter of fact, I do. And I’m not alone. Actually, it’s not so much being superstitious as being v-e-r-y careful. It’s an essential part of good seamanship.

Some years ago, when I wanted to change the name of my newly purchased 31-foot sloop from “Our Way” to “Freelance”, I searched for a formal “denaming ceremony” to wipe the slate clean in preparation for the renaming. I read all the books, but I couldn’t find one. What I did learn, though, was that such a ceremony should consist of five parts: an invocation, an expression of gratitude, a supplication, a re-dedication and a libation. So I wrote my own short ceremony: Vigor’s inter-denominational denaming ceremony. It worked perfectly. Freelance carried me and my family many thousands of deep-sea miles both north and south of the equator, and we enjoyed good luck all the way. I used the same ceremony recently to change the name of my newly acquired Santana 22 from “Zephyr” to “Tagati”, a Zulu word that means “magic,” or “bewitched.” We’re hoping she’ll sail like a witch when I finally get her in the water this summer after an extensive refit.

Before the Boat Denaming Ceremony

I’ll give you the exact wording of Vigor’s denaming ceremony, but first you must:

• Avoid bringing the new name aboard until all traces of the old name are removed and the naming ceremony is completed.
• Remove all physical traces of the boat’s old name
• Take the old log book ashore, along with any other papers that bear the old name
• Check for offending books and charts with the name inscribed
• Sand away the old name from the lifebuoys, transom, top-side, dinghy, and oars. Yes, sand it away.
• Examine inside and out for the old name including key rings, coffee mugs, wine glasses, towels and linens, trophies and plaques, etc. to remove from the boat or to sand the name from
• Purchase quality champagne to appease the gods and your guests.

Be ruthless. Painting over is not good enough. You’re dealing with gods here, you understand, not mere dumb mortals. If the old name is carved or etched, try to remove it or, at the very minimum, fill it with putty and then paint over. And don’t place the new name anywhere on the boat before the denaming ceremony is carried out. That’s just tempting fate.

The Boat Denaming Ceremony

You’ll find the actual denaming ceremony script to be read during the ceremeony at the bottom of this article.

How you conduct the ceremony depends entirely on you. If you’re the theatrical type, and enjoy appearing in public in your yacht club blazer and skipper’s cap, you can read it with flair on the foredeck before a gathering of distinguished guests. But if you find this whole business faintly silly and embarrassing, and only go along with it because you’re scared to death of what might happen if you don’t, you can skulk down below and mumble it on your own. That’s perfectly okay. The main thing is that you carry it out. The words must be spoken.

I compromised by sitting in Tagati’s cockpit with the written-out ceremony folded into a newspaper, so that any passerby would think I was just reading the news to my wife, sitting opposite. Enough people think I’m nuts already. Even my wife has doubts. The last part of the ceremony, the libation, must be performed at the bow, just as it is in a naming ceremony. There are two things to watch out for here. Don’t use cheap-cheap champagne, and don’t try to keep any for yourself. Buy a second bottle if you want some. Use a brew that’s reasonably expensive, based on your ability to pay, and pour the whole lot on the boat. One of the things the gods of the sea despise most is meanness, so don’t try to do this bit on the cheap.

As you might expect from a veteran deity, good wine is required to soften them up before you you make your request to rename your vessel. Of course, gods like good wine so don’t cheap out less your denaming go awry and you incur the bad luck you seek to avoid. Yes, you will pour it overboard for the gods’ pleasure and not yours, but do not go for the sale bin when selecting your wine! Be grateful that we use wine now rather than the virgin’s blod that was sacrificed by the Greeks and Romans, and the urine that was used to clean the boat’s soul. Red wine and champagne are much easier and more appetizing!

What sort of time period should elapse between this denaming ceremony and a new naming ceremony? There’s no fixed time. You can do the renaming right after the denaming, if you want, but I personally would prefer to wait at least 24 hours to give any lingering demons a chance to clear out.

Celebrating Her New Name

(See our full description of the boat renaming ceremony, the excerpt from Vigor continues below.)

Now you can pop the cork, shake the bottle, and spray the whole of the contents on the bow. When that’s done, you can quietly go below and enjoy the other bottle yourself. Incidentally, I had word from a friend last month that the Florida yachtsman I mentioned earlier had lost his latest boat, a 22-foot trailer-sailer. Sailed her into an overhead power line. Fried her. She burned to the waterline. Bad luck? Not exactly. He and his crew escaped unhurt. He was just very careless. He renamed her, as usual, without bothering to perform Vigor’s famous interdenominational denaming ceremony. And this time, at long last, he got what he deserved.

“How to Rename Your Boat and 19 Other Useful Ceremonies, Superstitions, Prayers, Rituals, and Curses”