What's in a name?

Throughout history sailors have believed that to change the name of a boat is to bring misfortune upon it. But there are ways to appease the gods of the sea and the four winds so as to avoid bad luck. After much research and preparation, we performed the ceremony to "un-name" a boat, removing all traces of previous names from the boat. Items such as embroidered towels were donated while written records had the old names obscured. We found traces of both previous names of the boat aboard, so careful consideration was given to remove all mention of previous identity. The goal is to ask Neptune, God of the Sea, to forget the name of the boat.

Next came the renaming ceremony accompanied by more Champagne given to Neptune and the Four Winds to encourage their blessing upon our newly renamed sailboat, Sirena. Finally the new name was uncovered on the transom and we were ready to set sail.

We performed the ceremonies in Roche Harbor Bay on October 12, 2015 with the assistance of Owen Brown and Jay Spalding, who were to crew with is as we sailed the newly christened Sirena as wet set sail on October 13, 2015 down the coast of Washington and Oregon for sunny California ahead of the inevitable winter storms of the North.

Sirena, "mermaid" in the Filipino language, was chosen as the name of our vessel because of the prevalence of such similar names for mermaid across many cultures. From Wikipedia...

"In Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Romanian,Portuguese, and Filipino the word for mermaid is respectively Sirena, Sirene, Sirena,Syrena, Sirena, Sereia and Sirena."

We find it to be a fitting name for this beautiful sailboat who will hopefully carry us around the world to visit these various cultures and foreign shores.