Boat Names

 One of my favourite photo snapping projects, and definitely the one that has been going for the longest is Boat Names. 

Naming a boat is like naming a child. Or a band. You may want it to mean something to everyone who sees it, or you may want it to mean something just to you. Or you may have intended the first and got the second even. 

Having been trying to have a boat of my own for years, I have had a series of  lists of possible names, even when a prospective boat is not even on the cards. 

Every harbour I go to, I will, at the first chance, walk up and down the quay and snap the boat names, especially the funny or interesting ones. 

Over the years I have noticed that some names are more popular than others. I would say that there are probably more female names than male for sure. In any case boats are supposed to be female, at least in England they are. 

I refer to boats, especially beautiful ones, as "she". It is out of respect and love. 

Apparently Germans consider boats to be male. I found this out when buying a wooden boat from some German friends. I kept saying "she" and they laughed. Then they explained.

Over the years I have found boats named after all my ex-wives, daughters, girlfriends, girl friends and acquaintances. 

One of the most popular is:

SOFIA means Wisdom in Greek

 

In fact I have so many Sofias I could do a whole post on that name alone.  But let's start from some funny and odd ones.

AGINARA actually means artichoke in Greek. A vegan name obviously

Antidote. Actually quite clever.

Babakita is a play on greek words, split in two it would mean "Dad, look!"

Captain Guilty the third no less, spotted last year (2023) in Mourtos

Oh how the times they are a changin'... Cocktail bar boat in Mourtos

I have to confess it sounded odd, spotted in Porto Karras, but it translates to "Second Home"

Platu 25 spotted in Kavala. makes sense really, there is no way sleep and sailing a Platu go together

And now, one of the weirdest names I have seen, in greek even weirder.

Whoever is picking names for Sunsail boats has a weird sense of humour.

So that's it for boat names for today. Many, many more to come. It is not just the names, but the boats themselves, some of them are such great characters... 

Like this one, spotted in Ithaca if I remember well, Kioni.

It takes a lot of balls to name a boat like that. Especially a 4,5 meter wooden fishing boat

Stay tuned for more, coming soon

Reflections on reflections

 I am no photographer. I just consider myself a "Happy Snapper". And I also think I do have a little bit of an "eye" for certain kinds of images. I don't have a particularly good camera, just a battered Nikon B500 bridge camera with a big zoom. The image sensor is pretty small so it fails in low light and quickly moving stuff, but I make do. And of course nowadays my phone camera is of a much higher resolution (and software capability) than my camera.

My favorite subjects are obviously boats, nature and animals, boats, the female form, musical concerts and did I mention boats?

In the "Boats" folder of my collection there are of course a number of subcategories/folders.

One of them says "Boat Names" another "Cruiseships" and another rather cryptically "Reflections".

I remember the first time I noticed a reflection of myself in the sea while on a boat. It was in 1986 and I was racing on an IOR Quarter Tonner called Glafki II from Brindisi to Corfu in what was the first Brindisi-Corfu rece organised jointly by HORC Corfu and the Lega di Navale of Brindisi. We were becalmed somewhere North of Othonoi and as I looked over the side, camera in hand, I could see myself in full , blue and slightly psychedelic detail. 

In the last ten years or so I have started noticing relections again, and I feel there is something about them. Especially in calm weather, they are always there but it is as if they don't get noticed so much. And then once you ve seen them they won't go away...

Here are a few examples of what I mean:

Summer 2023 returning from Ereikoussa on a very calm day

A mooring line reflected and distorted

Fishing boat in Meganisi

What a bit of polishing can do with the sun reflecting from the sea

A RIB moving along next to us on a calm day

Same RIB again, just colours and glassy waves, an abstract

Sometimes I will throw something in the water to make some ripples

And then they slowly settle

Bavaria reflected

Also amazing, every snap is different

Another rope reflected with the pink sky

Another Kaiki in Meganisi

I have a great many of these reflection photos. Sometimes it is the ky reflected or boats, sometives even a bit of flotsam or a buoy. 

More to come... but the next installment of the blog will be on Boat Names!!
 

The Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 54DS and me

 The first SO54DS, as they are known for short, that I had anything to do with was "Felicita", a dark blue hulled charter version that belonged to a company we worked with, when I was with "Sail your Soul". 

Felicita in some busy local bay

  I didn't get to do much sailing on her, but did have to organise removing her mast one winter, a major undertaking. The mast on the Sun Odyssey 54s is keel stepped and it is very well sealed where it goes through the deck. Meaning it is quite difficult to remove when the time comes as the sealant is sort of poured in there to make a good watertight seal. The stuff is called Spartite and it is wicked.

A couple of years later I was asked to help deliver another Sun Odyssey 54DS from Sukosan in Croatia to Corfu. The date kept being pushed back and finally in July 2019 I flew to Split. There was already a skipper and crew onboard, but a "mentor" friend said to me when I told him about my forthcoming trip, "if they are already two onboard and they want you as a third you won't me be crewing you will be the skipper. And oh was he right. As soon as I arrived, it was obvious they were counting on me to organise the trip. supplies course and papers etc. Part of the reason was possibly the fact that no one had an RYA license onboard. Also the one crew member had no experience at all. Anyway, during the trip the acting skipper resigned and I took over.

Sailing away from Croatia

Sunset amongst the Dalmatian Islands

The boat was named Morpheus and had been done up in a very striking metallic blue/green foil. Every harbour we went to someone would ask about the colour! "Morpheus" had been a part charter/part private boat and had lots of equipment onboard, including, aircon, generator and loads of fridge space.The new owner also had a good eye for decoration and everything was colour matched and looked very funky.

Morpheus somewhere in the Ionian

That summer we did a few trips around the Diapontia islands north of Corfu, the Epirus Mainland, Paxos, and further down to Lefkas, Kefalonia and Zakynthos. while at the same time getting to know the yacht. We had a lovely stripy blue white assymetric spinnaker, of which I quickly got the hang of setting, and we spent a few weeks in the South Ionian sailing around under spinnaker, often the only boat out there with a big headsail, making us instantly recognizable. Friendly skippers would send texts saying "is that you I can see on the horizon?"

The assymetric had a "sock" which made it much easier to use. It gave us a good turn of speed. It is visible right up at the top.

I eventually found, like on other boats that gybing can be a bit of trouble, especially if short handed. The easiest way really is to just douse it at least hafway with the sock, gybe and then open it again. It gives so much more control.

  The owner had already agreed to buy one more identical boat, so in October I set off to Croatia to survey it. It was very different to the lovely "Morpheus". A bog standard charter boat with very little equipment or extras. Also she had a teak deck which was sort of on its last legs. This all went into my report, but the sale went ahead and in February 2020 I flew to Zagreb and drove to Sukosan in order to pick up "Lady Stardust" as she was now called and deliver her to Corfu. More details and photos of this adventure in a forthcoming post.

Lady Stardust about to leave Croatia

I left the company in the middle of the 2020 season and worked on a variety of other boats, also became a sailing instructor. Last year, 2023, a student of the school I mainly work for, contacted us looking for someone to help deliver his newly bought, blue hulled, Sun Odyssey 54DS from Lefkas to Lavrion, sailing round the bottom of the Pelloponese. I had a week or so free and was up to the job, so off I went. The owner also took instruction on sailing during the trip as he had a motor boat license only. We made good time and after a stop in Lavrion, decided to head all the way up to Chalkidiki where the boat was going to be based. 

 

 

When we arrived I headed up the mast to fix the Windex and check the rig. 

 

Am I maybe getting too old (or heavy) for this?

 

Meanwhile we got along well with the owner, and he decided to book me for another two weeks. So we did a tour of the North Aegean... And I am booked to go out on her also this year.

But more of that in another post...