Out with the old, in with the new (boat name)!

To change or not change your boat’s name? That is the age old question! Who am I kidding, renaming a sailboat is bad luck according to most.  Believe me, researching for this blog post had me scared straight. Just google “changing a boat name” and see what you find. There’s lots of naming ceremonies, rituals, greek god references, etc. etc. etc.

In a nutshell, according to legend, every vessel is recorded by name in the Ledger of the Deep and is known to Poseidon, the god of the sea. Therefore, if you wish to change the name of your boat, you must purge its name from the Poseidon’s ledger and perform ceremonial duties to rename the boat. What the?!?!

So basically we have to remove every trace of our boat’s current identity? And apparently cannot, under any circumstances, carry aboard any item bearing the boat’s new name until the purging and renaming ceremonies have been completed.  Hmmmm….

I almost told Jereme we had to keep her as Ms. Roxy forever. BUT, I think we found the loophole in that our boat has already been renamed at least once before. So we’re going to do it again, without all the hoopla noted above. And instead of worrying about all the aforementioned ceremonial duties, we decided to worry about the more important boat-naming matters at hand… ahem, a cool, unique name.

Bumfuzzle’s boat naming article on Sailfeed was a great resource and just reaffirmed our original idea for a name. We definitely did NOT want to be one of those people that named their boat “Nauti Buoy” or “Dream Weaver.”

So this week, we removed her existing nameplates to sand and replace Ms. Roxy with the new and improved, LAHO (pronounced LA-HOE, like tahoe).

You might be wondering what “laho” even means? Is it even a word?  The answer is no, “laho” is not a word, according to Webster’s dictionary. BUT it does have a special meaning to us. Both of which are big reasons we actually love “laho” as a boat name!

Jereme is very close with his Grandpa Leo, who went by the nickname Laho (given to him by his father). “Laho Inn” became the namesake of the adorably quaint hand-built family lake cottage in Pike Bay, Ontario on the Bruce Peninsula of Canada that Jereme and his family spent many summers at throughout his childhood. We took a trip all the way from Florida up to the cottage in 2011, and I snapped this picture…

When we were contemplating boat ownership and brainstorming names in 2013, one of us (I’m pretty sure it was me) remembered “Laho,” as a great boat name option. And “Laho Wind” a play on “Laho Inn” made perfect sense for all the accompanying pieces of our sailing journey – blog, social media, etc.

Referring back to Bumfuzzle’s tips, the only one I am now slightly concerned about is #6… ***When choosing a name you must think in terms of what you will become known as. Keeping in mind that when out cruising nobody you meet is going to remember your real names, they will only know you by your boat name.*** …Wondering if we might be called “The ho’s” one day?!….lol! Could be worse I suppose.