Boat Names

[seacow]

Naming any type of vessel is a tradition that is many centuries old. See (or sea!) below. Many of us in racing today still observe this tradition. It certainly adds color to our sport and spectators seem to like it.

Please tell what names you have put on your boat or the ones you have seen on other racing rigs that you like the best.

Names that I liked in the past include a flat bottom called "Das Firespttinloudenboomer" and of course the Unlimited called Slo-Mo-Shun which was anything but slow.
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Christening ceremonies were and are meant to bring good luck to the New Ship, and those who sail on it. Christening a new ship or naming ceremony's goes back to the early days of sailing ( ceremonies involved in naming and launching ships are based in traditions thousands of years old.) in the early rituals ship christenings of the Vikings were marked by the spilling of blood. In the Middle Ages, religious shrines were on the ship and a libation of wine was offered as the vessel hit the water as a substitute for the earlier blood sacrifice. The wine was poured on the deck appease King Neptune for good luck and a safe voyage. Ancient seafaring peoples, rimming the Mediterranean, launched their ships with rituals having religious overtones. These practices, varying inform as nations and cultures evolved through the centuries, have carried over to the present christening and launching ceremonies. The current tradition throughout the world has been that women christen ships, but it has not always been this way early ceremony's were performed by officials or local religious men

The traditional christening ceremony includes the smashing of a champagne bottle across the ship's bow. And Saying something like:
SPOKEN OUT LOUD
"I name this ship ___________ and may she bring fair winds and good fortune to all who sail on her."
The ship then makes a dramatic launch into water, In ways of the Old it is ok to pour the Wine or Champagne in the water from west to east. These traditional ceremonies can be great fun for you and your family's the more people the better, just be sure to bring enough champagne

Superstition or not the Titanic was never christened! And the USS Arizona was Christened with water rather than wine or champagne. Good examples of bad luck, God Bless Their Soul

Renaming a boat or a ship is considered to be very unlucky.

[david bryan]

LIQUOR BOX i only saw it a few time on a cracker box they made him take it off for some reason

[seacow]

LIQUOR BOX i only saw it a few time on a cracker box they made him take it off for some reason

Yes, good one. That was a classic! Reg Meacham also had the same name on his Hedlund BU in the 60s.

I was going to mention that name in my post but I though BRF would also censor it.
(Because Mk75 quarantined one of my posts two years ago. He did not like me using the initials of Boat Sport even though Russ Hill used those initials as an expletive in one of his posts a year later without any problems)

[Bunker Hill]

My favorite, by far:
MY LAST BOAT IV

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Among the earliest race boat names that captivated me were the blown fuel hydros Citation and Climax. I read and reread the stories of their world record runs. Then in one of the first issues of Boating News I had bought in 1965 was a beautiful color spread and the story of Hot Toddy's Ghost. Maybe Ron knows what's behind that name.

The first boat I named was called Spider. It came from an ex Bandido member who said it looked like a spider dancing across the water. I always liked the paint scheme on the bow of the unlimited "Miss Pico". It was like the Japanese Rising Sun battle flag, but the red rays emanated from the bow handle and spread out over the white deck of the bow. The "Spider" had black rays spread over a blue deck. It was a 10-6 Marchetti hydro.

I didn't name any more boats until the first ever C,D,F Butts Aerowing. It was named in honor of my Dad, Baldy Baldwin. We called it "Hookin' Bull". Thereafter we named all our boats. Some of them had Master Oil connotations such as Penitrator, or Eradicator, and a lot of them had Spanish type names like "Quien Sabe" which means who knows, or my last boat "Vibora de Cascabel" which is Spanish (or Mexican) for rattlesnake.

One unique Tim Butts boat we later owned was Tim's personal boat named "Ruthless" in which he won the 1973 UIM World Championships with. In 1972 Tim failed to qualify for the finals at Alex, so he loaned me the boat to defend my 1971 A hydro NOA World Title. I would have repeated except for falling out and bouncing back in the boat during the first heat. I won the second heat at up the record by a couple of miles per hour. We bought the complete rig from Tim in 1974 and renamed it after painting it our racing colors of red, white and blue. When I missed most of the season in 1975 due to a bad memorial day crash, we loaned the rig back to Tim to race. After I got back to racing, we renamed the boat "Loaner" and I won a nationals with it.

Then one of my favorite all time boat was our D/F Butts Aerowing named Shadowfax. On it's maiden voyage, the name was not on it so in the record books, it had no name. In fact all it had was a seal coat to prevent water from soaking in the plywood. Tim delivered it to Kaukauna, Wisconsin, and the very first two passes I ever took in the boat we set a new 700 Hydro record and got into the Evinrude 100 mile per hour club. At that time the boat had a new feature not seen on any other Butts hydros. It had a wing on each side of the cockpit angling down to the outside chine. The purpose was to provide tail lift and high speed stabilization. The lift would be at forty five degree angles from each side. At that time the rules did not allow any lifting devices but everyone knew that every hydro out their had a deck that was an airfoil. So it wasn't really cheating Tim and my Dad were very safety concious while also trying to eliminate a rule that was being violated by every hydroplane. So we called the wings "braces" which did help support the back of the boat which was very slim. It was a revolutionary design with four or five inch afterplanes. I had read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings several years earlier, and thought about the horse named "Shadowfax" that could run as fast as if it had wings, but it did not have wings. As I thought about it, this boat had the wing at the front between the two sponsons, and also two small wings at the rear, except that they "really weren't wings";) So that's how I came to name it Shadowfax. The proofreaders in Detroit though had apparently never read the Hobbit or the trilogy and so had not heard of Shadowfax at that time. So they thought I wrote the name down wrong, and the several records that were held by that boat for a number of years was listed in the rule book as "Shadowfox".

[Ron Hill]

There was a second boat called Das Firespttinloudenboomer, Again.

I always kind of liked "Snapper".....

We Go II was a boat I saw at the Winnebagland Marathon in 1953. I named me Apple Box Scooters after that boat...

My dad's C racing Runabout was called Forever Amber....Never did quite understand the name!

Danny Morehouse called his boat U-No-Sip. (Read it backward).

Ed Olsen had all his boats named "Cream Puff"........He did own a Bakery Clled Priscilla's Cake Box in Garden Grove.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Miss Nickel Eagle was the name of the first electric boat to exceed trolling motor speed. It was 1979 and she set the first kilo record for an electric powered boat.

[oldalkydriver]

Growing up around alkies in the late 40's, early fifties and some of the sixties, I remember lots of boat names;
C Service C-43 Manual Carnacis "Woisme"
Lou Morphy "Shooting Star"
Boots Morphy, "Miss Shooting Star"
Bob Jackson C Racing Hydro, "Over Easy" Don't know if it was eggs or blow overs!
John Toprahanian 'F' Runabout C-174 'Facsmile' after coping Parsons runabout.
Chuck Parsons 'F' runabout Chuck Wagon, Hydro (460) Chatter Box, later with merc; 'Toy Box'.
Someone from Hawaii in late 50's at Long Beach 'kumoniwanalaya' his other boat, 'lakanuki'. Being a young kid I didn't understand. Then came the army!!!
Alexander LA. 1976, Someone used the name; 'whataheadache'. I later name my thoroughbred; 'Another Headache'.
Arny Adams 'B' Hydro, 'whatever'
some ones 48 cu inch hydro; 'nitro express'
cracker bos or sk runabout, 'hee haw'
All of a sudden, I'm suffering a senior moment. Besides, I need to drive to the airport. Going to Guam for 26 hours.

[MooreRacing]

These aren't names I've seen, just a few I came-up with, and wanted to use...

Something running a Cleaver- "Leave it to Cleaver"

Two boats I'm looking at for COR-100:
1. For a green/redish-brown hull- "Rotten to thee COR"
2. For a red-decked, white bottomed hull- "Apple COR":

:D

[Yellowjacket]

When Mike O'Brien was got his first Dale Hull "D" runabout he tested a couple of different props, and they were "Ok" but nothing special. Then he tested a Dewald prop and the boat just came alive. He said "after you came out of the corner the boat just lifted up and accelerated" like nothing he had experienced before he said "it felt like it was going to accelerate right out from under you", and he knew he had something really special.

He hadn't named the boat yet, and was trying to find something appropriate, and on his first race with the new prop he got a decent, but not great start and wasn't in the lead going into the first corner so he went to the outside and when he straightened out he just left the guys he was racing against with that acceleration.

After the heat one of the competitors came up to him and said, "Man I had you by a bit when we were coming off the corner, but then you just took off and you were Long Gone" At that moment he said he knew he had a name for the boat.

[Gene East]

I was a Johhny Cash fan before I ever met Marshall Grant.

Every alky racer is familiar with Masrhall's "Ring of Fire", quite possibly the most famous boat in outboard racing.

My favorite however, was "A Boat Named Sue"!

RIP: Johnny Cash, Marshall Grant, Carl Perkins, Luther Perkins

[Allen J. Lang]

My first boat was considered a E Mod back in the early 50s. The name that came with it was Slip-N-Round. It was a Voss built runabout designed for the rough waters of Long Island. Had a Sid Hornet named Bad News. It was as named. Liked to snap roll and Blew a 20H. I moved up to Sea Jay runabouts, named my CU, CU Later. Next CU was named CU Too. Never named my C/D alky boat.
My racing came to an end in 1970 with a change of jobs. Good move with the job, bad move with racing.

[seacow]

I should mention the name "Titanic" - not the original ill fated ocean liner but a DeSilva Runabout I decided to try using in A and B stock. I painted it black and applied the name in gold decals. The very next day, I took it out to Fremont Marine Stadium for testing. When I emerged from the pits for my first run, a D hydro running at full bore hit the DeSilva broadside and my rig immediately sunk. One part of the boat that was left totally intact was a piece just the right size that still had the name I had christened it with the night before. Maybe names do have an effect!

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Those are some good stories about the boat names.

Marshall also had a boat named Miss Folsom.

Tom Goslee's C Service runabout was "Slo-Poke".

Jack Chance had a runabout with a skunk painted on it called "Lil Stinker".

Seacow....you might be right that names have an effect. Tim Butts built us a C/D Aerowing and it snowed on it on the way back from Michigan. It had snow on it until a couple of days later when it melted somewhere between Dallas and Austin, Texas. It had a seal coat, but the deck still warped. My Dad screwed three strips of 3/4 inch half round on each side to bring up the depressions. Tim wouldn't stand for that though, and he replaced the deck. After we got it back and had it painted we named it Texas Tornado. I raced two heats of 500 hydro and two heats of 700 hydro with it. The next weekend we went to Baytown, Texas where I stuffed it on the back straight of the first lap doing about 90. The boat looked O.K. from the outside, but the stringers got crooked. Tim took the bottom off and replaced the stringers, but I missed all but the final race of 1975 due to severe neck injuries. We never raced that boat again, and sold it to Jim McKean in late 1975 or early 1976.

Tim built us a rough water Aerowing for racing in Europe. We named it "Tex". The last I heard of it the Butts was still in Berlin at Motor Rennen Club where they used it to train upcoming drivers. It's probably long gone by now though.

As many of you know, Bill VanSteenwyk's wife Eileen was a stewardess. That meant Bill Van got very cheap tickets on most carrier's and I think maybe free flights for the company Eileen worked for. He had a Rhoades hydro with a martini looking glass (I believe) painted on it and in gold script over a maroon deck was the name "Champagne Flight".

I should not admit this because I still feel a little guilty, but it seemed funny at the time. Pit man Johnny Bezecny and myself changed the name on a boat raced by a stock outboard racer at Lakeland, Florida around 1973. I don't know whose boat it was, but it was pitted a couple of trailers to our right and it was green. It was on the trailer when we did it. As Johnny and I strolled through the pits, the name just happened to catch our eyes and I think we both thought of the name change at about the same time. We found either white paint or something to make the change and it only took a second or two. The original name was "Chicken Plucker". The name was painted on by an amatuer and was only about two inches high and a single brushstroke about a half inch in width. All we did was change the lower case l in the word Plucker to an h.:D We never saw anyone react to it, but I hope the owner wasn't too mad and got a laugh when he finally noticed it.

[modracer7b]

C IT GO
My brother Ken's CSH Marchetti that won the Nationals and High Point.

Ken's Marchetti ASH was A OK GO and got his first National Hi Point title. My old man was into the space program and called us the Rocket Racing Team.

We had other names like J Rocket and Pocket Rocket.

I named all my stuff Bits and Pieces 1 to 5 as I raced with Clark Maloof, Bill Giles, Rick Weinstein, Doug Reed, Scotty Neal, Bob Austin and all the New York and New jersey bunch in A and B runabout. We would compete for the most duct tape used to patch holes.

My Clarkraft BSR Duck was called Corn Popper

Bill Rosado

[Jeff Lytle]

Art Hatch, a Canadian ran 266 hydros names Cost ' a lotta, and Lott a' costa.

Mahogany Rush was always one of my favorites, but it was taken by a guy who ran stocks on our circuit....Later, I found an American 225 was named Mahogany Rush as well.

Dick Buller out of Oshawa Ontario ran a SS flatbottom named "Bullship"

I named my last boat, the one you see in my avitar "Jefferson Starship"

[seacow]

" I moved up to Sea Jay runabouts, named my CU, CU Later. Next CU was named CU Too." Those were great names for CU. When I raced the class, I had a reputation as a conservative driver. Inspired by the tuna brand, my rig was named Chicken of the Cs.

Hal Kelley's Foo-Ling was a pretty good name...

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Jeff, you just reminded me of Tommy Hooten's C,D,F Marchetti. It was called "Bullshipper". He had a truck that he hauled cattle in for a living.

Bill Seebold drove famous big band leader Les Brown's 7 liter one year in the early seventies. It was like Mike O'brians boat also called "Long Gone".

[1100r]

Very interesting names that I have seen or heard about over the years. Fun to here them brought up again.

I also remember Obriens boat of Long Gone, Parons boats of Chuck Wagon, and Toy Box great memories.

How Michael Obrien got his name at a race that someone here mentioned is similar to how Michael Lopez got his boat name for his FEH of Never Ending. He went the through the Kilos at Modesto and afterwards made a comment that the motor just kept getting faster and faster going through the traps so when he set the record he put down the name Never Ending.

I also remember Lloyd Mize's boats of Flux Capacitor, Baby Bullet, and Bullet and always thought those were really different and never understood those even when he explained them all to me many times.

[Ron Hill]

All his "ALKY" Boats were called "Spooker". I think the last one was Spooker XXIV.....but not sure that is right.


I like Lee Sutter's name..."Sutter's Gold".

Fred Bowden's boats were always "California Gold"....

[CherryTanner]

interesting! there is some stuff i didn't know.
p.s. the name of my boat it The Pam, after my little sister

[Illinois Switzer]

My last boat (a small Glen-L designed mahogany runabout) was named "Hard Wood". The double entendre made a few folks smile as they read it.

[Lotsa Bills Racing]

My grandfather owned a few race boats - his name was Paul Bills - there were a whole bunch of family involved in the racing - the team and boats were called " LOTSA BILLS " - because of all the people and all the money!

[F-12]

My better half, June Perry's father had Gerry Waldman's cabover (Spooker 15) and lost his life trying to catch Bill Hosler at Frostproof in 1972. Screaming boat but was taken out of balance when Ben Perry removed the lead from the front of the hull. And don't forget one of Tim Butt's original Aerowings. His wife's name was Ruth and the A/B Aerowing was called 'Ruthless"............and that's the way it turned out.

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

Those are some good stories about the boat names.

Marshall also had a boat named Miss Folsom.

Tom Goslee's C Service runabout was "Slo-Poke".

Jack Chance had a runabout with a skunk painted on it called "Lil Stinker".

Seacow....you might be right that names have an effect. Tim Butts built us a C/D Aerowing and it snowed on it on the way back from Michigan. It had snow on it until a couple of days later when it melted somewhere between Dallas and Austin, Texas. It had a seal coat, but the deck still warped. My Dad screwed three strips of 3/4 inch half round on each side to bring up the depressions. Tim wouldn't stand for that though, and he replaced the deck. After we got it back and had it painted we named it Texas Tornado. I raced two heats of 500 hydro and two heats of 700 hydro with it. The next weekend we went to Baytown, Texas where I stuffed it on the back straight of the first lap doing about 90. The boat looked O.K. from the outside, but the stringers got crooked. Tim took the bottom off and replaced the stringers, but I missed all but the final race of 1975 due to severe neck injuries. We never raced that boat again, and sold it to Jim McKean in late 1975 or early 1976.

Tim built us a rough water Aerowing for racing in Europe. We named it "Tex". The last I heard of it the Butts was still in Berlin at Motor Rennen Club where they used it to train upcoming drivers. It's probably long gone by now though.

As many of you know, Bill VanSteenwyk's wife Eileen was a stewardess. That meant Bill Van got very cheap tickets on most carrier's and I think maybe free flights for the company Eileen worked for. He had a Rhoades hydro with a martini looking glass (I believe) painted on it and in gold script over a maroon deck was the name "Champagne Flight".

I should not admit this because I still feel a little guilty, but it seemed funny at the time. Pit man Johnny Bezecny and myself changed the name on a boat raced by a stock outboard racer at Lakeland, Florida around 1973. I don't know whose boat it was, but it was pitted a couple of trailers to our right and it was green. It was on the trailer when we did it. As Johnny and I strolled through the pits, the name just happened to catch our eyes and I think we both thought of the name change at about the same time. We found either white paint or something to make the change and it only took a second or two. The original name was "Chicken Plucker". The name was painted on by an amatuer and was only about two inches high and a single brushstroke about a half inch in width. All we did was change the lower case l in the word Plucker to an h.:D We never saw anyone react to it, but I hope the owner wasn't too mad and got a laugh when he finally noticed it.




Wayne:

Thanks for mentioning my "Champagne Flights". There were 10 of them in all, including the 1st one which was the 2nd Rhoades boat I had (C&D Alky Boat) and then the others that I used while competing in RB Hydro in the 80's and 90's after my tunnel boat blow over in the mid 70's and laying out of racing for several years.

The last one was a Krier boat that Mike Krier and Denny Henderson collaborated on for Todd Brinkman and I, that Tim Brinkman won both the National Championship and UIM World Championship with in 125CC Hydro. Tim was injured the next year when he hit a wake from a boat that was not on plane after the 1 minute gun, was thrown out and then hit by a following boat. He almost lost him arm in this accident and retired from competitive boat racing. I had several other boats that for one reason or another did not perform well and decided not to name them "Champagne Flight" as that name was reserved for boats that Eileen and I could be proud of.

The name came from a nightclub act by a night club comedian named Woody Woodbury. He primarily entertained at a night club in Fort Lauderdale, Fl., but did tour some, and I had heard a record he put out in the late 60's/early 70's. On it he had a skit called Champagne Flight. He came to St. Louis to the Ramada Inn for a show, and Eileen and I just had to go and hear him live.

It (the skit) was about a Flight Attendent who worked for a small airline that operated from Fort Lauderdale to the Bahamas on a flight fittingly called "The Champagne Flight, as they served chilled Champagne on the flight. The story was she had been there so long, even the ground crew "knew her". One of her responsibilities was to keep the Champagne cold and because the ice had been left off this particular flight the skit was about, she sat on the case of Champagne to keep it cold until it was ready to be served. As Eileen had not been with Ozark Airlines but just a short time at this point in time, she was very proud of her job and her efforts to perform it properly, but as she also has one of the best "senses of humour" of anyone I have ever been around (even now) when she heard the skit she really thought it was funny, and hence the name on our boats ever since. The painting Wayne mentioned was of an attractive blonde Flight Attendant sitting on a case of champagne and was on all the cowls of all the boat with the name.

I only had two other boats that were named, one officially and one not. The one that was not was a Goff hydro I had for the first several years after I started back racing. For whatever reason it spent more time in the wood repair shop almost, than on the water. Because of the large amount of different colored wood from all the repairs by Homer Branson in KC (builder of the famous Fillenger SP? hydro's) the last time it was repaired before I sold it I had it painted black to hide all the repairs. Bob McFarland (Billy Seebold's brother in law) named it the "Coffin Craft" because of all the accidents and the high cockpit sides that were now black in color. This was before the commonality of high cockpit sides so he said it looked like a coffin.

Only other boat I had that was "named", was a Krier runabout that was purchased by me for Butch Leavendusky to drive as he was going to "un-retire" and start racing again in the mid 80's. The deal was for me to purchase the boat and he would purchase a 250 motor and he would run RB and 250 Runabout and I would run RB and 250 Hydro off the same trailer as he wanted to get back involved after having been out of boat racing for several years.

Ken Krier called and told me the boat was ready so I went and got it and took it to Billy's paint shop for paint and lettering. I called Butch and asked him if he wanted the name "Fantastic" on the boat, as that is what all his Runabouts had been called to that time. He said "you aren't going to be very happy with me" and I said "why"?. He said "I retired again". So I ended up with a runabout after not having driven one for almost 30 years. I named the boat "Butch's Substitute" and I don't know to this day whether his Dad, Stan Sr. was happy or mad about that. He always accused me of leading Butch astray, although I think he knew deep down, Butch did not need any help with that.

Butch's Substitute was a big help in my achieving membership in the Hall of Champions, as I won the Nationals in 1986 in both RB Hydro and Runabout along with setting a competition record at Lakeland in the Runabout and other records in the Hydro that allowed enough points for induction into the HOC. That probably would not have happened if Butch had not UN"unretired" and I had only driven the Hydro that year.

[Ron Hill]

My better half, June Perry's father had Gerry Waldman's cabover (Spooker 15) and lost his life trying to catch Bill Hosler at Frostproof in 1972. Screaming boat but was taken out of balance when Ben Perry removed the lead from the front of the hull. And don't forget one of Tim Butt's original Aerowings. His wife's name was Ruth and the A/B Aerowing was called 'Ruthless"............and that's the way it turned out.

Who was June Perry's dad? What year did this happen?So, Tim Butts's wife divorced him???

Lee Sutter was the first person I ever saw add lead to the bow of a tunnel boat. John Drake add 20 pounds of lead to an F Hydro DeSilva about 1952....

My dad always wanted to call my boat "The Sunkist Kid", I resisted that name. 20:20 hindsight, I was the Sunkist Kid....

Anyone actually know how many "Spookers" Jerry Waldman had? I miss Jerry, though we frequently argued, we both loved boat racing.