The story behind your boat's name

Former pilot and Flight Attendant. Always looking for the crew lounge at the airport or layover hotel. Seemed appropriate!
 
"Free Willy" Because I don't wear underwear.....lol Could be because my name is William too...
 
Named after one our favorite places, a bar on Jost Van Dyke in BVI.
There is no marina or dock so patrons must anchor out swim to the bar and then pay for drinks with a "soggy dollar"
 
I posted this elsewhere but probably more appropriate that it is here...

We named our boat after the name of the last ship my great grandfather commanded, which was the second ship to bear that name.


The first Acara was a 4193 GRT steam ship, 380 feet long, built in England in 1898 and which on 1 March 1902 ran aground east of Jones Inlet, Long Island NY, under the command of George Kilgour. It became known as the Tea Wreck due to the amount of tea it was carrying on its voyage to New York. Today the ship lies a little over ¼ of a mile off the coast in about 20 feet of water.

The second Acara was built in the same shipyard in England in 1904 and was 4982 GRT and 400 feet long. My great grandfather, Captain Arkley Smith, born in Dundee Scotland on 31 May 1860, was the master of this ship from 1905 through until his retirement in 1909. That ship was sold on many times over the following years, ultimately to the Italian Achille Lauro Line and renamed Ercole. It was scuttled by the German forces off the coast of Livorno Italy in July 1944, then refloated after the war, refurbished and put back into service. It was later broken up for scrap in 1952.

The third Acara is therefore my 2008 275 (260DA) and we don’t plan for the history of Acara 3 to be quite as eventful!




 
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At Annapolis boat show 2013, while talking my wife into trading our 31 in for a 47, she kept repeating "it makes no sense....it's so expensive...." over and over again. This was a used boat already named, but the name was covered up. She finally removed the cover and it was a done deal right there. Cents-Le$$ Naturally, we never renamed her...

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It's been fun reading through all the stories about boat names.

While I was restoring my 1972 Sea Ray 190 SRv, I saw the movie "Little Miss Sunshine" . The girl in the movie reminded me a lot of my daughter and the boat is a sunny yellow color so I named it Little Miss Sunshine. It fits.

I did a similar thing with a previous boat, a sailboat. A poem by Robert Service, Bright Encounter is about a little girl he met who also reminded me of nmy daughter, so I named my sail boat Bright Encounter.
 
Name is Compromise
Boat came with it. So we left it.
Got to name out JetBoat As we bought it new GoFast
 
One day in 1995 I walked into my local Sea Ray dealer and there sat a beautiful, 1993 330 Sunsport with the stern facing the door;
Carpe Diem was her name. One of my favorite movies was "Dead Poet's Society" with Robin Williams. There was this strong reference in the film to "seizing the day". Since I was in my mid-20's and had a 1987 Baja Sunsport, I thought that boat was too big. I walked into the warehouse out back and there sat a 1990 220 Sundancer with 20 hours on her. Within an hour I signed the paperwork and that started the name. The 1993 290 Sundancer was CD II and then the 1997 Sundancer 330 was Carpe Diem III. I loved that boat for 11 years until
I met a woman, my future wife, and her two girls. We needed privacy and those damn curtains were not enough for the prying eyes! I was tasked with going out and finding Carpe Diem IV and settled on a 2003 460 Sundancer. A full stand up shower and not one, but two full doors between us and the girls-With a lock! :) We were married on Carpe Diem IV in July of 2011. We bought a Zodiac in 2013 and have unofficially named it Crape Diem-since it is mainly used to take our two dogs to land to got pottie!
 
To make a long story short, we are slightly superstitious when it comes to boats and they say you should never name a boat something that will bring bad juju on it such as "money pit," or "high maintenance." Our first boat, a 1989 SunRunner 318 Express was named "Girl Barge" since it's prior owners were two ladies...this didn't seem to fit so since my wife and I are both Disney fans we opted to go with Hakuna Matata which means "No Worries." Seems fitting for weekends on the water. We were even able to get my brother in law who is a graphic illustrator to design us a Timone and Pumba for the transom door.

We had that boat for 4 years and decided it was time to upgrade. At the time we really liked the 370 Sundancer, but the only ones in our area on the market, in our price range had interior colors of either Teal or very bright blue. We stumbled across the 1998 Silverton 360 Express that had a very neutral interior, and the options we were looking for the inland lake we boated on. It's name was Princess Xina, again a name we weren't too thrilled with. By this point most of our boater friends referred to me as "Matata," and we liked the idea of "No Worries" when we are on the water so Hakuna Matata II is what she became.

We have since returned to Lake Michigan and after 4 years on the big pond decided it was time to move up to a larger boat and diesels. #3 is a 2002 410 Sundancer named "Just 1 More." We like the name, but are going to be sticking with our theme so she will be Hakuna Matata once we can conduct the renaming ceremony, and although this will the 3rd rendition of this for us we are opting to drop the numerals.
 
The name happened well before I found the boat. I had barely started window shopping, and one day rafted up with a friend's boat while out on the PWC. Told her and her BF I'd be needing a boat name sometime and brainstorming was welcome. He pondered for about a nanosecond and said, "If You're Lucky." I asked if he just thought of it or had seen it on a boat somewhere....nope, just thought of it.

Three years later, I bought "Friday Aft Next," and shortly thereafter First Mate and I completed the renaming ceremony (he accidentally made a blood sacrifice, so I feel pretty confident it was ok to rename her!). For me, it's fitting because I feel very, very lucky to have a boat. Friends consider themselves lucky, too, and joke with each other, "If you're lucky, you get to go for a boat ride!!" And First Mate feels very lucky to be dating a woman who has a boat.

Gave him a T-shirt with our monogram on the front and "Lucky" on the back, and he wears it more often than I ever guessed he would!!

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I bought my boat about this time last year as a reward to myself for a great year at work. I'm a sales guy so I get to control my income based on my successes. I had visions of heading to the lake on weekday afternoons when I didn't have client meetings. I'd hang out on the boat making calls, answering emails, etc. My boss at the time (since fired) was a micro manager, so he always wanted to know where I was, even though I've been our most successful sales guy for the last 4 years.

I knew he'd never understand if I told him I was working from my boat, although he did reluctantly agree it was OK when I worked remote from my home office. So I named my boat "Workin' Remote" and whenever he asked, I just told him I was working remote!!

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My daughter – Chelsea Rose. The "Rose" goes back many generations in my wife’s family.

 
My favorite song is "The River" by Garth Brooks which has the line "Choose to chance the rapids; dare to dance the tide". My wife and I used to do a little waltz under water (dance the tide) when we went scuba diving. When I finally got the boat, "Dance the Tide" seemed like the obvious name.
 

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