What’s in a name? – Sailing JACE

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.” Shakespeare’s famous line suggests a name is nothing but a convention with no inherent meaning behind it. But is it really that simple?

But first things first: the deal is done! Yeah, very exciting and almost as scary too. The binding purchase agreement was signed by both parties today. Over the next three weeks the escrow agent will be busy collecting notarized documents from one and the purchase price from the other side. By late April we will close and we will be proud owners of a Moody 49. Wow!

Now back to Shakespeare. How to name our vessel has been a topic on our mind for the past few days.

For years now as we’ve been dreaming and scheming this adventure, we’ve steadfastly planned to call our boat by the name “Blue”. It is my favorite color and we love the name, short and snappy and easy to spell and remember. And we like the double meaning of “sailing the blue” as in both the boat and the ocean. That’s why the blog is called that.

When we bought Towanda, she had an awful name and we didn’t think twice about changing it and starting her off with a new identity for our adventure together.

You might have heard that Seafarers are notoriously superstitious and that there is general dislike for changing vessel names. But we don’t really believe in that and it worked out beautifully during our first voyage.

And so we assumed we’d do the same again this time.

Meeting our new boat “JACE” has started to change our mind.

First, we like that it is short and how it sounds.

Second, we like that it is unique, or we think it is. Blue hardly is.

Third, Jace has a proud 17-year history and reputation. This is an aspect Lynne and Jeff made us aware of: they too had planned a name change but reneged after they had multiple interactions in sailing circles with complete strangers (think FB groups and cruising forums and sailing associations) who knew JACE, had been on her or sailed her and became instant supporters or even friends, just because they now owned JACE. Said Lynne to us:”we realized how much history and reputation this boat has in the community. And we just didn’t feel it was our right to take that away from her.”

Fourth, as we described in a previous post, JACE found us. We did not find her. She came to us and smiled and said, it is time you quit dreaming and start living. We were drawn to her and in some ways feel we’ve followed her call and are grateful to her for leading the way. So we are wondering, who are we to try to change the course of her journey while she is really the one changing ours.

Long story short, in the span of just a few days since coming to St Maarten we have come full circle and have decide to proudly carry on her name and tradition. That feels good and right.

Long sail SV JACE!

PS – for those wondering, JACE is a made-up name by her first owner, a Frenchman who took the initials of his wife and three daughters and constructed “JACE” out of it. That is all we know, the rest is lost to history.

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