56 February 2018 Canal Boat canalboat.co.ukBOAT NAMES
O
ne of the great joys of narrow
boating is meeting other
boats with intriguing names.
This year a round trip of the
Upper Thames and Kennet and Avon
Canal yielded a rich crop of names.
What I find most interesting is
endeavouring to find out why folk choose
the names they do. With over 500,000 boat
index registrations it’s not surprising that
the vast majority of names fall into broad
categories such as place names, girls’
names and the names of birds and
flowers. Marsh Warbler springs to mind.
When she was just three, my eldest
daughter referred to Forget Me Not as the
“remember me now flower”. However, until
very recently I’d never seen an Upsy Daisy.
There’s plenty of scope for a boat owner
to be subtly different and inject a touch of
humour I particularly liked MAY CONTAIN
NUTS and This Way Up complete with
arrows pointing to the cabin roof.I wondered whether the owner of
Beerstalker had come across Party Animal.
Apart from Undecided, everyone who
dreams of owning a boat must surely have
a good idea of what to call it. The name
will often reflect the character of the
vessel. Hunky Dory certainly aptly
describes the massive widebeam
proudly displaying the name. Flying theRoyal Banner of Scotland from its stern, I
had to assume that the owner of Sixpence
was referencing a sudden or unexpectedly
costly expense as depicted in a cartoon by
the Victorian artist Charles Keene, first
printed in Punch magazine in 1868, which
parodied the increasingly extortionate
cost of living in London and clichéd
miserliness. A Scot returning from a visit
to the capital, is depicted as saying to a
fellow: “It’s just a ruinous place, that! A
had na’ been there abune twa hours when- bang went sixpence.”
JOKE ON
THE WATER
From Sir Osis Of The River to Moor Often Than Not, we’re awash
with witty signwriting, says the eagle-eyed Stephen Dowsett