Naming a boat isn't for the faint of heart.

Greg and I have named 3 human beings. These humans will carry these names through life and will be how they identify themselves inside and out.

Waaaaay easier than naming a boat. No joke.

Matriarch…sans name at this point

Finding Matriarch was hard enough. Years of searching Yachtworld and speculating and crunching numbers. We found our Hallberg Rassy 46 in the fall of 2018 in Annapolis and she truly ticked all the boxes. We are SERIOUS over-thinkers and mega-planners and thought so so so much about this decision. The quality, safety, layout, size and assets met our short term and long term needs.

And we thought that was hard! Nope. Naming this beautiful boat felt like a crazy responsibility! Gotta do the boat justice, don’t want to sound like an idiot (there are some seriously wtf names out there), don’t want to sound too obtuse, don’t want it to be too time sensitive, not political, not offensive (duh), not a private joke (weird peeve of mine), not a family name (weird peeve of Greg’s), something you can spell phonetically preferably in under 5 minutes, ideally one word or two short words (not a poem or life story in a name)…and so on.

We had a short list: Exodus (previous boat name which we liked but was unavailable for Canadian registration), Trifecta (three kids, and a few other three references, short, and so on…but felt like an odd word to say), Asylum (apropos given our life, but a bit too on the nose for real people living very hard lives seeking something better for themselves and family and didn’t want to make light of it) …then my lovely husband pooped out “Matriarch” and me, being me, LOVED IT.

Shared it with one person and immediate response to Greg from this person was “cuck”. Nice. Once that was out of the system (eye roll) we owned the name even more fiercely. It fits. She’ll take care of us, and she’s part of a bigger system that protects all of us (earth, ocean, world, love, human race…ultimate mother). Lovin’ it.

It took a few weeks of saying it before the name felt real - but honestly that’s par for the course right now. “We are moving to our boat” (who us??) “We are travelling for a few years” (pardon me??) “We are going to homeschool our kids” (no wait, we ARE??)…it all feels surreal. I’m imagining that Matriarch will really be Matriarch when we do the banish-all-the-old-name-renaming-boat-ceremony-thing….now if I can just find the equivalent ceremony for all the other transitions…wine helps :P

M