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rob74 10 hours ago [-]
I can't help but think this article could have used some more polishing. The stats say that there are 101 boats named "Freedom", but if you enter "Freedom" in the search, it shows 48 boats with names including "Freedom", of which however only one is called just "Freedom". That doesn't really add up?!
Also, clicking "Movie/TV" yields a paltry 22 boats, which I think is far too few. E.g. the boat called "USS Enterprise" isn't included. Ok, it could be named after the 1958 aircraft carrier, but I would say the odds are far greater that it was named after the Starfleet ships. Then again, I can understand why "Starlight Express" is included under "Music", but why also all other boats with names containing the word "Starlight"?!
daemonologist 10 hours ago [-]
On the first point, I think it's a search of boat names, not boats - they're deduplicated.
rob74 9 hours ago [-]
Sure, but if you click on the boat called "Freedom", it shows you the data of one specific boat, not "there are X boats with this name". So I still think it's inconsistent...
jstanley 5 hours ago [-]
There are 101 boats called freedom but they're all the same boat because they're not de-duplicated.
squigz 10 hours ago [-]
Err, the Enterprise has been a ship name for a few hundred years, quite a bit before Star Trek was ever conceived.
There's a fun time loop here: The Star Trek Enterprise and the real-life space shuttle Enterprise were each named after the other. In real life, the shuttle was named after the Star Trek ship. In-universe, the first starship Enterprise (NX-01) was named after the space shuttle. [Edit: I remember reading that years ago, but can't find any official source saying so now, although the intro to the Star Trek Enterprise tv series does emphasize the shuttle.]
(Of course, both really come from a long lineage of naval vessels with the name.)
BalinKing 5 hours ago [-]
Wikipedia (FWIW) says that the fictional USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) was named after the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) rather than the Space Shuttle Enterprise (OV-101).
ButlerianJihad 5 hours ago [-]
Folks, you're both correct!
GP is referring to in-universe canon, where the NCC-1701 was conceived and constructed by Starfleet, long after the Space Shuttle program was obsolete.
Wikipedia articles are largely discouraged from using in-universe perspectives or content, as opposed to Fandom/Wikia/Memory Alpha.
vikingerik 4 hours ago [-]
Right. Although in-universe, it was the NX-01 that was the genesis of the name for starships. NCC-1701 was a century later.
arethuza 9 hours ago [-]
Amusing that the page for ships called HMS Enterprise linked to from the USS Enterprise page points out that the name came originally from the French!
I always thought the carrier was named after Enterprise, PA since the US Navy usually names cruisers after medium sized cities and the earlier carriers were converted cruiser hulls.
squigz 9 hours ago [-]
Oh interesting, I didn't know that. It's an even older name than I thought!
Gravityloss 9 hours ago [-]
And the actual word is French too...
rob74 8 hours ago [-]
...although the French spell it with an extra "r". And they had more ships that were named Entreprenant(e) (Enterprising) than Entreprise...
> .although the French spell it with an extra "r".
We don't:
enterprise
entreprise
It's not "entrerprise" (that'd be an additional 'r').
It's not totally unlike "center", which is "centre" in french and also "centre" in UK english (but pronounced "center", unless I'm mistaken).
abruzzi 4 hours ago [-]
Nostromo could be a reference to Joseph Contrad's novel. Its also an italian word for boatswain (according to Wikipedia)
10 hours ago [-]
CSMastermind 7 hours ago [-]
This reminds me of a girl I knew in college who worked as a contracter for a book publisher.
I was surprised to learn that one of the most common types of books people submitted were dairies of their sailing. Like, "we sailed to this island and there was bad weather then we sailed to this other island".
Apparently they'd get a manuscript like this once a week or something. Not sure what the market is like for books like that since I don't think I've ever seen one in a book store.
Doctor_Fegg 3 hours ago [-]
I edited a boating magazine (inland waterways, not sea-going) and we got article submissions like this all the time.
I ended up putting in our 'Notes for Contributors' something like "Write about what will be interesting to the _reader_, not what is interesting to you" because apparently this eluded people.
clort 6 hours ago [-]
They exist, but generally for more significant voyaging. For example
- Joshua Slocum - Sailing Alone Around The World (1900)
- H.W.Tilman - Mishief Among The Penguins (1961)
- Sir Alec Rose - My Lively Lady (1968)
- Annie Hill - Voyaging on a Small Income (1993)
at least are on my bookshelf
gmiller123456 7 hours ago [-]
Ocean sailing leaves a lot of free time. Also the people who can afford to do it have a lot of free time. So I don't find it that surprising.
detourdog 4 hours ago [-]
Sailing can be such a transformative experience I'm not surprised many people write books of the experience. My guess is most people's experience is that interesting to others.
TacticalCoder 4 hours ago [-]
> Not sure what the market is like for books like that since I don't think I've ever seen one in a book store.
Same.
But then vlogs about people sailing can be extremely successful, with millions of subscribers. But then I take it there's more appeal in seeing young couples, with a six-pack dude and a beautiful woman in bikini, sailing around the world than reading description of the various kind of waves.
lewispb 10 hours ago [-]
My boat's called Floating Point :)
JKCalhoun 9 hours ago [-]
Better than Overflow.
jihadjihad 5 hours ago [-]
If I had a boat and always dropped anchor at the same spot, regardless of tides/weather/etc., I'd name it Fixpoint.
lossyalgo 8 hours ago [-]
If I had a boat I would totally steal that (and wait for other nerds to strike up conversations).
macintux 8 hours ago [-]
If you really want to attract the hard-core nerds, name it "IEEE 754" instead.
PaulDavisThe1st 3 hours ago [-]
Saw a car once near my house with the license plate "4745454B". I was slightly uncomfortable in realizing that I immediately knew what it meant.
lossyalgo 7 hours ago [-]
haha very cute! Got me thinking, IP69K might also be fun, albeit slightly less nerdy.
throwup238 7 hours ago [-]
I’ve always been impartial to Sea++
detourdog 4 hours ago [-]
I feel I like I have seen that name. I know I have seen puns on C but can't remember the specifics.
May have been C-Shell.
smcameron 3 hours ago [-]
I built a model sailboat[1] one time, and if it were for myself and not a gift, I would have named it "Sea Hacker".
The "Boat ownership by income" is interesting, although easy to misread at a glance.
7% of boat owners earning under $25k is of course very different from 7% of people earning under $25k owning a boat.
I'd love to see an actual chart of boat ownership at income levels, it would read quite differently I'm sure.
foolfoolz 3 hours ago [-]
i don’t think this changes much. ownership is most common for the middle class. which makes perfect sense.
- if you’re rich you don’t need to own a boat, you can spend more per day to rent if you want to use one.
- the cost optimization of owning makes each day using it cheaper, even if it takes more time or space to store it. so those with less money that want to use a boat will buy it
for example renting a boat all day for use on lake tahoe might run you $2,000 to rent. it might cost you $300 in gas if you own the boat. you can tell yourself youre a boat owner now and get 10 days on the lake each year for $3,000 instead of $20,000
busyant 6 minutes ago [-]
> if you’re rich you don’t need to own a boat, you can spend more per day to rent if you want to use one.
There's a bit by Bill Burr where he says something like "you don't want to be the guy that 'owns the boat' (too much upkeep). You want to be the friend of the guy that owns the boat (you supply a case of beer every time you go out and your friend supplies the boat)."
umeshunni 8 hours ago [-]
The other challenge I assume is that many boat owners are retired and presumably have little or no taxable income
nemomarx 7 hours ago [-]
Is there no way to measure that? I'm wondering how they pay for maintenance on the fixed income. Could be an interesting thing to analyze at least, maybe it depends on if you need to winter it...
happyopossum 6 hours ago [-]
"no taxable income" != "fixed income"
401Ks, IRAs, and a few other "retirement fund" options give you the option to access either your principal or investment earnings tax-free depending how they were set up.
olibaw 5 hours ago [-]
How is there not one boat named "Sunk Cost"...
eschneider 5 hours ago [-]
It looks bad on the insurance paperwork.
detourdog 4 hours ago [-]
That is a good name.
BigTuna 10 hours ago [-]
I've always thought Unsinkable II would be a good boat name
People think lots of things are good boat names. There's no reason there couldn't have more than one Unsinkable that hadn't sunk, and most boats aren't retired by sinking, so Unsinkable II would fit right in.
gilleain 10 hours ago [-]
What about "Really Actually Unsinkable 9"?
sorokod 9 hours ago [-]
Following in the footsteps of "The Hand of God 137"
arethuza 9 hours ago [-]
If I buy a yacht I'd name it "The Ends of Invention" - have been keeping that name handy for almost 40 years since I read CP in a oner in May 1988.
rrr_oh_man 9 hours ago [-]
You're missing the "You're absolutely right" prefix
jollyllama 8 hours ago [-]
Parent reply is actually way funnier and more original than the GP, which has already been repeated by two other posters.
That's the public data. I can tell you I've worked in this industry for 20+ years and run probably one of the biggest sites in this space selling boat graphics. The most popular name is actually "Aquaholic" ;-)
Doctor_Fegg 3 hours ago [-]
I remember seeing a river cruiser called "Sir Osis of the River"
It'd be awesome if there was enough metadata to link across to an AIS aggregator/map like https://www.marinetraffic.com/
detourdog 4 hours ago [-]
I don't understand. Marine Traffic is almost identical but has the advantage for displaying the location of the boat.
mellosouls 10 hours ago [-]
Snap!
amelius 9 hours ago [-]
I came here to say that it's apparently not in the set.
lacoolj 6 hours ago [-]
It's at the point I can tell, not only was AI used for this (cool, not a big deal, I use it too!) But I can tell Gemini was used here.
How can I tell? Cuz the last thing it designed for me used the exact same fonts, color tones, border sizes and spacing for buttons.
Maybe Gemini needs a higher default temperature.
Anyways, cool data gathered here tho! Thanks for sharing
georgel 6 hours ago [-]
I had these exact buttons come from DeepSeek for a demo landing page, it went down a path it called “memphis design”.
reactordev 10 hours ago [-]
I bought a sailboat in 2022 and sailed all over the caribbean from florida from 2022-2025. I came across a lot of funny boat names.
My boat was not among them sadly as I was serious about mine.
Fishizzle, Boat Float, Unsinkable II, Knot for Sail, etc.
JKCalhoun 9 hours ago [-]
Money Pit has stuck with me.
buildsjets 7 hours ago [-]
Naming things is hard, it's best to pick a theme and stick with it.
A Columbo family mafioso I grew up near used to be in a never-ending competition with the Sultan of Brunei and the Aga Khan over who owned the worlds fastest megayacht. He named his megayachts after James Bond movies: For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, Moonraker, Casino Royale, Skyfall, and Diamnonds are Forever.
I have seen at least one super yacht named for a Bond film.
Wistar 2 hours ago [-]
In the 1980s, a Seattle-area Chinese restaurant owner had a sailboat named Won Ton Sloop. (Or so I was told as I never saw the boat myself)
pimlottc 5 hours ago [-]
Any particular reason that “Andiamo” is so popular? It’s apparently Italian for “let’s go” but why is in the top 10? Is there some reference I’m missing?
mrwaffle 4 hours ago [-]
Cool project, you can also view some of the real ship names on https://neon.boats and see their relative ocean swell.
ourmandave 6 hours ago [-]
The Ocean Trader comes up, but it's not the same specs as the MV one.
Which is special forces support ship hiding in plain sight.
My boat (a small 25ft sail boat) was named "Zesty Enterprise", since all the best movie lines come from The Big Lebowski.
HoldOnAMinute 5 hours ago [-]
Looked for several of my favorites and didn't see them.
No mention of Choppin' Broccoli which can be found in the Small Craft Harbor in San Francisco
detourdog 4 hours ago [-]
I think the source is AIS which requires paperwork and an FCC issued license to register a name.
My boat is there.
brk 10 hours ago [-]
It had my boat name, which so far I haven't seen duplicated, and isn't particularly specific to anything that would preclude someone else from using it.
detourdog 4 hours ago [-]
I'm surprised my boat is the only in one in AIS also.
Aeroi 10 hours ago [-]
love this, i'm a boat captain and collect images of terrible boat names on my phone. people are insane, always baffles me what they will name a boat.
Uncle_Brumpus 10 hours ago [-]
I think the 2 funniest I found here are "TT Firebird Ribeye" which just sounds like an incredibly specific steakhouse menu item, and "Privacy II", which I just think is a bit on the funny-ironic side that we're all now looking at their vessel data and violating their privacy.
Rebelgecko 7 hours ago [-]
It should be illegal to leave a tantalizing comment like that without giving some examples :)
bergie 6 hours ago [-]
My favorite so far was a motorboat named "Maday". Imagine hailing them on VHF...
Probably because the article only uses data from the US, so it would be a bit strange if it included the name of a British AUV. Or are you wondering why no one in the US liked that story enough to name their own boat Boaty McBoatface? There is a Boaty Boat, so that's something...
clort 6 hours ago [-]
TFA said the names were taken from published AIS data, so perhaps Boaty has not shown up on USA AIS receivers as yet. Since IIRC it is an AUV thats not surprising I wonder if it even has an AIS transmitter. The ship they were asking for names for was actually named Sir David Attenborough in the end.
happyopossum 6 hours ago [-]
Anyone can name their boat Boaty McBoatface - i'm shocked there aren't dozens of them...
mh2266 10 hours ago [-]
Bust Out Another Thousand
TheMagicHorsey 7 hours ago [-]
Reminds me of the ship names in the Culture novels by Iain M Banks.
DonHopkins 3 hours ago [-]
Wikipedia deleted the page with a list of them, but the fans took up the challenge:
Also, clicking "Movie/TV" yields a paltry 22 boats, which I think is far too few. E.g. the boat called "USS Enterprise" isn't included. Ok, it could be named after the 1958 aircraft carrier, but I would say the odds are far greater that it was named after the Starfleet ships. Then again, I can understand why "Starlight Express" is included under "Music", but why also all other boats with names containing the word "Starlight"?!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise
(Of course, both really come from a long lineage of naval vessels with the name.)
GP is referring to in-universe canon, where the NCC-1701 was conceived and constructed by Starfleet, long after the Space Shuttle program was obsolete.
Wikipedia articles are largely discouraged from using in-universe perspectives or content, as opposed to Fandom/Wikia/Memory Alpha.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Enterprise
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Entreprenant
We don't:
It's not "entrerprise" (that'd be an additional 'r').It's not totally unlike "center", which is "centre" in french and also "centre" in UK english (but pronounced "center", unless I'm mistaken).
I was surprised to learn that one of the most common types of books people submitted were dairies of their sailing. Like, "we sailed to this island and there was bad weather then we sailed to this other island".
Apparently they'd get a manuscript like this once a week or something. Not sure what the market is like for books like that since I don't think I've ever seen one in a book store.
I ended up putting in our 'Notes for Contributors' something like "Write about what will be interesting to the _reader_, not what is interesting to you" because apparently this eluded people.
Same.
But then vlogs about people sailing can be extremely successful, with millions of subscribers. But then I take it there's more appeal in seeing young couples, with a six-pack dude and a beautiful woman in bikini, sailing around the world than reading description of the various kind of waves.
May have been C-Shell.
[1] It was "Schooner Irene" from here: http://www.bearospaceindustries.com/boats2.html
7% of boat owners earning under $25k is of course very different from 7% of people earning under $25k owning a boat.
I'd love to see an actual chart of boat ownership at income levels, it would read quite differently I'm sure.
- if you’re rich you don’t need to own a boat, you can spend more per day to rent if you want to use one.
- the cost optimization of owning makes each day using it cheaper, even if it takes more time or space to store it. so those with less money that want to use a boat will buy it
for example renting a boat all day for use on lake tahoe might run you $2,000 to rent. it might cost you $300 in gas if you own the boat. you can tell yourself youre a boat owner now and get 10 days on the lake each year for $3,000 instead of $20,000
There's a bit by Bill Burr where he says something like "you don't want to be the guy that 'owns the boat' (too much upkeep). You want to be the friend of the guy that owns the boat (you supply a case of beer every time you go out and your friend supplies the boat)."
401Ks, IRAs, and a few other "retirement fund" options give you the option to access either your principal or investment earnings tax-free depending how they were set up.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1640571/
https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/sd97i4/read_dinghy_n...
It'd be awesome if there was enough metadata to link across to an AIS aggregator/map like https://www.marinetraffic.com/
How can I tell? Cuz the last thing it designed for me used the exact same fonts, color tones, border sizes and spacing for buttons.
Maybe Gemini needs a higher default temperature.
Anyways, cool data gathered here tho! Thanks for sharing
My boat was not among them sadly as I was serious about mine.
Fishizzle, Boat Float, Unsinkable II, Knot for Sail, etc.
A Columbo family mafioso I grew up near used to be in a never-ending competition with the Sultan of Brunei and the Aga Khan over who owned the worlds fastest megayacht. He named his megayachts after James Bond movies: For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, Moonraker, Casino Royale, Skyfall, and Diamnonds are Forever.
https://www.boatinternational.com/luxury-yacht-life/owners-e...
https://www.cosanostranews.com/2012/03/crime-really-does-pay...
Which is special forces support ship hiding in plain sight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Ocean_Trader
No mention of Choppin' Broccoli which can be found in the Small Craft Harbor in San Francisco
My boat is there.
Can't be that often boat naming becomes headlines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boaty_McBoatface
https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_spacecraft
> Freedom
> Liberty
> Serenity
Reads like a state motto