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Or How to Avoid Neptune's Wrath. |
Legend has it that King Neptune personally records the
names of all ships in his Ledger of the Deep, and that he knows by heart who is
who, especially those who venture into his high seas realm. Now, imagine the anarchy, not to mention the
insult, that would ensue if one were to simply rename a boat without first
removing the original name of the boat from the Ledger. You may be certain that once Neptune’s civil
servants straightened out the mess, all fingers would point to you as the
guilty party and there will be hell to pay.
The appropriate procedure is to first humbly request
that Neptune remove the original name from the Ledger and then appeal for a
formal recognition of the new name.
Having spent more than 10 years working as an international civil
servant myself, I sensed instinctively that
such requests would require considerable grovelling of the “I’m not
worthy” type as well as various offerings and submissive postures to help move
the request from department to department up the chain of command.
The documented instructions for making the request are,
however, many and varied, and seem to have both regional and cultural variants. Nevertheless, a comparative analysis suggests
that there are two fundamental rules that must be respected regardless of the
method chosen; 1) the ceremony simply must be done, and 2) wine or champagne
have proven to be acceptable to Neptune when a blood sacrifice is not possible,
but faking it with water is worse than no ceremony at all. Two ships who disobeyed these rules,
respectively, are the Titanic and the
USS Arizona.
The ceremony is carried out in two-phases. Phase I:
Removing the existing name from the Ledger.
In general, this involves removing all items from the
boat bearing the current name. This
includes not just the name on the transom, but ALL documents, logbooks, charts,
life buoys, pictures, books, inflatable dinghies, oars, life vests, and key
chains. Numerous web resources provide
advice on cleaning products that can help you to erase or otherwise obliterate
the name on just about any textile or support.
The mantra for this phase of the work is Be Ruthless. One reference
suggests that White-Out is acceptable for removing the name from any documents
that you must keep aboard, but I would suggest using this with caution.
Ideally, this phase of the ceremony should be carried out a full 24 hours
before moving on to Phase II. If you
cannot remove the name from the transom before heading out to sea for the
ceremony, it is acceptable to cover over the name with tape, making certain
that the name does not show through the tape, of course. It goes without saying that the new name of
the boat should not appear anywhere on the boat or any of the materials she
carries, and the new name should not even be uttered until the appropriate
moment arrives.
Once you’ve ensured that there is not a single scrap
of identification lingering anywhere, you are ready to make the formal request
to Neptune. This involves writing the
current name of the boat on something and casting it off the bow during an
outgoing tide. Some suggest a metal tag
with the name written in water-soluble ink, while others suggest a more formal
sacrament that involves writing the name on a piece of paper, placing this in a
small wooden coffin, burning the ensemble, and then offering the ashes to the
sea from the bow. My personal view on
this is that while the later ceremony certainly has the potential to dazzle, it
also carries the risk that some of the ashes may be caught up by the wind and
not actually make it to the deep in an expedient manner. This would be like having part of your
carefully-prepared application file sent to the wrong department and possibly
lost.
The act of submitting this request to Neptune is to be
accompanied by incantations and blood sacrifices, where it has been previously
established that wine or champagne may be substituted for blood where
necessary. While there are numerous
ceremonies and incantations that have proven to work over the years, each with
its own particular cultural or religious flavour, I’ve chosen to base our
ceremony on John Vigor’s “Interdenominational Boat Denaming Ceremony”guidelines.
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