Inside Angle: The Best Worst Boat Names—2025 Edition

Did you know the United States Coast Guard has rules for naming your boat? I didn’t. Specifically for documented boats, the Coast Guard states that “The name may not be identical, actually or phonetically, to any word or words used to solicit assistance at sea; may not contain or be phonetically identical to obscene, indecent, or profane language, or to racial or ethnic epithets.”

So you can’t name your boat Ess Oh Ess because that’s phonetically identical to S.O.S. or May Day, Or Man Overboard. Got it.

Beyond that, should USCG be telling us what we can and cannot name our vessels? I’d like to say no. But by way of comparison, your state’s DMV won’t allow profane vanity plates on your Fisker Ocean. (You bought a Fisker Ocean? Really? Your plate is “THISSUX.”) But boats are different. We have a more elevated level of freedom and autonomy aboard our boats than we do in traffic.

That said, the USCG seems pretty lax when it comes to all the boat names out there that approach the limits of indecency or profanity. I wrote in this space in 2020 my observations on boat names, which would not age well when it came time to actually hail the Coast Guard in one’s hour of need. These names have the ability to entertain the Coast Guard and everyone else listening on VHF channel 16 if you find yourself hailing something dumb like, “Mayday, Mayday, this is A Perfect Moment.” Or the OB-GYN whose boat is named Sea Section. The accountant’s Tax Sea-vation.

Back to “obscene, indecent, or profane” for a moment. How about the fisherman whose center console is named Salty Test Tackles? Does the USCG have an opinion on that? Again, do we care? There’s Bass Hole, Cheap Oar, For Fox Sake and Wet Dream among all the others you and I see from one weekend to the next. Should the USCG care if some goof wants to name his boat Wasted Seamen?

Over the years, the clients for whom my staff and I have designed custom yachts have been classy and lighthearted when naming their new vessels. A 45-foot custom sportfisherman we designed a decade ago, built at the storied Huckins yard in Jacksonville, was playfully named WOMBAT by her owner. His acronym for “waste of money, brains and time.” Self-deprecating chuckles all around.

The Wheeler Yacht Company’s re-creation of Ernest Hemingway’s Wheeler, Pilar, likely the most famous sportfishing boat in the world, was built a few years ago to our design in Brooklin, Maine, and has cruised everywhere on the East Coast from Maine to Key West. She is aptly named Legend.

Now, dear reader, I’m going to peel back the curtain and give you a behind-the-scenes look at what life is like writing for a big-time yachting publication like Power & Motoryacht. Our fearless editor Dan texted me yesterday and asked if I could deliver my next column on, shall we say, short notice. Fine, Dan. Happy to do it. But now I’ve written everything about boat names I can think of at the moment and my deadline is nigh. So I’m going to make up the rest of this column.

Best of all, there was this great client years ago, a really famous, deeply tan person who’s a household name, who had a wife and four girlfriends and we designed this very large and expensive carbon-fiber foiling yacht for him that you all know and envy. The boat has five engines, like they all do now. And a beach on the transom. A former defense contractor (I should stop typing now, before the AI company he founded reaches through my computer screen and gives me a new experimental virus), that client named his boat Penta-GONE. Get it? One wife plus four girlfriends equals … Plus, you know, defense contractor? The Pentagon? Five engines? This name is a triple entendre! Now THIS is a funny and witty story that will have you renewing your subscription to Power & Motoryacht post haste.

Actually, that’s not a bad lie. The Coast Guard wouldn’t even notice. I could be a politician. Keep up the good work, Dan!

This article originally appeared in the December 2024 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.

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Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/column/inside-angle-the-best-worst-boat-names-2025-edition