An Amusing Story Why C-Nile is Not A Good Name for A Boat

C

C-Nile

New member
We named our first boat, a C-Dory 16 Cruiser, "C-Nile", not wanting to come up with such a pretentious name for a small boat like "Dauntless, Intrepid, or Flying Cloud. It got a lot of laughs. Nearly every time out, we got people on other boats laughing when they saw our name, C-Nile in huge letters. Sometimes they even stopped to look and laugh. It certainly gave people a lot of pleasure.

One day we were on the Connecticut River, and over the radio I heard, "C-Nile, over." I responded, "This is C-Nile, over." We heard a reply, "I'm C-Nile," to which I responded, "No, I'm C-Nile!" It was then that I realized that a person had the same boat name as we did. That's why we went conventional with our new Marinaut.

Rich
 
That is pretty funny, especially with a unique boat name like yours but it gets complex anytime two boats have the same name and try to establish communications by VHF. Many of my boats have been named North Star and I have had the occasion many times to raise a previous boat of mine on the VHF. The call starts out as "North Star North Star North Star North Star" and unless you know what is going on or listen carefully for the pauses, it seems like I have called North Star 4 times and not given the name of my boat. I imagine that there are a whole bunch of people listening saying, "That idiot just called North Star 4 times and never told the guy on North Star who was calling. What an idiot!!"
 
Is it possible that the other vessel was "Senile"?
There is one documented vessel: C Nile:
C-NILE USCG Doc. No.: 1134604
Vessel Service: RECREATIONAL IMO Number: *
Trade Indicator: Recreational Call Sign: *
Hull Material: FRP (FIBERGLASS) Hull Number: FGBE0479A999
Ship Builder: * Year Built: *

Length (ft.): 31.9
Hailing Port: DOSWELL VA Hull Depth (ft.): 7.5
Owner: JEROME G MULLINS
15180 HORSESHOE BRIDGE RD
DOSWELL, VA 23047

None with the name "Senile"....
 
Dr. Bob,

You are quite thorough, sir. I never saw the boat, but we were near Old Saybrook at the time, and the signal was pretty strong, so it could have come from Essex or slightly more north of that location. If you look at the antenna on our CD 16 (it's in a subfolder under our C-Nile main folder,) it was about 8 to 10 feet high above the cockpit, so we enjoyed pretty good reception. The problem is that we never saw the vessel. Out of conjecture, they could have possibly have spelled it: Cenile, SeaNile, Sea-Nile, Sea_Nile, Sea Nile, SeeNile and its derivations, C_Nile, or CNile. I don't know what data base you have access to, but those spellings might yield a hit; I certainly would be interested to know. There is also another possibility to be brought forward: someone driving past my wife and I could have spotted our boat name and decided to have some fun at our expense. Nevertheless, that was the conversation that occurred, and I'm glad we no longer use that name. I sure felt ridiculous! Thanks,

Rich
 
There is a pretty good list of boat names here, but it is not all inclusive

It's called "10,000 boat names" but your boat may not be here unless you add it.

http://www2.10000boatnames.com/index.ph ... e&Itemid=1

I believe BoatUS also has a name data base as well. One of their lists is the top 10 most popular names, listed for several years:

http://www.boatus.com/boatgraphics/names_top10.asp

Boat US " 9,213 boat names submitted by your fellow boaters are included in this directory." Again not all inclusive, but interesting.

http://www.boatus.com/boatgraphics/names.asp

Harvey
SleepyC :moon
 
Interesting that the Coast Guard data base does not list the MMSI numbers but does list the FCC legal call sign.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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That's great information Harvey, but I must confess that I would never submit detailed information to a publicly accessable data base unless I was compelled to do so by law. The trouble with the internet is there is entirely too much personal information out there.

rich
 
Agreed. I know when we were looking to name our C-Dory acquisition, we spent months researching many data bases, looking for an unusual and easy name. Just didn't want another Miss B haven, or Windsong or whatever no matter how appropriate it was.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

January_2010_254.thumb.jpg
 
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