We sailors love our boats, talking about our boats and everybody else’s boats. These boats of ours have some really unique, funny and special names that most of us delight in. I thought it might be fun to share in the Ship-to-Shore the stories of how we named our ships. I5, Pax, Maranatha, Koosah, and Kiwi have names that peak my interest, to name a few. They no doubt have meaning to their skippers. I’ll start out with the story that inspired my vessel’s naming this issue. I invite others to come forward with their own stories for all of us to enjoy!

The wine, the boat, the regal copper woman with the torch, and I have a story. The poem is the one inscribed on the statue. This story is mine for the telling.

Turn back the clocks. It is summer in the late ’60’s, Captain’s Pond, Salem, N.H. I was teaching swimming, boating, and leading songs at Center Day Camp, the place all the local, Andover and Lawrence, MA area, Jewish kids not ready to go to overnight camp, spent their summer. Each morning the entire camp would gather at the flag pole amphitheatre by the beach. There were the daily greetings, flag-raising, announcements and always songs.

We taught the kids a song that was written for the words inscribed on the regal woman’s base. They touched me deeply as they did when I first visited her on Ellis Island, sometime in my youth. Perhaps it was being a Jew and knowing how many of our people, my four grandparents included, sailed into our country under her light. Perhaps it was something more personal for me in this life or some other somewhere in my soul. Perhaps it was feeling the deep poignancy of her mission expressed in Emma Lazarus’s words. For whatever the explanation, my connection with that lady began years ago, in my youth.

Decades ago, I found a picture carpet with the Statue of Liberty sewn in. Think tacky. Really tacky. So tacky that in those days of caring how it would look and therefore how I would look, she found a place on my wall for only a few short years. There were fumbled words and embarrassed explanations. She stayed rolled up and carried along to many residences thereafter. Eventually succumbing to the tack and tired of moving her to yet another location, I sent her to the donation bag never to be seen again, with sincere regret today.

Summer again. 2006. The concept of liberation and freedom became front and center in my life. The symbol for which the Statue stood guard in New York Harbor. The word found a special place in my mind and heart, as the feeling of breaking free was just that. Liberating. “Keep your ancient lands, your storied pomp!” I was in a new land and starting a new life.

After two summers gazing longingly at sailboats off the coast of Lopez Island, I knew that I must sail again. Keeping the promise to myself, I came home to Portland and found a friend who took me out as crew. A patient organized an all woman Basic Keelboat Class for me that cool autumn and I discovered the Oregon Woman’s Sailing Association. There I met confidant and liberated women, skippers of their own boats. I knew I wanted to be one of those skippers. It was the time of life to follow through on knowing. And so I did.

The whole process of naming a boat is legendary. I wondered how sailors come up with names for their boats. How would I ever know what to name mine? I was only in the early stages of shopping so there was no urgency. It was Trader Joe’s that had my answer. I saw the woman with the flowing dress, leaves in her hair and title in capitals on the bottle and I knew. Liberte. That will be the name of my boat. There was no doubt, only certainty and anticipation.

“Forget the boundaries. The promise of the New World is reflected in the freedom of its winemaking. Emancipated from the tyranny of Old World bureaucracy and control, the new vintner dreams of something original. No rules to observe. No quotas to fill. Nobody to serve.” Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 Paso Robles Creston, CA. Think metaphor.

Everett Marina Washington July 2010. I shook Ed Buck’s hand and took over the helm of my new vessel, Liberte. She was and forever will be my beauty, my sailing ship into new territory and adventure. Wind in my hair, sun on my face, and the ocean under my feet.

Come sail along with me, the best is yet to be, the last for which the first was made.

Debra, Liberte