Sailors DO Care.

Thames Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 17679, 2 September 1929, Page 6

Sailors DO Care.

f . # ILL-FATED SHIP NAMES. J .'At a trial trip of one of their iiew liners the White Star authorities confessed that they had some difficulty nowadays in finding for new ships names ending in -ic Meecrding to the practice of the White Star Line). The regulations of most countries- aim at avoiding duplication of ship names, since a mishap to a small vessel, reported to Lloyd's, might lead to something like a, panic among those who w'ere interested in, cr had friends on board, a' liner of tho same name. Thus even a barge might stand in the way of a giant liner getting the name her owners «lsired. ~-.> e c In spito of these precautions there are twenty-eight merchant ships of over 100 tons,bearing the name Jupiter. Curiously enough, there is not a single warship in the■; world named Jupiter, although there used to be several. For merchantmen ''star" names are by far the most popular. In point of numbers. Venus and Sirius come close behind Jupiter.

Can You Pronounce It. At the other end of the scale, the most proepular ship name, at least among signalmen and underwriters who have to write it down 'in a hurry, is surely the Venayagasowpakialetchemy. . Happily there is only one ship of this name—a barque registered at Jaffna, a port in CeySome companies, such as the P. and 0i and British India, give all sister ships lames beginning 'with the same letter. Some have a standard prefix like the 'Oity" of the Ellerman lines, or the of Cayzer, Irvine, and Co. Others iave suffixes, of which, besides the White Star's -ic, perhaps the best known is the ia of the Ounard Line (writes Frank Jowen in 'The Evening Newll'). One difficulty which confronts those ?ho have to think of names for ships is he age-old superstition of the sea and he distaste which many sailors have for ertain names. This, curiously enough, 3 far more noticeable in the Navy than in he merchant service.