They should give ships racehorse names. I can't wait to go aboard the SY Lost in the Fog (full name SY Lost in the Fog Save the Day), that would give me a lot of confidence of the ship's ability to navigate the waters.
Maybe when I board I'll say something like "Hey, I sort of know about this ship, his sire was Lost Soldier, (sire of 10 stakes winners and son of Danzig, who was the son of Northern Dancer). His dam was Cloud Break, a successful broodship; she also produced the stakes-placed How About My Place, by Out of Place."
Then when the ship inevitably hits a fucking rock and sinks due to nominative determinism, I'd sort of opine "I have seen Lost in the Fog hats and Lost in the Fog shirts and Lost in the Fog oil paintings being sold alongside Lost in the Fog tote bags. I have seen a LST N FOG vanity plate and sipped a Lost in the Fog martini made with a hunk of dry ice.
I have heard people speak of Lost in the Fog, a 3-year-old ocean liner who happens to be the most exciting ship in America, and swear they see in him the handiwork of God -- the lopsided blaze along his bow, for instance, which is regarded with about as much reverence as the imprint on the Shroud of Turin -- and I have beheld the hunk of metal on a cold gray dawn in Albany, steam curling off his back and everyone around either too awed or too tired to talk, and I have, if only for a moment, understood why people might say such things."
Then, however, I would understandably eulogize his demise with the cold facts "Located directly below his deck, one inoperable lymphoma ran almost the length of the ship's hull. Mechanics at University of California at Davis, where the post-mortem also was performed, originally thought that tumor to be about one foot long. 'It went all the way from his stern to invade and erode his forecastle and bulkhead', said Dr. David Wilson, director of UCD's large-ship clinic, who was part of a team of shipbuilders and specialists who worked with the ship. 'It also involved his rigging, keel and hold compartments. It actually invaded one jib and compressed both. It came right up against his main mast, Wilson added. "He had experienced swelling in his mizzenmast and that was no doubt caused by the tumors pressing on ratlines'. In earlier tests, the large tumor had been partially hidden from view by other compartments." In addition to the primary growth, Lost in the Fog bore a football-sized tumor in his anchor."
