What’s in a name? They say a rose by any name would smell as sweet… But who are they? And how do they know?
“They” also say that to change a boat’s name is bad luck, for if you do it without a proper, efficient offering to the Sea Gods you face eternal mayhem and destruction against yourself, as well as your ship. Therefore, to be on the safe side, we have never changed any of our vessels’ names.
This is how our boat came to be; her name is Manukai. We neither named her, nor commissioned her… Stanley Livingston Jr. the 3rd, Manukai’s original owner, named and commissioned her after his previous vessel was smashed against the rocks in a terrible storm. It was a cold September and Stanley sat on the shore in pelting rain, with hurricane-force winds and watched as his vessel broke loose from her mooring tethers and got smashed to smithereens against the harsh New England coast. There was nothing he could do but bear witness. The old man who told us this tale, said that they both had a tear in their eye as they watched the destruction of hopes and dreams come to their final resting place upon the cold New England sea floor.
Another old salt once told us that every vessel just wants to go to the sea floor, they want to dip below the water’s surface, sink to the bottom, and watch the ocean waves dance merrily above their masts. He told us that we are the only things preventing ships from doing just that….
However, Stanley Livingston Jr. the 3rd did not let his hopes and dreams die with his prior vessel. As he was already fairly late in his life he took his many years of sailing knowledge, and all of his resources to England where he commissioned Manukai through Oyster Yachts; where the very best of shipwrights worked at the time. He explained exactly what he wanted, why he wanted the things that he wanted, and as a team they created the very sturdiest and most up-to-date vessel that they could; Manukai.
Her name came after, or maybe it was before? I’m not quite sure. However, her name came from the islands of Hawaii, where Stanley was born and spent a good portion of his life.
The legend reads that in Hawaii there once lived a mythical Sea Bird. A bird of such beauty that all who saw her fell deeply entranced. A bird so powerful that she never had to touch land, she rode above the waves of the ocean singing her song to the heavens, dancing in the splashes of the sea spray, and only drinking water that dropped from the rain clouds. She was untainted by the harsh land and only allowed the sea to rock her gently to sleep each night. Her name was Manukai, the mythical, heaven-singing, Sea Bird.
This ends Manukai’s origin story. She came into this world to reignite the hopes and dreams of an individual who was at one time completely shattered by the destruction of this oh so beautiful, yet utterly devastating and tragic little blue planet.
How we came to get her is another story… but also, oddly, begins with a storm in a similar fashion to Stanley’s storm.
Manukai came again to reignite the hopes and dreams of people who were at one point tragically devastated by this utterly chaotic world. Which is why we like to share her with everyone who comes aboard; everyone deserves a break from the harsh land.
She helped us see that the world is our Oyster again; that anything is possible. Which is why we like to add to the quote “and our Oyster is the world”; for she makes it all possible. There is absolutely nothing so grand as sailing around on a boat.
If we are but the sum of our stories, we had better live some good ones! Know that you can always live some good ones along with us anytime!
