Yellowknife (July 30/03) - Some say it is bad luck to change the name of one's newly acquired boat.

Several boaters at the Great Slave Yacht Club have mixed feelings about the old folklore.

"I was the third owner of the boat Miss Julie Leigh. My wife wanted to change the name, but we didn't, we ended up selling it," Craig Oldford, a seven-year boat owner says.

Bruce Barker bought the boat.

"We changed it to the D.B. Leigh after my daughters," he says, adding he isn't too sure about whether bad luck will follow.

Oldford says he has heard of a "ceremony that involves a bottle of champagne" which can be undertaken to officially change one's boat name.

It involves decommissioning the vessel and then undergoing a recommissioning process.

The owner of the 26-foot Bayliner Polar Bare, Dean Taylor, says he, too, has heard of the sailor's lore that bad luck will loom over a renamed boat.

"I'm not going to change the name," he says.

But from the best and worst of puns, to having a personal attachment, boat owners say their boats' names are special.

"My father's fishing schooner in Newfoundland is called the Five Brothers, after our family," Frank Walsh says.

But whether good luck or bad, one common denominator all boat owners have is the love of cruising on the lake on a hot summers' day.

"I love boating. We do harbour cruises and on weekends, cruise to the North Arm," Taylor says.

Oldford also thinks there is nothing quite like being on the open water.

"We fish and just relax. The longest trip my wife and I made was a 23-day trip to Wildbread Bay," he says.