Welcome to Our Blog

Thank you for sharing in our journey of building and sailing a Fusion Catamaran! We are so excited to be able to chronicle our adventure for family, boat and land friends, and supporters, from the initial decision to our cruising life "down island". Please post your comments, questions, and cautionary tales-we love to hear from you!







Thursday, September 8, 2011

The Name of A Dream

Several weeks ago we made our first trip (of many to come!) to visit Rian and Larissa ("Lari") in Sarasota.  We planned to review some of our initial design thoughts, visit the boatyard where our project would be built, and talk over the stages of work.  There we met with Kim Lindsey of Sarasota Yacht Center, who impressed us immediately as an extremely dynamic and competent operations manager.  Her yard, like many businesses on the west coast of Florida, has suffered some setbacks of late, due to the economic recession, and unrealized business deals.


But rather than dwelling on the past, she is enthusiastically planning for the future, and showed us the changes to the yard, the access road, and the entranceway they would be making to accomodate the equipment that would be needed to deliver our kit, and to eventually launch it as a finished boat, the first Fusion of many more planned to come. 


When we first considered the Fusion 40, we had trouble finding anyone that could tell us more about the concept, but we felt strongly from the beginning that the Fusion 40 was a perfect fit, not only for us, but also for the North American market.  And it is clear to us that the rest of our team, Kim with Sarasota Yacht Center, and Rian and Lari from MondoMarine, share a similar vision. 

That weekend, we talked and planned for over ten hours, touching on topics large and small, from diesel vs. electric engines to where the microwave would be located in the galley.  But in a quiet moment, while we were all mulling over the enormity of the decisions ahead, the most important question popped up: "What will the name of the boat be?"  And sheepishly, we had to admit, we had not decided! 

On the drive back home to Miami, this question became the focus of our discussion.  For years we had kept a running list, first mentally, and more recently on paper, of possible boat names.  Most related back to a song or a fond memory, but as we considered them now, they seemed trite and predictable.  Names you might see in any mooring field: Journey, Evergreen, Cool Change, Wanderlust headed the list. We did come up with Dennis (the Menace) and The Kobayashi Maru as some of the more original candidates, but nothing felt just perfect.  (Actually, we were afraid that Kobayashi Maru might mean something nasty in an Asian language that we were unaware of!)

Then suddenly, out of the contemplative silence, Dennis said, "XYZZY-that's what we should call it!" XYZZY?  What was that?  A mysterious password, my husband explained, that had first been coined in an early computer game played on the original PC.  What was the game called?  Adventure! Hmmm...I was not convinced, although it certainly was unique.  I Googled it and came up with this from UrbanDictionary.com:

The quintessential magic word, originally from the "ADVENT" text-adventure game.
The word XYZZY would teleport the player when spoken in the right location.
Wow!  This really spoke to us!  A magic word that would transport one to a special place?  Well, that is what our Fusion dream was all about!  Drawing on the beginnings of our techy backgrounds, and alluding to the inherent escapsim in our Adventure, it seemed perfect.  True, there would need to be explanations of the name (we're thinking of T-shirts and pamphlets with the definition) and the pronunciation (just say the letters, don't try to get complicated...), but it was certainly neither trite nor predicable. 
And so, our Fusion is hereby christened "XYZZY".  And the dinghy will, of course, be named "plugh" (pronounced "plew")...you are on your own to figure that one out!