Magazines and newspapers have been peppered with thrilling news that the historic whaling ship Charles W. Morgan will set sail once again in the summer of 2013. She will have undergone a three-year restoration at Mystic Seaport’s Henry B. duPont Shipyard, making her fit to add still another chapter to her life.

Wait a minute. The Charles W. Morgan – she?  Her life?  With a masculine name, one would ordinarily expect a masculine pronoun. True, but in maritime history, from ancient times to the present, ships have often been referred to in the feminine gender, despite their given name.

There are many theories on how this came to be. One is that romance languages often assign a gender to many words. “Ship” is always feminine. Another theory is that the tradition began when goddess-like figures were carved to grace the bows of ships. (Check out the Figureheads exhibit at Mystic Seaport for impressive authentic examples of that skilled craft.) But for the romantics amongst us, it’s much more heart-warming to believe the ‘she’ trend evolved as a love connection. But alas, the shipping industry newspaper, Lloyd’s List, now officially refers to all ships as ‘it.’ So much for romanticism!

At Mystic Seaport, seven vessels bearing feminine names now make the museum their home. Introducing: Annie, a racing sandbagger; Gerda III, a 1928 Danish lighthouse tender with a history that includes the rescue of as many as 300 Jews from Nazi-occupied Denmark; Roann, an eastern-rig dragger; Florence, a western-rig dragger; Emma C. Berry, an 1866 Connecticut smack, one of the oldest commercial fishing vessels in America and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994; Nellie, an oyster dredging sloop and Regina M., a sardine carrier.

These vessels, each in their own distinct way, represent beauty, strength, perseverance and love. They have all the right qualities to deserve being referred to as ‘she’ – don’t you agree?

www.mysticseaport.org

Trudi Busey is a volunteer at Mystic Seaport.