Salisbury Harbor Commission opens up boat naming contest to public, gathers more laughs

SALISBURY, Mass - Here's one for anyone who likes a good pun and a few potty jokes.

The Salisbury Harbor Commission in Massachusetts settled on a name for the newest member of its fleet, which is a boat built to travel throughout the Merrimack River Basin, pumping sewage from the bilges of other boats.

That's right; it's a poop pumper, a dung dingy, a discharge barge, if you will. Let the fun begin.

Harbor commissioners realized not too many people would like to be the one to operate the vessel, but plenty would like to be the one to name it. So the commissioners opened up the delightful task to the masses. They collected dozens of suggestions from friends, family members and fellow boaters. Then a local newspaper got wind of what was going on, ran a story, and took the friendly contest to a whole new level.

"We received three pages more on top of the three pages we already had," Harbor Master Ray Pike told the Eagle-Tribune.

Commissions poured through their options during a regularly scheduled meeting.

"Everyone picked their favorites, everyone got only one veto, and they simply voted," Pike told the paper. "We had a lot of laughs and chuckles. There were a lot of puns."

The names that came in second and third place are Poo Bear and Pumpty Dumpy, but according to Pike, no one wanted to answer to either name when called over the radio by a boater in need of service.

Other suggestions worth noting include Potty Mouth, Poop Sloop, Floater, Ship's Log, Captain's Log, Winnie the Poo, Doody Call, and Gobbledygook.

In the end, the commission settled on the Down Winder.

Before Salisbury secured the ship, Newburyport was the only town along the basin with a boat that could handle the task. Newburyport officials said their pump-out boat was overworked and could not keep up with demand.

The Salisbury harbor commission is planning to christen the Down Winder sometime next spring. The christening will be before the boat begins servicing vessels for its second year. It was in commission all last summer, just without a name.

A environmental grant from the state covered much of the cost for the Down Winder, according to the Eagle-Tribune.