AHOY SEAMATES!
Welcome on board of our new Blog!
This space will be dedicated to sharing our stories with you, so you can get to know what we are all about and discover topics that matter to us as sailors.
So let's start at the beginning with the big question:
Who is Jack and who is Jenny?
We like to think of them as the two characters at the beginning of our story.
If you look up their names, they both start to have many faces.
Jack may remind you of "Jack-of-all-trades", the characterization referring to a person who has dabbled in many skills, or one might think of Jack Sparrow, the dizzy iconic pirate.
If we get more serious about the etymology of the name, we can see that "Jack" which is derived from "Jackin" (earlier "Jankin"), used to be a medieval diminutive of "John". During the Middle Ages it was very common and it became a slang word meaning "man". It was frequently used in fairy tales and nursery rhymes, such as 'Jack and the Beanstalk', 'Little Jack Horner', and 'Jack Sprat'.
Jenny is a nickname for the Genoa, a type of sail that is set up and flies forward of the mast of the sailing boat. It was named after the city of Genoa, where it made its first appearance on board of May-Be, a 6 m R-type sailing yacht sailed by the famous Swedish sailor and ship-owner Sven Salèn (1890–1969) during the 1926 in Coppa di Terreno race.
Jenny is of course the diminutive of Jennifer which in turn can be traced back to Guinevere, the Norman French form of the Welsh name Gwenhwyfar, derived from the elements gwen or gwyn which means "fair, white, shining, holy" and hwyfar which means "phantom, magical being, spirit, fairy", or even "smooth, soft".
According to more etymology lore, it is rumored to mean "white enchantress" or "white wave" referring to the foamy crashing waves of the ocean.
So now we can make up more about the leading characters of our story:
Jack is a pirate captain-type savvy multitasker, and Jenny his mysterious and enchanting companion. She acts like a guiding force through the sails, and is effervescent like the white sea waves.
They may be our imaginary sailing friends. They may be the symbolic characters who represent the relationship we humans have with sailing and the sea.
They are the adventure-seekers who leave the comforts of the home to explore remote archipelagos.
As the story goes on, they change character, they become relaxed sailors, or adventurous pirates, depending on the mood of the journey they have chosen to plan ahead.
They represent our quest for the tailor-made adventure, combining an awesome route with awesome experiences.
Their story is our story: we are committed to the sea and its endless ways to discover places and experiences.
They are our own alter egos, we make them up as the story of our own adventures unfolds at sea.
They are our own made up mythology.