Greenpeace was the name of the boat first

On September 15, 1971, the Phyllis Cormack left Vancouver for Amchitka Island, Alaska. The 80-foot fishing boat had been chartered to oppose an American underground nuclear test. For the voyage, it carried another name: Greenpeace.

The organization chartering it was not yet Greenpeace. It was the Don’t Make a Wave Committee, named for fears that the test might trigger an earthquake and tsunami. At an early meeting, ecologist Bill Darnell had joined two concerns in the phrase “green peace.” The words were run together because they would not fit on a button. The committee used the result on a pamphlet, then rechristened the boat with it.

In its stated purpose, the voyage failed. The vessel never reached Amchitka. The crew argued, encountered bad weather and was intercepted over a customs violation. The Cannikin bomb was detonated on November 6.

The name completed the trip.

According to crew member Bob Hunter’s later account, the Don’t Make a Wave Committee was nearly dissolved on the way home. Jim Bohlen considered its ad hoc task finished. Hunter argued that they should preserve the attention the voyage had earned by reconstituting the group as the Greenpeace Foundation. The committee adopted the name after the campaign.

This was more than exchanging a clumsy title for a good one. Don’t Make a Wave described a particular objection to a particular bomb test. Greenpeace joined ecology and pacifism without specifying a government, weapon or island. It could leave Amchitka without becoming false.

It had also acquired a useful grammar. A committee sounds like people holding meetings. A named ship can depart, be intercepted and come home. The chartered fishing boat gave the campaign a protagonist before the movement had an institution.

The mission returned without stopping the bomb. Its narrow name was exhausted. The broader name painted onto the boat was now worth keeping.