I’ve had this asked of me a number of times in the past and frankly I should do a proper video on the topic.  It might be difficult as the name is nearly as old as I am and any attempt to capture it in a few paragraphs is to do it disservice as much as it would do me disservice.

That said, and for the sake of being the bard and telling a glorious story, i give you the reason why my friends call me Tipsy, why the Raven is my symbol, and how  the two of those were ever married together in the first place:

Growing up I was immediately under the tutelage of my father.  My childhood was learning.  Experiencing.  To be perfectly honest, it was brutal in a sense – very rarely any TV and even when I was allowed to I’d watch shows with my dad about building things and making sense of parts that made no sense.  I believe its because what interested my dad – crafting, building, technology – but it rubbed off well on me.  My fearlessness of working on my boats comes from that point in time as much as my name does – Tipsy Raven.

When I wasn’t allowed to watch TV i spent most of my time outside.  Its fair to say i was pretty wild in that respect – I would routinely even as a pre teen go camping solo far enough out back that my parents had to walk part way before shouting to get me to come back to the house.

On one of these days, not camping but no reason to stay inside the house either, around about 8 years old i was sitting in my chair I made watching the world go by as I did most days.  I was out behind the barn and watching the woods, where the Ravens liked to hang out.  I liked Ravens, they were obviously intelligence and calculating and I would feed them.  I never got around to getting gifts back from them, though perhaps I am in fact wrong about that.

On this particular day, it was chill and cool out – late Fall.  The birds were coming down out of the pines and grabbing up apples that fell from the orchard trees and flying back to the trees with their loot.  They’d eat the apples and suddenly topple out of the tree.  I knew what  was happening – my grandfather would make wine from the conchord grapes and the apples on the ground had the same telltale alcoholic smell to them.  The silly corvids were getting blitzed drunk on apple jack.

Needless to say – as an 8 year old this amused me greatly and for hours.  Its a fond memory of mine, a lazy day at the farm watching the birds get hammered and falling out trees only to get back up and come get another apple.

By the time I was a little older I got apprenticed to a blacksmith and when i completed my first knife was told I needed a name and a touch mark.  I had wrought from steel something that wasn’t there before and tradition demanded I sign my work.  I reflected and quickly decided “Tipsy Raven”.  The runic letters for T and R forming a wonderful little mark (and true to my north European descent) that I would carry and leave in thousands of little places along the years.  Tipsy Raven Forge was born as I became an adult, years spent building the brand with friends and family and patrons of my craft.  Soon it became Tipsy Raven Sailing as I dove into my first sailboat ownership.

Now?  I’m just Tipsy Raven.  All experiences and knowledge skills and talents feeding to the center.  The absolute freedom of those silly birds burning away a beautiful fall day in the way they knew best.