What's a Madrigal?

People ask us this all the time. We did not name the boat ourselves. "Madrigal" was the name given by the previous owner, and I myself had to look it up when we bought her. I knew it was musical, but that was all. Anyhow, according to wikipedia: "A madrigal is a type of secular vocal music composition, written during the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Throughout most of its history it was polyphonic and unaccompanied by instruments, with the number of voices varying from two to eight, but most frequently three to six." Neat. I like that well enough. We originally thought about changing the name, and we even blogged about it. We had eventually decided on Norombega, but we took so long debating that Madrigal had finally begun to feel like Madrigal, and to call her anything else would have been wrong. (and I know about all the bad luck involved as well, wrath of Poseidon and all that jazz). So, Madrigal she stays.

Previously, I had only known the word because of the infamous Norwegian Black Metal band Ulver. They once released an album titled 'Nattens Madrigal' full of fantastic sweeping black metal recorded raw, but organically and wonderful. Below is the first track from this epic album.