I was reading Wikipedia's article on New Horizons one day, and it had a link to this forum's NH-related thread (advertised as "very informative"). I followed it, saw Alan Stern himself taking part in the discussion, went "Wha-?!", and that was basically it.

Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that. I can't speak for sailors in particular, but for us land dwellers it depends on the exact word being used. "Kohrabl'" (Russian for "ship", especially when the ship in question is military) is masculine, "soodno" (Russian for something like "vessel", i.e. a general term) is neuter, and "lodka" (Russian for "boat") is feminine.

So, when I say (in equivalent Russian) "this ship was ...", I use masculine, when I say "this vessel was ...", I use neuter, and when I say "this boat was ...", I use feminine.

But there's also a question of the craft's name. So when I say "Mary Celeste was ...", I use feminine, but when I say "Admiral Kuznetsov was ...", I use masculine.



Something like "no speak Russian", yes.



Does it consist of two words, both beginning with 's'? Then rest assured that there are a lot of nastier epithets in Russian.

Going back to topic--I think of Spirit as a "he" because: 1) the English word "Spirit" sounds masculine to a Russian ear, 2) the corresponding Russian word "dookh" is masculine. "Opportunity", on the other hand, sounds vaguely feminine, while the Russian word for "Mars rover" ("marsokhod") is masculine, so I'm slightly torn. There's also the Russian media, who usually call them "Mars rover Spirit" and "Mars rover Opportunity", which, I guess, is one way of solving the problem.