How did the custom of smashing a bottle of wine at the launch of a newly built ship come about?

Question

I was just watching a custom music-video for "QOTSA - First It Giveth" and it had Hitler at the launch of the Bismarck, and even they smashed a bottle of wine or champagne against it before launch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwnKcDzi_uk

Very much doubt it was the Germans. Apart from a brief dalliance with the oceans and naval power... they have no real history of ocean going or exploring whatsoever as they were land-lubbers for hundreds of years... compared to the seafaring ways of the British (none of us are more than 125 miles away from the ocean), the Spanish, the Portugese, the Dutch... and somewhat the French. Although going back centuries I guess the ships were wooden and they didn't smash bottle against it back then. Hmm.

Answer 1

Read all about it here:
http://www.nn.northropgrumman.com/Reagan/About_the_Christening/christening_tradition.htm

And a short explanation from the U. S. Navy:
http://peoships.crane.navy.mil/NewConstruction/christening.htm

Answer 2

Here's a short choppy answer, but just go to the link and read the whole thing, it'll help:
The practice of breaking a bottle of wine over a ship's bow was introduced by the British navy in the late 17th century as a cost saving measure! Previously the ships were baptized with a "standing cup" of precious metal, which was then promptly thrown overboard. The rapid production of ships during the height of the British Empire put an end to that.

Why champagne over wine? We couldn't find a specific answer, but champagne has always been closely tied to new births, new years, and celebration in general. It's also a secular beverage with no religious strings attached. And it looks great flying around

Answer 3

OH my gosh that became humorous. LOL thank you Jake xx Its no longer the dimensions of the bottle its what you're able to do with it. LOL. Sorry i've got no longer been answering lots nevertheless transferring and cleansing out stuff. i wish you have been properly. xx Sugar computer virus

Answer 4

it goes back even further than you Brits.....

Greeks would pour a cup of wine and then pour it overboard as an offering to Poseidon for a safe journey...a whoe bottle at the birth of a ship is a logical extension........

and I still do it everytime I take my 35 foot sloop out...can't hurt, you know

Answer 5

Cost.

Different peoples and cultures shaped the religious ceremonies surrounding a ship launching. Jews and Christians alike customarily used wine and water as they called upon God to safeguard them at sea. Intercession of the saints and the blessing of the church were asked by Christians. Ship launchings in the Ottoman Empire were accompanied by prayers to Allah, the sacrifice of sheep, and appropriate feasting. The Vikings are said to have offered human sacrifice to appease the angry gods of the northern seas.

Chaplain Henry Teonge of Britain's Royal Navy left an interesting account of a warship launch, a "briganteen of 23 oars," by the Knights of Malta in 1675:

Two fryers and an attendent went into the vessel, and kneeling down prayed halfe an houre, and layd their hands on every mast, and other places of the vessel, and sprinkled her all over with holy water. Then they came out and hoysted a pendent to signify she was a man of war; then at once thrust her into the water.

While the liturgical aspects of ship christenings continued in Catholic countries, the Reformation seems, for a time, to have put a stop to them in Protestant Europe. By the seventeenth century, for example, English launchings were secular affairs. The christening party for the launch of the 64 gun ship-of-the-line Prince Royal in 1610 included the Prince of Wales and famed naval constructor Phineas Pett, who was master shipwright at the Woolwich yard. Pett described the proceedings:

The noble Prince . . . accompanied with the Lord Admiral and the great lords, were on the poop, where the standing great gilt cup was ready filled with wine to name the ship so soon as she had been afloat, according to ancient custom and ceremony performed at such times, and heaving the standing cup overboard. His Highness then standing upon the poop with a selected company only, besides the trumpeters, with a great deal of expression of princely joy, and with the ceremony of drinking in the standing cup, threw all the wine forwards towards the half-deck, and solemnly calling her by name of the Prince Royal, the trumpets sounding the while, with many gracious words to me, gave the standing cup into my hands.

The "standing cup" was a large loving cup fashioned of precious metal. When the ship began to slide down the ways, the presiding official took a ceremonial sip of wine from the cup, and poured the rest on the deck or over the bow. Usually the cup was thrown over the side and belonged to the lucky retriever. As navies grew larger and launchings more frequent, economy dictated that the costly cup be caught in a net for reuse at other launchings. Late in seventeenth-century Britain, the "standing cup" ceremony was replaced by the practice of breaking a bottle across the bow.

Answer 6

risa please dont spam this is about ships and bottles not you making cash from your silly affiliate links!

i dont no the answer sorry !