‘Dame Judi Dench was cut by flying glass’: The curious art of launching a cruise ship

After pop star Meghan Trainor christened Royal Caribbean’s newest vessel, we take a closer look at this longstanding maritime tradition

Launching a ship is an illustrious maritime tradition dating back thousands of years, and one the cruise industry has turned into an art form, with lavish naming ceremonies rolling out the red carpet for the newest debutants.
A few weeks ago it was the turn of Royal Caribbean International’s latest floating leviathan, Utopia of the Seas, to be christened by American pop star Meghan Trainor, who belted out catchy numbers during a lavish spectacle where religious blessings were interspersed with marching bagpipers and high-diving acrobatics.
In past millennia, the Grammy-winning singer might have found the role of godmother somewhat career-ending, as Viking tribes favoured a more barbaric approach to ship namings – which involved human sacrifice to curry favour from their sea god Njord.
Blessing a ship to protect the lives of “all who sail in her” has long been steeped in superstition and ritual, shades of which remain to this day.
Wine was introduced to the rite in the Middle Ages, embodying the blood of sacrifice. A representative of the king would name the ship and take a drink from a goblet before sprinkling the remainder over the ship’s four cardinal points (north, east, south, west) and hurling the cup overboard.
Today’s custom of breaking a bottle of bubbly over the ship’s bow is said to have its roots in the 1700s. A National Maritime Museum account of the first such recorded occasion details how one of the princesses of Hanover “threw the bottle with more energy than accuracy, missing the ship entirely, and injuring one of the spectators, who put in a claim for damages against the admiralty”.
The custom of asking a lady to perform the ceremony is said to have been prompted by the Royal Navy in the early 19th century; until then, male tribal chiefs, religious leaders or royals had undertaken such formalities. It was believed feminine energy would safeguard the ship and bring good luck. This tradition is largely followed today, with godmothers mainly drawn from the ranks of royalty or celebrities. 
With the meteoric growth of the cruise industry ensuring a conveyor-belt procession of new ships, such ceremonies have grown ever more glitzy, with cruise lines competing to stage the most memorable and headline-catching jamborees.
The main ceremony of the ship blessing – with the immortal words: “I name this ship… ” – is often sandwiched between live musical performances before and after to help build excitement and then prolong festivities following the blink-and-you-miss-it bottle smash.
The days of godmothers personally cutting the rope to release the bottle of champagne, or even wielding it against the hull, have long disappeared from big ship launches.
One of the most memorable, which may have contributed to this change, was the experience of national treasure Dame Judi Dench while naming Carnival Legend in Harwich in 2002.
The actress was dubbed Dame Judi “Drench” after she was soaked by champagne (and cut by flying glass) after the first two attempts to smash the bottle on a rope against the ship’s hull failed. Dame Judi personally took the bottle and smashed it by hand, getting splattered in the process.
Full marks for her persistence, because the breaking bottle is believed to bring good luck to both the ship and its crew, while one that stubbornly refuses to succumb (and there have been a few) is the ultimate symbol of bad luck.
As ship namings became more extravagant, they would be conducted on the quayside, with grandstand seating and a central stage, but ceremonies like these are increasingly rare.
The current set-up favoured by most cruise companies is more remote and somewhat sanitised, with the ceremony conducted in the ship’s theatre, making it immune to the vagaries of the weather, where the all-important bottle release button takes centre stage. 
When this is pressed, a video screen shows the bottle travelling in real-time across the ship’s deck on a wire before it smashes into the hull.
In the hierarchy of notable ship launches, Cunard is the one to beat for a sense of occasion, enduring formality (female invitees are sometimes asked to wear hats) and, most importantly, securing a member of the Royal family to do the honours. 
I still remember the pomp and pageantry surrounding the first ship launch I attended, for Cunard’s ship Queen Victoria in December 2007, where the then Duchess of Cornwall was godmother.
Sitting in a covered stand on the quayside, with the ship’s prow in front of us, we watched with bated breath as the bottle sped along a wire and crunched into the hull, but failed to smash, bouncing off the steel and hanging limply in the air.
As we gasped in disbelief, the future King (who had accompanied his wife) apparently turned to the line’s president and asked, tongue in cheek: “Was that supposed to happen?”
More than two decades earlier, Diana, the late Princess of Wales, thrilled the crowds in a signature Jasper Conran outfit as she pushed the button to name Princess Cruises’ ship Royal Princess.
Roll the calendar forward to June 2013, and I was in Southampton when a heavily pregnant Princess of Wales (then Duchess of Cambridge) cut the ribbon and released a £1,250 Nebuchadnezzar of Moët et Chandon into the latest Royal Princess ship.
Yet the ultimate cruise ship christenings involved the late Queen Elizabeth II, who over the years named several new vessels for both Cunard and P&O Cruises. 
At the naming of Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth in 2010, it was amusing to observe Her Majesty’s mildly jubilant reaction when it was pointed out that there was only one person among the assembled throng who had been present at the launch of all three of the line’s “Elizabeths”.
Aged 12, she had accompanied her mother the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother to the naming of the first Queen Elizabeth in 1938 in Clydebank, before returning in 1967 to name the legendary QE2.
Since then, cruise ships have had send-offs in locations as far afield as Iceland – where pop star Katy Perry pumped out her hits after doing her godmother duties – to Florida, where many American lines hold their christenings.
The growth of adventure cruising has also led to more intrepid settings, notably Antarctica, where I was on Silversea Cruises’ expedition ship Silver Endeavour for a ceremony between the snow-covered cliffs of the Antarctic peninsula’s Lemaire Channel.
With colonies of cawing penguins for company, we watched from a fleet of Zodiac boats as the godmother, the polar explorer Felicity Aston, released an ice-sculpted bottle that splintered into a shower of frozen pieces.
Beyond royalty, the roster of godmothers has encompassed screen goddesses including Audrey Hepburn and Sophia Loren (regarded as the godmother of the MSC Cruises fleet, having named its ships over the last 20 years), Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai and Olympic gymnast Simone Biles.
In a bid to do something different, Princess Cruises turned to the cast of the American television series The Love Boat, which was set on one of its ships. Meanwhile Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), which is known for offbeat choices, picked the US dance group the Rockettes.
Most recently, and after months of speculation, Cunard celebrated the arrival of its ship Queen Anne by naming Liverpool as the godparent, thought to be the first time such an honour has been bestowed upon a city.
Stretching the imagination has been Princess Fiona from Shrek, picked by Royal Caribbean. There have been a handful of godfathers too, with rapper Pitbull chosen by NCL and footballing icon Lionel Messi adding his own touch of stardust to the naming of the world’s largest ship, Icon of the Seas, earlier this year.

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