Where went the tradition split a bottle of champagne on board the new ship Bashny.Net

Before you pull the ship into the water, its board is required to break a bottle of champagne. As the saying goes: "Fortunately." I always wondered why it is so doing. And that's what I naryl.





Let's go back to basics

The tradition of christening a new ship for good luck was all civilizations have mastered navigation. The Greeks, for example, olive wreaths adorned the bow, drank wine in honor of the gods, and the boat washed with water to bless it. The Babylonians were sacrificed bull, Turks sacrificed sheep, and the Vikings and the Tahitians ship sprinkled with human blood.

These events have always had religious overtones. The purpose of these actions was always getting blagoslaleniya at the protection of the gods. In the Middle Ages in Europe, before they pull the boat on the water, on board were praying monks, lay hands on the mast and pouring holy water on the deck.

The religious aspect of baptism left the ship after the Reformation, it was particularly noticeable in the UK. In the UK, the nobles joined the celebration of the launching of the new ship, which was nothing more than a simple booze. By tradition, they drank wine from the large and expensive cups are usually made of precious metals and often threw them overboard. Cups battered lucky flew out from the crowd or in the sea. But due to the fact that the ships were built so much that precious cups simply no longer enough, they began to save, and then completely abandoned the tradition of drinking on board and began to simply split a bottle of wine on the side of the ship.

The choice of drink

Baptism of ships in the young United States was borrowed from old England. At first, no one choose which bottle smash, smash the one that was at hand. In the course went wine, whiskey, brandy, a bottle of spring water or water from the ocean or a bottle of bourbon.

Who invented the split of champagne aboard it does not know the story, but for the first time this fact was recorded in 1890 during the baptism of military armored ship Maine. Go to Champagne has also been linked with a final rejection of the wood to steel in the manufacture of ships. Explosion of champagne bottle on a steel board looks very impressive, very fond of in the states.

But in the US came Prohibition and ships again began to baptize with water, juice or in the rare case of apple cider. Champagne returned only after the repeal of Prohibition. At this time, the Europeans had to adopt this tradition.

A small secret

Bottles are taken to fight special, where the glass has a defect. You could say it is defective champagne. But you understand that no one wants to bottle remained intact ... After a bottle of champagne, one of the most thick and strong, and good luck to the ship, especially in the stormy ocean is often lacking. Also take big bottles, which we considered to be the gift and the elite, all because of the more marriage in the glass and the bottle is easier to break this.

And the main secret. Often the neck of the bottle wrapped with a thick layer of paper, cloth or ribbon hanging. All this is not accidental. To increase the chances of doing that is where the weak point in the form of a notch or hiding something like a glass cutter.