A Bit Puzzled KONINGSDAM

[mariner]

Did they christen the ship? I don't think I've seen anything about a christening. Seems odd?

[Btimmer]

The christening occurs on the Christening Cruise which starts from Civitavecchia on 5/9. The actual ceremony is in Rotterdam on 5/20. Details have not been widely announced (due to security issues I'm surmising). We're on that cruise.

Edited April 10, 2016 by Btimmer

[mariner]

Thanks. Call me old-fashioned, I'm not boarding until the bottle is splashed.

[Topsham]

KONINGSDAM was launched when floated out the building dock on 26th February, 2015.

 

A traditional coin ceremony was done at that time. Traditionally a coin would be placed when the mast was 'stepped'. As we don't do masts in the old manner, instead the new style mainmast is welded into place and a couple of coins are welded into a little spot on the mast. If you go on any HAL ships you will be able to find it.

 

For KONINGSDAM the coin cereloney was carried out by Mrs Tineke Schroder. She was the ship's 'madrina'... Godmother if you wish. As soon as the coin ceremony is carried out the assembled VIP etc will name smash the champagne on the bow etc.

 

In this way the ship is safely christened and can set forth on her voyaging. Cruise ships do an extra christening for PR purposes. For KONINGSDAM she will have a second christening when she is in Rotterdam.

 

Since launching of STATENDAM, all other HAL they have done the double christening. Sometime in Rotterdam, or Lauderdale or New York.

 

Christening cruise? This a 'new' idea. Most ships will have a 'delivery voyage' to get from the shipyard to the first home port. After that it is a ' maiden voyage'. Usually as the first 'revenue' voyage. These days they can make the delivery voyage as a revenue voyage as well... by calling it a 'Christening Voyage'.

 

By the time the ship gets to Rotterdam the carpets will require replacing!:rolleyes:

[mariner]

So much for tradition. Bless the bell, hoist the sails and off we go

[Topsham]

So much for tradition. Bless the bell, hoist the sails and off we go

 

 

Ah.... Bless the Bell. STATENDAM .. 1957 went out to sea in the North Channel with all VIP... no passengers and the bell was set up in the lounge and the ship was christened then by, I think, Prinses Beatrix.

 

So... that part of it is HAL tradition.

[Boytjie]

Thanks. Call me old-fashioned, I'm not boarding until the bottle is splashed.

 

And what happens if the bottle doesn't break; do you stay off? :D

[TiogaCruiser]

Ah.... Bless the Bell. STATENDAM .. 1957 went out to sea in the North Channel with all VIP... no passengers and the bell was set up in the lounge and the ship was christened then by, I think, Prinses Beatrix.

 

So... that part of it is HAL tradition.

 

So within CCL, do they only do this in HAL , or the sister lines also?

[TiogaCruiser]

KONINGSDAM was launched when floated out the building dock on 26th February, 2015.

 

A traditional coin ceremony was done at that time. Traditionally a coin would be placed when the mast was 'stepped'. As we don't do masts in the old manner, instead the new style mainmast is welded into place and a couple of coins are welded into a little spot on the mast. If you go on any HAL ships you will be able to find it.

 

For KONINGSDAM the coin cereloney was carried out by Mrs Tineke Schroder. She was the ship's 'madrina'... Godmother if you wish. As soon as the coin ceremony is carried out the assembled VIP etc will name smash the champagne on the bow etc.

 

In this way the ship is safely christened and can set forth on her voyaging. Cruise ships do an extra christening for PR purposes. For KONINGSDAM she will have a second christening when she is in Rotterdam.

 

Since launching of STATENDAM, all other HAL they have done the double christening. Sometime in Rotterdam, or Lauderdale or New York.

 

Christening cruise? This a 'new' idea. Most ships will have a 'delivery voyage' to get from the shipyard to the first home port. After that it is a ' maiden voyage'. Usually as the first 'revenue' voyage. These days they can make the delivery voyage as a revenue voyage as well... by calling it a 'Christening Voyage'.

 

By the time the ship gets to Rotterdam the carpets will require replacing!:rolleyes:

So the coins are visible? If so , Next time I'm aboard I want to see that.

[InTheWASide]

Yes there are. Here you go

 

[Topsham]

So within CCL, do they only do this in HAL , or the sister lines also?

 

 

 

I'm not certain, but I have a funny that Carnival Corp ships have this ceremony and one of the reasons is because as lot of this ship were built by Fincantieri and possibly this is something that started with the Italian yards.

 

Common to have Italian ships built will have a formal blessing as well.

 

I bit like babies. You want one to be baptized as soon as possible. Just in case.

 

White Star Line never christened their ships. When all ready they would fire a rocket and the ship would be sent down the launching ways. No formal naming either. Well, you know what happened to Titanic don't you?

[chengkp75]

I believe that RCI and NCL do the coin celebration in a different method, where the coin is placed when the first two or three major double bottom blocks are joined in the builder's dock. This places the coins less in visible locations, but more in line with traditional placement, somewhere in the engineering spaces under the funnel (mast), and along the "keel".

[Topsham]

Quite right. The stepping of the mast is the tradition and comes from days of sail. Of course the coin ceremony is not the same as christening. Coin Ceremony is more of a building milestone. Some builders will place a coin onto the building block as the first feel plate is laid. What happens after the launch I have no idea. Japanese ships and Korean builders will also do a very elaborate ceremony for the launch.

 

I went to Margehra for the launch of ROTTERDAM in 1996. Coin Ceremony and then to the dockside and naming an christened and blessing. The sluice valves open and the flooding starting the dock. The water came up to the water to touch the hull and then everyone went off to a great lunch. Unfortunately the ship didn't actually float. There was a strike so the flooding was stopped... just enough to wet her bottom.

[Sir PMP]

And what happens if the bottle doesn't break; do you stay off? :D

 

If it doesn't break, you need to open it and drink it and then get another one and do it again, which hopefully doesn't break again and again and.....hick...again and....

[chengkp75]

And what happens if the bottle doesn't break; do you stay off? :D

 

Just a fun fact for those who don't know, but the bottles used to christen ships are pretty fragile. There are specialty glass places that know how many and how deep to score the glass so that the pressure from the carbonation won't explode the bottle, but that it will break with a fairly minimum amount of force. Sometimes fails, but not often.

 

We kept the "back-up bottle" onboard our ship for about 3 years before it exploded all over the Captain's office one day. Lesson learned.

Edited April 10, 2016 by chengkp75

[mariner]

I think once the first bottle worked, it was time to drink the back-up!

[chengkp75]

I think once the first bottle worked, it was time to drink the back-up!

 

It never is very good stuff, not sure why we kept it.

[Topsham]

Never waste plonk... no matter how bad it might be!

 

 

 

A friend of mine has a great collectable. The christening bottle used on the Italia liner CRISTOFORO COLOMBO. The bottle was covered in a mesh and then in woven ribbons in Italia colours or red, green and white. When smashed the wine runs out, but keeps the broken glass inside. The whole was kept in a special teak wooden casket and an inscribed silver plated with the ship's name and date. Very nice collectable.

[chengkp75]

I always think of the apprentice who is learning to score the bottles, and how many of the d**ned things blow up in his face. We've tried to do it a couple of times when the company wanted to save a nickel, and had them blow up all over the grinding wheel.

[mariner]

Worse comes to worse, the suite pax get it for welcome aboard!

[Boytjie]

Just a fun fact for those who don't know, but the bottles used to christen ships are pretty fragile. There are specialty glass places that know how many and how deep to score the glass so that the pressure from the carbonation won't explode the bottle, but that it will break with a fairly minimum amount of force. Sometimes fails, but not often.

 

We kept the "back-up bottle" onboard our ship for about 3 years before it exploded all over the Captain's office one day. Lesson learned.

 

They should have used use one of those bottles when Cunard's Queen Victoria was christened by Camilla , the Duchess of Cornwall.

 

http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2007/12/11/Camilla-has-unlucky-break-at-ship-launch/94141197425702/

Edited April 11, 2016 by Boytjie

[scamper]

This thread puts me in mind of when Dame Judi Dench christened Carnival Legend in 2002. She came away as Dame Judi DRENCH!

 

http://www.djdchronology.com/abcd/carnivalcruise2002.htm

 

The Oscar-winning actress launches a cruise ship but ends up getting soaked in champagne, reports Hugh Davies

 

Dame Judi Dench has never flinched when confronted with a magnum of Moet. That is until yesterday, when she was drenched with the stuff.

 

In fine fettle after a Highland night celebrating Billy Connolly's 60th birthday, she took three bottles to push the boat out. On the third try, launching a cruise ship at Harwich, Essex, the champagne exploded - everywhere.

 

Champagne moment: Dame Judi with Captain Claudio Cupisti The Oscar-winner, her hair dripping with bubbly and her cream outfit completely soaked, laughed loudly. Dame Judi's champagne moment came at the invitation of Micky Arison, owner of the Miami Heat basketball team.

 

As chief executive of the Carnival Corporation which runs the QE2, he wanted her to name his latest acquisition, the sleek £268 million 2,124-passenger liner Carnival Legend.

 

He sent his private jet up to the Western Isles, where the star was on holiday, painting and walking, to fetch her. For a small consideration - £17,857 to her two favourite charities, the British Lung Foundation and the Oxford Iris Murdoch Appeal - she agreed to act as the ship's "godmother".

 

Dame Judi, 67, made a speech, saying: "I am godmother to 13 godchildren and also godmother to a god-dog. Now I'm godmother to a great ship. I have always taken my responsibility as godmother extremely seriously and I hope that if at any time this great ship feels it needs my help it will feel free to call on me and I will go rushing to its side."

 

Stepping up to the bow, she pulled a rope so that a magnum could smash against the ship. A Carnival spokesman said last night: "It was a complicated mechanism and, before Dame Judi arrived, we had several run-throughs that went without a hitch.

 

"Dame Judi was not so fortunate. She tugged at the rope, but the bottle didn't smash. It just went clunk against the side of the ship." A decision was made to abandon the bow ceremony and manually crack another bottle at the ship's entrance.

 

Dame Judi marched up the gangplank with Claudio Cupisti, the Italian captain, clutched another magnum and tried again. The bottle slipped from her grasp and dropped into the sea.

 

The spokesman said: "A third was produced, and this time it did break. Oh boy, did it smash. The bubbly went all over her.

 

"Dame Judi took it so well. She didn't go all prissy as many stars would have done. She laughed and laughed."