新船的洗礼仪式始于遥远的过去，我们知道罗马人、希腊人和埃及人都举行仪式，要求神保护水手。

到了19世纪，船只的洗礼开始遵循一种熟悉的模式。一种“洗礼液”会倒在船头上，虽然不一定是葡萄酒或香槟。美国海军记录中有关于19世纪战舰被命名为“美国重要河流之水”的记载。

船只的洗礼成为重大的公共活动，大批群众聚集在一起见证仪式。它成为了洗礼仪式上使用的香槟酒的标准酒，作为最顶级的葡萄酒。传统发展到女性将获得荣誉并被命名为该船的赞助商。

此外，海上迷信认为，没有正确命名的船只将被视为不吉利，而香槟瓶没有破裂则是一个特别坏的预兆。

缅因州的洗礼仪式

1890年，当美国海军新的战斗巡洋舰缅因号在布鲁克林海军造船厂接受洗礼时，大批人群涌了出来。1890年11月18日，即该船下水的早晨，《纽约时报》的一篇文章描述了将要发生的事情。它还强调了海军部长孙女、16岁的爱丽丝·特蕾西·威尔默丁（Alice Tracy Wilmerding）的责任：

Miss Wilmerding will have the precious quart bottle secured to her wrist by a short bunch of ribbons, which will serve the same purpose as a sword knot. It is of the utmost importance that the bottle be broken on the first throw, for the bluejackets will declare the vessel is unmanageable if she is permitted to get into the water without first being christened. It is consequently a matter of deep interest to the old “shellbacks” to learn that Miss Wilmerding has performed her task successfully.

精心准备的公开仪式

第二天的版本出人意料地详细报道了洗礼仪式：

Fifteen thousand people – on the word of the watchman at the gate – swarmed about the red hull of the giant battle ship, on the decks of all the assembled vessels, in the upper stories and on the roofs of all the adjacent buildings. The raised platform at the point of the Maine’s ram bow was prettily draped with flags and flowers and upon it with Gen. Tracy and Mr. Whitney stood a party of ladies. Prominent among them was the Secretary’s granddaughter, Miss Alice Wilmerding, with her mother. It was upon Miss Wilmerding that all eyes centred. That young lady, clad in a cream white skirt, a warm black jacket, and a big dark hat with light feathers, wore her honors with a very modest dignity, being fully sensible of the importance of her position. She is scarcely sixteen years old. Her hair in a long braid fell gracefully down her back, and she chatted with her more elderly companions with perfect ease, as though entirely ignorant of the fact that 10,000 pairs of eyes were looking toward her. The bottle of wine which her hands were to break over the formidable bow was a pretty thing indeed – quite too pretty, she said, to be offered up on the shrine of so unfeeling a monster. It was a pint bottle, covered with a network of fine cord. Wound around its full length was a ribbon bearing a picture of the Maine in gold, and from its base hung a knot of varicolored silk pennants ending in a gold tassel. Around its neck were two long ribbons bound in gold lace, one white and one blue. At the ends of the white ribbon were the words, “Alice Tracy Wilmerding, November 18, 1890,” and at the ends of the blue were the words, “U.S.S. Maine.”

缅因州入水

当船脱离束缚时，人群爆发了。

“She moves!” burst from the crowd, and a great cheer went up from the lookers-on, whose excitement, no longer pent up, ran wild. Above all the uproar could be heard Miss Wilmerding’s clear voice. “I christen thee Maine” she said, accompanying her words with a smash of the bottle hard against the steel of the cruiser’s bow – a performance attended by a great splashing of the effervescent wine, which flew all over the coats of Secretary Tracy and his close companion, ex-Secretary Whitney.

当然，缅因号在历史上占有独特的地位，1898年它在哈瓦那港爆炸沉没，这一事件导致了美西战争。后来有报道称，这艘船的洗礼预示着厄运，但当时报纸报道了洗礼的成功。

维多利亚女王在英国获得了荣誉

几个月后，1891年2月27日，《纽约时报》发表了一篇来自伦敦的短文，描述了维多利亚女王如何在电机的帮助下前往朴茨茅斯，并为皇家海军的一艘军舰命名。

At the conclusion of the religious service the Queen touched a button protruding from a small electric machine which had been placed in front of the place where her Majesty was standing, and the traditional brightly beribboned bottle of champagne, detached by the current from its position over the bows of the Royal Arthur, crashed upon the vessel’s cutwater, the Queen exclaiming, “I name thee Royal Arthur."

卡米拉的诅咒

2007年12月，一艘以维多利亚女王命名的库纳德号班轮接受洗礼时，新闻报道并不乐观。《今日美国》的一名记者指出：

Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, the controversial wife of England's Prince Charles, christened the 2,014-passenger ship earlier this month in an elaborate ceremony in Southampton, England that was marred only by the fact the champagne bottle didn't break — a bad omen in the superstitious seafaring trade.

库纳德的维多利亚女王号的首轮航行因病毒性疾病的爆发而受损，这是一种严重的“呕吐病毒”，折磨着乘客。英国媒体充斥着“卡米拉的诅咒”的故事

在现代社会，人们很容易嘲笑迷信的水手。但是在维多利亚女王号上遇难的人们可能会在一些关于船只和香槟酒瓶的故事中加入一些素材。