Evening star., 1941-12-06


ing in this country is strictly in the
hands Of amateur bottle smashers.
Without having the statistics at
hand we would estimate that up
ward Of 10000 man hours are wasted
each year BY the indecision and
lack Of skill on the part of the
christeners. AS you know, every
one in shipyard stops work for a
christening. Riveters quit riveting.
keel layers quit keeling. ana bow
sprltters quit bowspritting, all to
gather around the ceremony.
1t should be the work Of a second
TO Whack bottle of champagne over
a ships nose. But if the newsreeIs
aren't living it isn't. There is al
ways lots Of time wasted while the
chrlstener gets her orchids straight.
bows politely to every one on the
platform and then breaks out into
a mt OF giggling that almost causes
her to fall off the scaffoIding. Just
when the betting is about 3 to I that
she will end up in Mysteries. some
one nudges her and hands her the
bottle of champagne.
every chr1stener 7 have ever seen
in the neWsreels acts, when handed
the bottle, as if she had no earthly
idea Of how TO hold a champagne
bottle. I have seen this act put on
by women who, to judge from Their
appearances, had been slugging
away at the stuff for 20 years.
But it is not until the time comes
for the actual smashing of the bot
! tie against the bow that our chris
| teners look their worst. Sometimes
they miss the ship entirely on the
first two or three swings. But more
often they have to keep whacking
the ship with the bottle as II thew
were killing a snake, to get the
/ bottle to break.
| The quickest and simplest wav
to improve our ship christening
would be to alter the present method
OF selecting christeners. As It is
now 1t isn't how well YOU christen
but who you are that gets you the
| job. Daughters and granddaughters
Of retired admirals seem TO get the
heaviest play. Wives of boatvard
officials and of owners of shipping
lines are in heavy demand too. The
fact that christener always re-
ceives nice present diamond ciips
are a standard memento) probably
has something to do with the se-
lection.
The true democratic way would
be to choose christeners on merit
not because Of background. If a.
buxom wheatfeld girl. with a fair
for cracking bottles. came along her
talent should be recognized and she
should be given as many christen-
lngs as she could handle. She could
turn professional and make the
business her life work. The fact
that she didn't have a relative who
had ever put to sea in anything big
ger that a roWboat should not be
held against her.
This will never come to mass
however. Ungifted women will con-
tinue to be chosen for the task and
continue to create a bottleneck by
their inability to swing a bottle BY
its neck. What to do then? Our
suggestion is the creation of
school for the teaching OF proper
christening technique. It could be
given a name something like "The
Helen of Try Ship Launching
School, and be stated with in
structors who know christening
technique Just as golf pros know the
golf swing.
The act of christening should be
standardized If it is better to keen
your head down and the eve on the
bottle, let that be taught. If a
short backswing would be more ef-
fective than a complete windup, let
the gals know it.
Let something be done to make
the whole thing more efficient.
| Because the way things are going
now it is wasting the time of the
shipyard workers, and boring the
beieebers out of all of us who have
to look at christenings at the movies.
Anchors aweighl
distributed by McNaught Syndicate. Inc)