So it was in the rest of the world too, but with modern building methods both the traditional keel laying, launching and naming ceremony has changed.
Here is an example from the expedition cruise ship “Roald Amundsen”.
Built in Norway but named in the Antarctic, using ice in place of the traditional Champagne:
https://www.offshore-mag.com/renewable-energy/article/14282576/floating-offshore-wind
Not only a waste of perfectly good ice, I can only imagine that will not be well received by Neptune. If we stop following tradition, can we continue to proclaim we are sailors?
We could honor our Norwegian comrade and follow the old Viking tradition of sacrificing a slave to pour human blood to wet the bows.
I thought they sacrificed animals… but yea, that’s what I was thinking of.
Most ship launches today is when they fill the building dock and move the hull to the outfitting dock.
Not much excitement around that process, so the naming ceremony is moved to time of delivery, or even later. (when the ship arrive at home port, or some outer suitable time)
Keel laying is also a thing of the past. That ceremony is mostly move to “cutting first steel”, or to placing the first mega block in the building dock (or both).
As for replica of a Viking ship they are usually named at launch into the salt water of the fjord, without any blood being spilled (from slave or animal).
This one, (Gaia), was named long after it left the builder’s shed in Bjørkedalen in 1990:
:
Source: Gaia ship - Wikipedia.
Two VanOord vessel to be named in Rotterdam:
TSHDVox Alexia was delivered from the building yard in Singapore 31. May, 2023:
While Cable layer Calypso was delivered from VARD Brattvåg 01. Sept. 2023:
No blod will ber spilled during the ceremony.
Another way to launch smaller ships is by semi-submersible barge:
Or as in this case, transported from one yard to another by jack-up barge:
Hyundai was doing that when they were building Suezmax tankers at their Offshore Division yard when I was in Ulsan back in 2006
Yes it is not a brand new idea. It has been used for many years for smaller vessels, but to launch Suezmax tankers that way is not common.
Most ships of that size are built in building docks so the “launching” is "float-out ".
PS> There are usually no ceremony at such occasions.
Your second picture shows loadout of the Goliat FPSO on the Dockwise (now Boka) Vanguard for transportation to Hammerfest, Norway:
Floated off in protected waters near Equinor’s gas processing plant at Melkøya in April 2015:
Source: Goliat platform floated off south of Hammerfest | Oil & Gas Journal
Looks like Russians follow the old tradition of holding a naming ceremony at time of launching:
Or was this just a coincidence; timing the ceremony with Putin’s visit in Vladivostok to meet
Kim Jong Un?
