Summary
IT is with some surprise that I have read of the failure, at the recent warship launch at Govan, of the champagne bottle to break at the first attempt. This follows, I understand, similar embarrassing failures at ship-naming ceremonies in recent times at, for example, Barrow and Southampton.
As a very junior drawing-office apprentice in a Clyde shipyard some 40 years ago I assisted in the preparation of the champagne bottle for each launch. Before the ribbons (red, white and blue) were carefully wrapped round the bottle, a glass-cutting instrument (kept in the chief draughtsman's desk and brought out for each launch) was applied so that its rotary diamond cutter scored the bottle's surface around the top and also near the bottom.See the full content of this document
Extract
Smashing Champagne Successfully
As was well known to all ...
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