Why do women sponsor submarines?

Answer 1

It's not just Submarines - women sponsor all U.S. Navy ships and submarines, and most other countries do as well. It has not always been that way, and the christening tradition came to the U.S. from Europe.

The U.S. Navy originally had their christenings performed by men. The first recorded instance of a woman performing a christening was in 1827, on the Sloop-of-War Concord. Her name isn't known, and while it increasingly became tradition for women to sponsor, it wasn't universal.

The first known woman sponsor was Miss Lavinia Fanning Watson. She broke a bottle of wine and water over the bow of the Sloop-of-War Germantown on August 22, 1846.

The tradition of women as sponsors finally gained hold around the end of the 19th century. Wine is the traditional fluid, though it hasn't been exclusive (whiskey and seawater have been used among others). The first recorded instance of a U.S. Navy vessel being christened is the USS Constitution (Old Ironsides), whose Captain broke a bottle of Madeira wine over the heel of her bowsprit as she was launched.

Sailors (myself included) are an extremely superstitious lot, and it's been long held that any vessel not christened properly is a bad omen, and will bring bad luck to the ship and its crew. It's not an idle superstition either; there have been more than just one ship which wasn't properly christened that's had bad luck and recurring problems for both ship and crew throughout the ship's history. Some of the more recent examples of bad christenings (failure of the bottle to break upon striking the bow) and subsequent bad luck are the Costa Concordia, and several Carnival cruise ships.

The most famous example is likely the Mary Celeste, which was found adrift at sea, intact and under sail, but without her crew and passengers aboard. To this day it is still one of the most enduring and perplexing mysteries in maritime history.

Since Champagne is the top dog of all wines, it became the christening wine of choice, and it still is today. Over the past 50 years, women sponsors of ships bearing names of sailors have included wives, widows, or other female relatives. The Navy, being politically savvy, realized they could also score some points by asking wives of prominent Naval officers and Navy-friendly politicians to sponsor Navy vessels named after their husbands, and that practice continues today.

The political aspect is also why you see many capital ships being named after key politicians who have been friendly to the Navy or the Department of Defense in general.