Bottle Sizes

Governor's daughter Isabel Hoey christens the "North Carolina" - Brooklyn Navy Yard 1940

One of the most venerable of all marine rituals is the Christening of a ship. To a great extent this has always been done by a woman, smashing a bottle of champagne on the prow of the vessel. Since ships have gotten ever larger the standard bottle of Champagne has proved to be too small and so the size of the ceremonial bottle has grown as well - up to the behemoth 50 liter "Sovereign" bottle. In case you get the call to "Christen" a vessel bottle sizes are listed below.

STANDARD bottle 750 milliters-26 ozs

MAGNUM 1.5 liters - 2 Standard bottles

JEROBOAM 3 liters - 4 Standard or 2 Magnums

REHOBOAM 4.5 liters - 6 Standard bottles

METHUSELAH 6 liters - 8 Standard bottles

SAMMANAZAR 9 liters - 12 Standard bottles or 1 case

BALTHAZAR 12 liters - 16 bottles

NEBUCHADNEZZAR 15 liters - 20 bottles

SOVEREIGN 50 liters - 67 bottles.

50 liters is 13.2 gallons and would weight somewhere in the region of 130lbs.