Eat, Pray, Swing

Why, in the hoary lore and legend of the sea, is it bad luck to have a woman on board ship but highly desirable to have a lucky lady christen a new vessel with a magnum of champagne at launch?

Big Send-off, Small Fry
Even a tiny-fish-cargo workhorse is in party mode on the day she debuts. Mary Anne was the first refrigerated sardine carrier, bubbling chilled salt water and air up through the hundred-ton load of baby herring in the hold. Here, Mary Pike (photo above) christens her in 1947 at the Newbert and Wallace shipyard in Thomaston as envious sister Anne Sleight Pike looks on. It doesn’t hurt when your dad, Lubec “sardine millionaire” Moses Bernard Pike, owns the new ship.
No word on how many wharf cats watched the ceremony.