Boat Launch Ceremony

The launching of a ship is always a ceremony worth seeing for its emotion and tradition. Galicia is one of the global powers of shipbuilding, that are thrown away by many a year. The ceremonies I like are for small boats, almost handmade that normally get tossed in small fishing villages. These pictures are of a christening in a village called Rias Baixas O Grove. Normally these towns have the old tradition of breaking a bottle Albariño white wine against the boat. Often the ceremony also has a small band of bagpipes and the ship is dragged to the dock by a horse - it is believed that these ceremonies are a pagan tradition.