This momentous day was indeed the first time during her long reign that Her Majesty had performed an official duty in January, and this was not the only precedent broken. The Queen did something that had never before occurred at the launch of a Cunard ship; she broke a bottle of Champagne across the bow.
Because of the decades old rivalry between Cunard and The French Line, historically Cunard had always refused to use French Champagne at our ship launches. Before the naming of Queen Mary 2, The Queen, her mother, her grandmother, and the dozens of Sponsors of earlier ships had all used a bottle of Empire wine for this iconic part of the ceremony.