It is 60 years ago, on 10^th of March 1959, that the MS Jaladuta was launched at its shipbuilding yard in Lubeck Germany.

It is this vessel that brought A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada from Calcutta, via Boston, to New York on a journey that started on August 13^th 1965, in what did become an astonishing journey and the start of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

Shri Patel painting the Swastika on the bow of the vessel.

The launch was organized by the Lubecker-Flenderwerke AG yard in North Germany at the completion of the ship. This event is standard in the shipbuilding industry and is likened to a christening name giving ceremony. The vessel receives its name and blessings from all present guests for its future journeys. Interesting fact is that the ship company Scindia named the majority of their vessels starting with Jala, Jalakrishna, Jalagopal, Jalakanta etc.

The name giving ceremony and breaking the coconut by Shri Patel.

The procedure is that the yard invites a prominent figure to speak the name of the vessel and simultaneously break a bottle of champagne on the bow. In this case the shipbuilders invited members of the board of Scindia, and instead a bottle of alcohol, a blessed coconut was used to inaugurate the name giving ceremony. 

The MS Jaladuta slides off the yard towards the Elbe-Trave Canal for its first test runs.

Unfortunately the Jaladuta was scrapped in 1983.

* * *

For further information email Yugala Kishor Gour on jaapalberts@iskconleicester.org