Fifty-six years ago today, Newport News Shipbuilding launched USS Nimitz (CVN 68), the lead ship of a nuclear-powered class of aircraft carriers, from Shipway 11.

Catherine Nimitz Lay smashed the traditional bottle of champagne across the bow of the ship named for her father, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz.

Just seconds after the christening of the ship, 10 tugboats began moving the carrier to the shipyard’s outfitting piers.

In a shipyard first, the launching procedure was instituted using closed circuit television to combine the christening bottle smash with the timing of mechanically launching the ship. A camera was focused on Lay, with receivers in the shipway control pit. When the bottle broke, shipbuilders in the control pit knew exactly when to time the ship’s move and could instruct the tugboats to begin backing Nimitz out of the shipway.

Prior to Nimitz, past launches had been coordinated by telephone and precision clock-watching.

Nimitz remains in service, with decommissioning and inactivation on the horizon.

Note: Look for stories every month featuring NNS history, thanks to a shipbuilder suggestion submitted via the MyIdea program.