Warship whisky presented to museum

A small bottle of Canadian whisky found hidden aboard a decommissioned Australian warship has been presented to a museum.

Birdon’s group disposal manager Trent Raines presenting the whisky and silver dollar to Captain Bradley Smith

The small bottle of whisky and an American silver dollar had lain undiscovered for 35 years aboard HMAS Sydney and have now been framed and given to the Australian Navy Heritage Museum in Sydney to be put on display.

Despite the lure of sampling the whisky themselves, the disposal team, Birdon, resisted temptation and, as suggested by the drinks business, presented the bottle and coin to the museum late last month

As previously reported, the small bottle of MacNaughton Canadian whisky was discovered hidden inside the main mast of the Adelaide-class frigate.

The little bottle and the coin had been placed there by the American shipbuilders in 1982 and had spent the last three and a half decades sailing the seas with the ship unbeknown to anyone onboard.

It was only discovered when one of the men who helped build her, Paul Nickelson, heard that Sydney had been decommissioned and was due to be broken up and emailed the disposal contractors to say they should look in the mast.

There are several traditions for the launching of new ships, sailors being a superstitious bunch, including christening the craft with a wine of some sort – often Champagne.

Another tradition is stashing a coin in the mast, something that is thought to go back to Roman times when the dead had a coin placed in their mouths with which to pay Charon the ferryman for their journey across the Styx to the underworld.