The Yachts of Seabourn is planning an intimate ceremony for the naming of the newest addition to its award-winning fleet: Seabourn Odyssey. The highly anticipated event, set for June 24, 2009, will take place on deck as the sun sets behind the unmistakable skyline of Venice, Italy.

While naming ceremonies typically invite attendees to watch from shore as an honorary “godparent” names the vessel and breaks a bottle on its bow, the anointment of Seabourn Odyssey will be held on board with guests booked on the maiden voyage. Collectively, all of the guests will act as godparents, initiating the anointment with a bottle of Italian prosecco and giving the yacht its name. Each will receive a commemorative certificate from the event, and their names will be affixed to a plaque to be displayed on board.

With Venice as the backdrop, the colorful heritage of the city will be a touchstone throughout the daylong event. Guests arriving at Stazione Marittima terminal will be given a red carpet welcome, complete with musicians playing and festive banners and garland. Once all are on board, Seabourn Odyssey will depart for a stately cruise down the Guidecca Canal to Riva dei Sette Martiri, a docking location near the Piazza San Marco, where it will be moored for the ceremony.

An early dinner served in Odyssey’s superb dining venues will precede the ceremony. With darkness set to fall in Venice after 9:00pm, guests will return to find the deck transformed and the sun gilding the domes and turrets of the city – an enticing view to be enhanced by ceremonial music.

Though many details of the ceremony are being kept hush-hush, Seabourn has revealed that a magnum of sparkling prosecco spumante will be used to anoint Odyssey. The bottle will come from a vineyard in northeastern Italy, near where the vessel’s hull was crafted, and will be broken by means of an ingenious mechanism designed especially for the event.