There is a moment in the commissioning ceremony of a United States Navy ship when everything changes. The order is given: “Man our ship and bring her to life.” The crew, standing at attention on the pier or on the flight deck or in the stands, breaks for the ship at a run. They are the first crew. This ship has never had a crew before. For every one of them, for the rest of their lives, they will be a plank owner — one of the people who brought this ship into being, who stood on her decks on the day she became, in the eyes of the United States Navy, a warship. Nothing that comes after, in a career that may span decades, will quite replicate that moment.
What Commissioning Means
A Navy ship is commissioned when she is accepted into the service of the United States and assigned a crew. Before commissioning, she is a hull — a construction project, a shipyard asset, a thing that has not yet become what she is intended to be. The commissioning ceremony, with its traditions and its formality and its moment of the crew running aboard, is the transition from object to ship, from asset to vessel, from construction to service. After commissioning, she flies the commission pennant and the ensign. She is, under international law and the law of the sea, a warship of the United States Navy.
The ceremony itself varies in scale depending on the ship and the occasion, but the core elements are consistent. Dignitaries speak — often the ship's sponsor, typically a woman who has had a formal relationship with the ship since her keel laying or earlier, who may break a bottle of champagne on the bow. The first commanding officer formally accepts the ship. The order is given. The crew runs aboard. The first watch is set. The commission pennant is broken at the masthead. From that moment, the ship is in commission.
The Plank Owner
A plank owner is a sailor who was assigned to a ship at her commissioning. The term comes from the age of wooden ships, when crew members were sometimes literally given planks from their ship when she was decommissioned — a piece of the vessel as a keepsake, a physical connection to the ship and to the service aboard her. In the modern Navy, plank owner status is recognized with certificates, patches, and the informal but genuine distinction of having been there on the first day.
Plank owners form a particular kind of bond with their ships. They were there when she was new — when the paint was fresh and the equipment hadn't yet accumulated the character that comes from years of use, when everything worked and nothing was worn and the crew was still learning how the ship moved in the water. They are, in a real sense, the ship's first family. The sailors who serve later are different; they join something that already exists, that has already accumulated a history. The plank owners made the history.
Commissioning Locations and Tradition
Commissionings are held at naval stations, shipyards, or home ports — sometimes in cities that have a connection to the ship's name. A ship named for a city is often commissioned in that city, with the mayor and the congressional delegation present, with the community that gave the ship its name coming out to see it become a warship. These are genuinely public events, connected to the broader civilian community in ways that most Navy activities are not. The families who watch the ceremony are also witnesses to something: a ship has just been born.
The decommissioning ceremony, years or decades later, is the mirror image. The last watch is set and then struck. The commission pennant is hauled down. The ship is no longer in commission. The people there for this ceremony are often different from those who were there at commissioning — some of the plank owners, now much older, who came back to see it through.
Why It Stays With You
Sailors who served on a ship's commissioning crew talk about it for the rest of their lives. There is something about being the first — about running aboard a ship that has never before had a crew, about setting the first watch, about the sense that you and your shipmates are making something real out of something that was only potential — that marks a person. The plank owner certificate goes on the wall. The patch stays in the shadow box. The commissioning pennant, if it can be obtained, becomes a family heirloom. The day you brought her to life is the day you remember when someone asks which ship you served on.
If you were a plank owner or want to honor someone who was, The Ship's Store carries collections for the ships that mattered most — cruise shirts, license plate frames, and more.