How do you put a huge metal Navy ship into the water after you’ve built it? Watch the following video and you’ll see precisely how it’s done, as Lockheed Martin drops the Navy’s 9th Littoral Combat Ship — the USS Little Rock (LCS-9) — into the drink at the Marionette Marine’s ship-building facility along the Menominee River in Wisconsin on Saturday.

According to Foxtrot Alpha, this ship and a bunch others like it will eventually be used to counter China’s naval force in the South China Sea.

Watch it from another angle, as one of the onlookers standing across the water:

While there was champagne, silver words spoken to well-dressed spectators, dignitaries and the like — fortunately, the ship survived a light bottle tap to the bow, and faired worlds better than “The Flying Wasp”, as seen here: