MARINETTE, WI (WTAQ) – “I’m the person that gets to bang the champagne bottle on the boat before it is put down into the water,” says former two-term Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm.
But, one step at a time.
Before the pomp and splendor of a U.S. Navy ship launching there is a more obscure, but nonetheless important, step in the process.
In fact, the laying of the keel ceremony is more or less considered the first step in the public life of a Littoral Combat Ship (LCS).
“Today I had to put my initials in the keel,” explains Granholm. “And the keel laying is one of the first symbolic steps to demonstrate the start of construction.”
Granholm, the first woman elected as Governor of Michigan in 2002, was on hand Wednesday for the ceremony since she is serving as the sponsor to the vessel.
In that role, her initials are welded onto the exterior of the ship and she’ll have the honor of breaking the ceremonial champagne bottle on the boat prior to its launch.
The U.S.S. Marinette will be the nation’s 25th LCS and the first ever commissioned U.S. Navy combatant ship to bear the city’s name.
“I think the uniqueness is, not only does it have the spirit of the community, but it has all of what we’ve learned and got from the customers and rolled that back to really deliver the next level warship to the navy,” explains Joe DePietro, vice president and general manager of Small Combatants and Ship Systems with Lockheed Martin.
He says the U.S. Navy awarded ten ships to their team and the U.S.S. Marinette will be ship number ten, allowing them to draw back on what has worked thus far and feature those components on this vessel.
The finished product will be a flexible ship, with forty-percent of the hull easily reconfigurable.
While also plenty fast, as it’ll be capable of speeds in excess of forty knots.
As the laying of the keel served as the first ceremonial step in the ships life, there will be plenty more to come.
“This ship will launch about in mid to late 2020,” says DePierto. “And then we’ll be looking at our trials and delivery process towards the late 2021 time frame.”
More than 1,500 residents of Marinette, Wisconsin, and Menominee, Michigan, enter the shipyard daily to build LCS.
For Granholm, it was jarring to see the activity and note the growth that has been undertaken in the area just in the past decade.
“I feel great,” she explains. “Ten years ago, who would have thought that this would have been such a raging success?”
