WITHERING HEIGHTS

Dock accident moves up ``floating'' of nuclear sub By STEPHEN SINGER Associated Press Writer May 13, 2004, 9:20 PM EDT GROTON, Conn. -- The construction dock housing the nuclear submarine Jimmy Carter was intentionally flooded with water Thursday, six days earlier than planned, after an accident collapsed a portion of the dock's wall. Electric Boat said it moved up the "float-off" of the submarine in response to Wednesday's accident, in which a portion of an interior wall of the dock buckled, letting dirt and fill into the basin housing the submarine.

Former President and Navy submariner Jimmy Carter (left) hoists a replica of the USS Jimmy Carter (SSN 23) given to him by Secretary of the Navy John H. Dalton (right) at a naming ceremony in the Pentagon on April 28, 1998. The USS Jimmy Carter is the last of the Seawolf class submarines to be built for the U.S. Navy. DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Keith A. Stevenson, U.S. Marine Corps.

"This is a minor acceleration of that schedule," Neil Ruenzel, spokesman for Electric Boat, said at a news conference Thursday at the Electric Boat shipyard. The submarine and workers were never in danger, Electric Boat said. The submarine has been on blocks inside the graving dock, a steel basin where workers build and repair submarines. When a submarine is finished, the dock is flooded and the submarine floats off its blocks. In a 12-hour procedure, the graving dock was filled Thursday with 40 million gallons of water from the Thames River to stabilize the basin. EB workers finished the process at 8:15 p.m. Divers will then examine what caused Wednesday's accident, Ruenzel said. Officials do not know how long the investigation will take, but said the submarine's christening will go forward as scheduled on June 5. Immediately after the mishap, Electric Boat notified the state Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Navy and Groton officials, Ruenzel said. The Jimmy Carter, a Seawolf attack submarine, was to be finished in 2001, but the Navy modified it in 1999 to add a section that increases its length by 100 feet. Ruenzel said more than 98 percent of the work has been completed. The additional space will create enough room for dozens of special forces and equipment, including Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and torpedoes. The submarine is due to be handed over to the Navy later this year. Its home port will be the Naval Submarine Base Bangor on Washington state's Kitsap Peninsula. Rosalynn Carter is the sponsor of the boat, named for her husband, the 39th U.S. president who was a 1947 graduate of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and a submariner.