Ninth of its name: HII, Navy lays the keel for next Enterprise
The Olympic athletes Simon Biles and Katie Ledecky are sponsoring the Enterprise (CVN-80).
By JUSTIN KATZ
on August 27, 2022 at 1:04 PM
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — With its predecessor sitting just miles away in another part of the shipyard, HII Newport News Shipbuilding today ceremonially laid the keel for the future USS Enterprise (CVN-80), the third aircraft carrier in the Ford-class program.
The new carrier, sponsored by Olympic athletes Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky, will be the ninth in the US Navy’s history to bear the name “Enterprise” (and not including the iconic starship from “Star Trek”). The Olympians were selected to sponsor the ship in 2016 by then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and are the first athletes to receive the honor.
During her speech, Ledecky, who knows something about the water with seven Olympic gold medals, talked about her philosophy for swimming and compared it to the challenges the shipbuilders must overcome while constructing the centerpiece of the Navy’s fleet. She also spoke about her grandfather who was a Navy corpsman assigned to the Marines in the Pacific theater during World War II.
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