GROTON, Conn. -- The submarine USS Kentucky was christened Saturday with a bottle of bourbon instead of the traditional champagne as peace activists denounced the missile-firing boat as 'a floating anachronism.'
About 70 people protested outside the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics, where Navy brass and dignitaries from Kentucky gathered under steady rain for the christening of the Trident submarine.
Ten people were arrested on minor charges during the peaceful demonstration for attempting to block entrances to the sprawling Thames River shipyard, police said. All were released by mid-afternoon.
'At this time, when war in the Mideast is so imminent, the group gathered to remind those of Connecticut and the United States of the danger of nuclear war that we still face,' said Stephen Kobasa of the group Witness for Disarmament.
'We say the Cold War is over, but we go on building the weapons,' Kobasa said of the Kentucky, which will be equipped to carry 24 Trident II nuclear missiles.
The group Greenpeace Action mocked a decision to have a bottle of Kentucky bourbon smashed across the bow instead of the traditional bottle of French champagne.
'The Navy should sober up. Instead of kicking the habit, they are going for the hard stuff,' said Carol Bellin, who is active in the Greenpeace Action Nuclear Free Seas campaign.
'The Trident system was sold to Congress in the late 60's and 1970's as a product of the Cold War. It's already obsolete, it's a floating anachronism,' Bellin said.
The Kentucky is the first submarine and third naval ship to carry the name. The first Kentucky was a confederate transport captured by the Union Navy in 1862.
The second Kentucky was an early battleship that also was used during World War I for training. Construction of an Iowa-class battleship that would have carried the name was stopped in 1947 before the ship was commissioned.
