If you'd like to see a video of the ceremony, you can find it here. Looks like it was nice weather (low 70s, partly cloudy), as opposed to the cold weather during the Dec. 1998 commissioning of USS Connecticut (SSN 22), the only one I participated in. (I was the "officer in charge of the formation that stood on the pier for the whole ceremony".) Anybody have any good stories about formal boat ceremonies?Update 1346 31 July: Here's a news release from SUBGRU 2; they say hi-res photos of the ceremony will be available here later.
Update 1353 31 July: Here are some of the first pictures, including the one where they cycle the masts and antennas after the ship is officially placed in commissioned and manned:
Whenever I saw this, I always wondered why we went to all the trouble to water the masts when cycling them inport when it clearly doesn't hurt them to dry-cycle in the case of commissioning ceremonies.
