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Huntington Ingalls Industries said that the Virginia-class submarine Minnesota (SSN 783) is "pressure hull complete,"signifying that all of the submarine's hullsections have been joined to form a sin- gle, watertight unit. Minnesota will be the 10th Virginia- class submarine and the fifth delivered by HII's Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) division. "This is a key milestone in the con- struction of the submarine," said JimHughes, NNS' vice president of sub-marines and fleet support. "Our ship-builders and our partners at Electric Boat have put a lot of hard work into this boat, and it shows. Construction progress on Minnesota is two months ahead of where USS California, the last Virginia-class submarine delivered by NNS, was at pressure hull complete."Pressure hull complete is the last majormilestone before the submarine's chris-tening this fall and delivery in 2013. The contract to build Minnesota was awarded in 2003, and construction began in Feb- ruary 2008 under a teaming arrangementbetween NNS and General DynamicsElectric Boat. Minnesota is 81% com-plete. June 2012www.marinelink.com 39Construction Milestone on Virginia-Class Sub Minnesota LPD 23 Completes Trials Huntington Ingalls Industries saidthat the company's seventh am-phibious transport dock, Anchorage (LPD 23), returned from builder's sea trials in the Gulf of Mexico. Theship is currently under construction at Ingalls' Avondale facility. ?The LPD 23 team just finished one of themost successful builder's trials ofany LPD so far,? said Doug Louns- berry, Ingalls' vice president and program manager, LPD 17 Pro- gram. More than 200 test events took place during the four-day sea trial, including anchor handling,flight operations, ballasting and de-ballasting the well deck, and com-partment air balancing. The ship will now prepare for ac- ceptance sea trials to demonstratethe same tests and seaworthiness to the U.S. Navy's Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV). The ship is scheduled to be delivered to the Navy this year. The LPD 17-class ships measure 684 x 105 ft. and displace approximately 25,000 tons. Their principal mission is todeploy the combat and support ele- ments of Marine Expeditionary Unitsand Brigades. The ships can carryup to 800 troops and have the capa- bility of transporting and debarking air cushion (LCAC) or conventionallanding crafts, augmented by heli-copters or vertical take-off and landing aircraft such as the MV-22. MR June12 # 5 (34-41):MR Template 6/13/2012 1:26 PM Page 39