Groton — With two whacks of a bottle of sparkling wine from a vineyard in the capitol of the ship's namesake state, which was chilled in a bucket of Colorado River water, a daughter of the secretary of the Navy christened the future submarine Colorado in a ceremony Saturday.

Annie Mabus was 19 when, in the kitchen of her family's Mississippi home, her dad, Ray Mabus, told her she'd be the ship's sponsor. Then the Colorado was a plan on a piece of paper, she said, and she had no concept of what a sponsor was.

"Hundreds, if not thousands, of hands have transformed her from an idea into an awe-inspiring presence behind me," she said.

For the christening, the 370-plus-foot submarine was in the main assembly hall of Electric Boat's Groton shipyard — as opposed to floating in the water, as is tradition — to allow for it to be in the right spot at the right time to finish testing, according to EB's Chief Operating Officer Kurt Hesch.

Hundreds of people gathered around the submarine in the frigid, open-air building, bundled up in jackets and wrapped in blue and white scarves — with the words "USS Colorado SSN-788" and the state's symbol — given out by the commissioning committee.

Seven World War II veterans, all around the age of 90, of the battleship USS Colorado (BB-45), attended the ceremony and presented the crew with pens made out of teak wood from the battleship's deck.

One of the veterans said the pens had been baptized with the blood of their fallen shipmates. Their ship — which had a crew of more than 2,000 and saw heavy action in the Pacific theater — was vastly different from the new submarine, which has a crew of 132.

"I had 130 in the boiler division," said Chuck Johnson, 91, of Indiana.

Ray Mabus, who is wrapping up his time as secretary of the Navy, as he not expected to be re-appointed under President-elect Donald Trump, called the crew of the submarine Colorado "the rightful heirs to the sailors who crewed the USS Colorado in World War II."

The previous submarine named Colorado was decommissioned nearly 70 years ago.

The sailors of the new Colorado "will be spending years of their lives unseen," Ray Mabus said. "You won't know about it. But they will be there, standing the watch. They will be there protecting us. They will be there when their families are back here celebrating birthdays and other holidays."

As he has in the past, Ray Mabus pointed to the number of ships under contract doubling during his tenure compared to the number of ships under contract in the seven years before he took office.

His other daughter, Elisabeth Mabus, is the ship sponsor for the future submarine Washington, Colorado's sister ship, which was christened earlier this year. It also took two hits to break the bottle.

Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, which build Virginia-class submarines together under a teaming agreement, are poised to deliver 18 more of these submarines, EB President Jeff Geiger said.

U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, in his remarks, noted the "rapid fire succession" in which these events are happening.

While the christening was the last for Ray Mabus, it won't be the last christened submarine of his legacy, Courtney said.

Virginia-class submarines are "technological wonders," U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said, noting their ability to fire Tomahawk land-attack missiles, put special operation forces on the ground and conduct surveillance.

Connecticut has had two million of its sons and daughters serve in the military since the founding of the nation, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said.

In his remarks, Malloy pointed to Mabus, whom he called a friend, being the longest-serving secretary of the Navy since World War I. It's important to remember, Malloy said, another long-serving secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, who was born in Glastonbury, Conn., and played a crucial role in the North's Civil War victory.

Construction on the Colorado began in March 2012, and the ship is expected to be delivered to the Navy in summer 2017, capping off the five years it takes to build Virginia-class submarines, which EB and Newport News have been building at a rate of two a year since 2011.

After all was said and done Saturday, Electric Boat employees got back to work on the submarine that afternoon. The employees will be testing the submarine's steam propulsion system. About 800 employees currently are working on the submarine, according to the Hesch, the company's COO.

Annie Mabus had just one question for the crew before christening the submarine: "How high?"

"Mile high," they replied.

j.bergman@theday.com