KITTERY (AP) – In a continuing effort to keep the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard open, New Hampshire and Maine congressional delegations on Thursday took a closed-door tour of the yard with Navy Secretary Gordon England.

Calling it a “delightful visit,” England said he liked what he saw, praising the operation’s efficiency and strong relationship among workers and managers.

“A lot of what they’re doing, they’re exporting to other places, which tells me that they’re in a leadership role,” he said.

The delegations presented a bipartisan front in their effort to keep the 204-year old shipyard, the Navy’s oldest, open for its 4,300 employees. The workers maintain nuclear submarines.

The politicians urged him to keep the yard off next year’s Base Realignment and Closure list.

Republican Sens. Judd Gregg and John Sununu, of New Hampshire, and Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, joined New Hampshire Rep. Jeb Bradley, of New Hampshire and Maine Rep. Tom Allen, the one Democrat, on the tour.

They were joined later by Republican Gov. Craig Benson of New Hampshire and Maine Democratic Gov. John Baldacci. The yard sits on Seavey Island in the Piscataqua River that separates New Hampshire and Maine.

Snowe said the point of the visit was to give England a chance to talk to the workers and see for himself how the yard works. She compared the closure process to “playing Russian roulette.”

She said the delegations cannot let up in their efforts to make sure the yard stays open.

The key, she said, “is to remain very aggressive.”

A local group, the Seacoast Shipyard Association, raised $100,000 to hire a lobbyist to promote the cause in Washington.

A Base Realignment and Closure list to be released May 16, 2005, could signal the end for nearly a quarter of the nation’s 425 military bases. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said that closing some domestic bases could save $13 billion in seven years.

Earlier this year, a Senate vote narrowly defeated a measure that would have delayed decisions on domestic base closures until plans on overseas bases were completed.

Lawmakers who supported the proposal said they were worried that troops being sent home from overseas bases would have no where to go if domestic bases closed early.