Built by the Lockheed Martin Missile and Space Company at Redwood City, California for the United State Navy.
22 October 1982 ordered.
1984 Completed as the SEA SHADOW.
Displacement 572 ton, dim. 50 x 21 x 4.6m. (draught).
Powered diesel electric, speed 14.2 knots.
Crew 4.
Armament: nil.
01 March 1985 acquired by the navy.
SEA SHADOW (IX-529) is an experimental stealth ship built by Lockheed for the United States Navy to determine how a low radar profile might be achieved and to test high stability hull configurations which have been used in oceanographic ships.
SEA SHADOW was built in 1984 and used in secret but normal service until her public debut in 1993, to examine the application of stealth technology on naval vessels. In addition, the ship was designed to test the use of automation to enable the reduction of crew size. The ship was created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. Navy and Lockheed. SEA SHADOW was developed at Lockheed's Redwood City, California, facility, inside the Hughes Mining Barge (HMB-1), which functioned as a floating drydock during construction and testing. It is sometimes referred to as USS SEA SHADOW however, this designation is inappropriate as it was never a fully commissioned ship of the U.S. Navy.
SEA SHADOW has a SWATH hull design. Below the water are submerged twin hulls, each with a propeller, aft stabilizer, and inboard hydrofoil. The portion of the ship above water is connected to the hulls via the two angled struts. The SWATH design helps the ship remain stable even in very rough water of up to sea state 6 (wave height of 18 feet (5.5 m) or "very rough" sea). The shape of the superstructure has sometimes been compared to the casemate of the ironclad ram CSS VIRGINIA of the American Civil War.
The T-AGOS 19-and-23-class oceanographic ships have inherited the stabilizer and canard method to help perform their stability-sensitive surveillance missions.
SEA SHADOW has only 12 bunks aboard, one small microwave oven, a refrigerator and table. It was never intended to be mission capable and was never commissioned, although it is listed in the Naval Vessel Register.
SEA SHADOW was revealed to the public in 1993, and was housed at the San Diego Naval Station until September 2006, when it was relocated with the Hughes Mining Barge - inside which it still resides - to the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet in Benicia, CA. The vessels are available for donation to a maritime museum.
In 2006, the U.S Navy began to try to sell the SEA SHADOW to the highest bidder; after the initial offering met with a lack of interest, it was listed for dismantling sale on gsaauctions.gov The U.S. Government requires that the buyer cannot sail the ship and is required to dumped the ship for recycling scraps. The ship was finally sold in 2012 for $3.2 million.
SEA SHADOW was also the inspiration for the stealth ship in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies.
The SEA SHADOW’s design also provided an inspiration to the ASUS computer company for some of their gaming laptops, the G73, G53, G74, and recently announced G55 and G75 models.
A heavily modified version of the Sea Shadow is used as a Landing Zone for player-controlled attack helicopters in the Electronic Arts video game Nuclear Strike.
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Source: Wikipedia.