''Sea Shadow'' (IX-529) was an experimental

stealth ship A stealth ship is a ship that employs stealth technology construction techniques in an effort to make it harder to detect by one or more of radar, visual, sonar, and infrared methods. These techniques borrow from stealth aircraft technology, al ...

built by Lockheed for the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

to determine how a low radar profile might be achieved and to test high stability hull configurations that have been used in oceanographic ships.

Development

''Sea Shadow'' was built in 1984 to examine the application of

stealth technology Stealth technology, also termed low observable technology (LO technology), is a sub-discipline of military tactics and passive and active electronic countermeasures, which covers a range of methods used to make personnel, aircraft, ships, subm ...

on naval vessels, and was used in secret until a public debut in 1993. In addition, the ship was designed to test the use of automation to reduce crew size. The ship was created by the

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adv ...

(DARPA), the U.S. Navy and Lockheed. ''Sea Shadow'' was developed and built at Lockheed's

Redwood City, California Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California's Bay Area, approximately south of San Francisco, and northwest of San Jose. Redwood City's history spans its earliest inhabitation by the Ohlone people to being a ...

facility, inside the

Hughes Mining Barge The ''Hughes Mining Barge'', or ''HMB-1'', is a submersible barge about 99 m (324 ft) long, 32 m (106 ft) wide, and more than 27 m (90 ft) tall. The ''HMB-1'' was originally developed as part of Project Azorian (mor ...

(HMB-1), which functioned as a floating

drydock A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, ...

during construction and testing.

History

''Sea Shadow'' had a

SWATH A small waterplane area twin hull, better known by the acronym SWATH, is a catamaran design that minimizes hull cross section area at the sea's surface. Minimizing the ship's volume near the surface area of the sea, where wave energy is located ...

(small-waterplane-area twin hull) design. Below the water were submerged twin hulls, each with a propeller, aft stabilizer, and inboard

hydrofoil A hydrofoil is a lifting surface, or foil, that operates in water. They are similar in appearance and purpose to aerofoils used by aeroplanes. Boats that use hydrofoil technology are also simply termed hydrofoils. As a hydrofoil craft gains sp ...

. The portion of the ship above water was connected to the hulls via the two angled struts. The SWATH design helped the ship remain stable in rough water up to

sea state In oceanography, sea state is the general condition of the free surface on a large body of water—with respect to wind waves and swell—at a certain location and moment. A sea state is characterized by statistics, including the wave height, p ...

6 (wave height of 18 feet (5.5 m) or "very rough" sea). The shape of the superstructure was sometimes compared to the

casemate A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which artillery, guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary When referring to Ancient history, antiquity, th ...

of the ironclad ram of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. ''Sea Shadow'' had 12 bunks, one small microwave oven, a refrigerator and table. It was not intended to be mission-capable and was never commissioned, although it is listed in the

Naval Vessel Register The ''Naval Vessel Register'' (NVR) is the official inventory of ships and service craft in custody of or titled by the United States Navy. It contains information on ships and service craft that make up the official inventory of the Navy from t ...

. ''Sea Shadow'' was revealed to the public in 1993, and was housed at the

San Diego Naval Station Naval Base San Diego, also known as 32nd Street Naval Station, is the second largest surface ship base of the United States Navy and is located in San Diego, California. Naval Base San Diego is the principal homeport of the Pacific Fleet, cons ...

until September 2006, when it was relocated with the

to the

Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet The Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet is located on the northwest side of Suisun Bay (the northern portion of the greater San Francisco Bay estuary) in Benicia, California. The fleet is within a regulated navigation area that is about long and wide. It ...

Benicia, California Benicia ( , ) is a waterside city in Solano County, California, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It served as the capital of California for nearly thirteen months from 1853 to 1854. The population was 26,997 at the ...

. Until 2006, ''Sea Shadow'' and the HMB-1 were maintained and operated by

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

for the US Navy. The vessels were available for donation to a maritime museum. The USNS ''Impeccable'' and ''

Victorious ''Victorious'' (stylized as ''VICTORiOUS'') is an American sitcom created by Dan Schneider (TV producer), Dan Schneider that originally aired on Nickelodeon, debuting on March 27, 2010, and concluding on February 2, 2013 after four seasons. Th ...

'' ocean surveillance ships have inherited the stabilizer and canard method to help perform their stability-sensitive intelligence collection missions. In 2006, the U.S. Navy tried to sell ''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 US government mandated that the buyer not sail the ship and be required to scrap it. The ship was finally sold in 2012. ''Sea Shadow'' was dismantled in 2012 by Bay Ship & Yacht Company.

In popular culture

In the 1997 James Bond film, ''

Tomorrow Never Dies ''Tomorrow Never Dies'' is a 1997 spy film, the eighteenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions and the second to star Pierce Brosnan as fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Directed by Roger Spottiswoode from a screenplay by ...

'', the stealth ship is operated by the media tycoon Elliot Carver (

Jonathan Pryce Sir Jonathan Pryce (born John Price; 1 June 1947) is a Welsh actor who is known for his performances on stage and in film and television. He has received numerous awards, including two Tony Awards and two Laurence Olivier Awards. In 2021 he wa ...

). Christened as ''Sea Dolphin II'' in the film, the secret and stealthy floating lair was used as a plot device to attempt to initiate World War III. In the Strike series it appears in Urban Strike as a enemy unit & in Nuclear Strike as home base.

References

External links

Navy news article"The Navy Has a Top-Secret Vessel It Wants to Put on Display"
by Barry Newman - ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' - February 24, 2009
Virtual Tour of Sea Shadow and HMB-1
{dead link, date=May 2018 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes Lockheed Martin

Sea Shadow ''Sea Shadow'' (IX-529) was 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 that have been used in oceanographic sh ...

Small waterplane area twin hull vessels 1985 ships High speed vessels of the United States Navy Stealth ships Ships built by Lockheed Shipbuilding and Construction Company Catamarans of the United States Navy Military catamarans Experimental ships of the United States Navy

Development

History

In popular culture

See also

References

External links