From their beginning, boats have served purposes of war, whether that be defending territory from invaders or striking out across the sea in search of conquest and acquisition of land. The biggest and most impressive vessels of all time have been hailed by the most powerful navies from ancient times until today. The U.S. Navy is the most powerful seafaring military organization in the world and looking through the US Navy’s more than 200-year history, we can find many examples of the organization pushing forward seafaring as a form of national defense.
The Sea Shadow was a Cold War era experimental craft that borrowed ideas from the highly successful F-117 Nighthawk stealth aircraft. The stealth materials used in the Nighthawk to defeat radar detection could likely be applied to evading sonar, as well. Lockheed Martin built the Sea Shadow in secret and produced a menacing-looking object that would glide above the waters, buoyed by two long runners on either side of the ship, similar to a catamaran. It is known as the Small Water Area Twin Hull (SWATH) ship, and the design makes it much faster and more stable than conventional boats, according to Lockheed Martin.
Only one was ever built, and, while it had great potential, the results of sea trials were disappointing. The crew experienced atypically large wakes, found to be a cause of backward-installed propellers. While that issue was quickly corrected, the ship never went into production and was scrapped in 2006, according to DARPA.
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