Tough times: GSA auctions top-secret US NAVY stealth ship

Tough times: GSA auctions top-secret US NAVY stealth ship

postapocalypticlawyer.blogspot.com

The US Navy's super-secret Sea Shadow stealth cruiser is actually up for sale! Launched in 1984, and probably best known as the inspiration for the seaborne lair of a lesser/lamer Bond villain, she was the love child of a cash-flush Lockheed Martin and a nearly unlimited Cold War paranoia-fueled defense budget. Drawing stealth technology and design from the F-117 stealth fighter program, she was the testbed for advanced naval technology, from sea skimming hull structures to automated control systems. (Not to mention, who knows what else...) And now for a princely pauper's bid deposit of $10,

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
gsaauctions.gov

Why do I see this being bought by a drug dealer to ship product stealthily from one country to another?

In any case I've always wondered why this didn't go into service.
has it been sitting in a dock somewhere unused?
Sort of a pricey piece of equipment to build and never use no?



postapocalypticlawyer.blogspot.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by grey580


The bid says that the ship needs to be completely dismantled.
I'm sure it's been demilitarized anyway.

Meh. Some rich kid will buy it for a James bond collection..

This is what is wrong with our Government today. How totally pathetic. This thing cost a BUNCH of banks to make and has now ammounted to nothing but a gag auction to get some sucker to take it to the scrap yard for Uncle Sam. Pathetic. Absolutely.


I suppose it's never even crossed the mind of a bean counter that people all over the world would love to just SEE something like this. A goofy old Airplane made of wood and too damned big to fly made for one of the leading tourist attractions on the West Coast for many many years. THIS would make the Spruce Goose look like the world's biggest toy plane. I had the chance to see the Spruce Goose on the tour. It was something. This would be so much more.

I'll bet over time, using this thing as the Anchor for some kind of Naval museum and a modest admission for the overall site would make FAR FAR FAR more in revenue than their idiotic scrap plans ever can. Uncle Sammy needs a new pair of glasses. He seems entirely too short sighted these days.

It is sold under contract to scrap only.

The term “scrap” means to reduce the property such that it has no value except for its basic material content. Final dismantlement and mutilation of the ex-SEA SHADOW shall be performed in such a manner that no considerable part of the ex-SEA SHADOW is left intact or undisturbed to the extent that it can be reconstructed or readily identified as an existing portion of the original hull or structure. The ex-SEA SHADOW shall be disposed of by complete dismantlement and scrapping within the U.S.A.

On the plus side...the barge comes with it so it should be easy to tow out.

Damn I was hoping to hit the lotto to get it and cruise the world till I went the the auction and read this!

" (THE EX-SEA SHADOW SHALL BE DISPOSED OF BY COMPLETELY DISMANTLING AND SCRAPPING WITHIN THE U.S.A. DISMANTILING IS DEFINED AS REDUCING THE PROPERTY SUCH AS IT HAS NO VALUE EXCEPT FOR ITS BASIC MATERIAL CONTENT.)"

That would be cool!

Originally posted by grey580
Why do I see this being bought by a drug dealer to ship product stealthily from one country to another?

OP, it's pretty bad you didn't even read your own source. What did you do just read the headline?

the GSA terms of sale demand that you bust her up for scrap.

Originally posted by grey580
In any case I've always wondered why this didn't go into service.
has it been sitting in a dock somewhere unused?
Sort of a pricey piece of equipment to build and never use no?

It was designed, built, and used as an experimental ship. They did many tests and experiments with it, and probably learned a great deal about stealth ships. I'm sure it served its purpose as a test bed. It was used for learning purposes.

I don't see why they don't put it in a museum though...

I think it would make an interesting house. Live in the ship inside the big barge sitting on the beach property on Lake superior. Little AstroTurf and a few picnic tables and get a dozen skylights and your in business. a built in fireplace would be handy too. Can it be disassembled thirty years from now? I intend to recycle it eventually..

I got an account at GSA, that's where I got my Geiger counter.

reply to post by grey580


I assure you that this thing has been completely gutted and no top secret material or equipment remains.

can we cease with the all cap headlines?

2nd

like the top secret diesel engine it has.

is that boat a joke. it runs on pontoons. someone laughed all the way to bank 15x with that boat.

reply to post by randomname

is that boat a joke. it runs on pontoons. someone laughed all the way to bank 15x with that boat.

Going by memory here, I recall it used pontoons to reduce it's wake, as synthetic aperture radar/polarimetric images can detect ships that way.

Auctioning off for scrap an old ship is a more productive fate than what most decommissioned navy ships face - which is usually sinking as a target. I served aboard 2 ships, Belknap and Josephus Daniels, CG-26 and CG-27, and after they were decommissioned, both were towed out to sea and blown to pieces for target practice.

If I never had any other reason to wish I was a billionaire, this is it. The ability to go to black project garage sales. Makes me wonder what my own second hand flying saucer would be going for, these days.

reply to post by grey580


gotta pay for that next vegas trip somehow!

reply to post by UnumSecretum

the GSA terms of sale demand that you bust her up for scrap.

well...the GSA cannot make demands on a ship they cannot find, can they?

I was interested in the design of the Sea Shadow and I found this on Wikipedia

Since 2006 the U.S Navy has tried to sell the Sea Shadow to the highest bidder but as of February 2009 nobody has bid.
Not having found any viable offer to take in the Sea Shadow by June 18, 2011, the Navy finally decided to set it for "dismantling and recycling".[3] As of June 2011 the Sea Shadow is still being stored inside its barge at Suisun Bay awaiting its fate.[4] As of April 2012 Sea Shadow is listed for dismantling sale on gsaauctions.gov.

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.

It seems that none of the maritime museums wanted it?

Originally posted by OccamAssassin

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.

Sad really sad

I was there when it was revealed to the public

Here is one of the film crew filming it for the release



Here you can see the pontoons... it was after all a stealth hydro foil



Looking down from From the Flight Deck of the USS Hornet




They didn't let me inside

I'll bet more than the current auction price that SA Recycling gets it for scrap. One of their yards* is close to the loading docks in long beach ca.


*It was converted to completely solar a couple of years ago that how I know about it.

the US dont need this junk any more, and no, the banks didnt really waste their money on this thing.

Did you know that this thing helped the US develop other naval technologies which are 1000x times more effective than this garbage.