A
secret chapter in American naval research could soon reach an ignoble close
when a rusty barge and its once-classified contents leave Suisun Bay for the
scrap heap.
Slipping
through the sea like a black mirage on catamaran legs, the 164-foot Sea Shadow
looks like something Darth Vader might fly. It is the world's only ship built
to be invisible, assembled secretly in Redwood City in 1985 by the U.S. Navy
and contractor Lockheed Martin at an estimated cost of $50 million.
Sea
Shadow's purpose was to test radar-cloaking technology and other naval
engineering innovations. Many of its breakthroughs can be seen in present-day
Navy warships.
Even
at nearly 30 years old, Sea Shadow remains the most radical ship afloat.
"You
take the propellers off it and that thing could really double as a spaceship in
any science fiction movie," said Bruce Ecker, a San Pedro photographer who
has documented the ship. "It looks secret. You want to go and rattle the
doorknob on it just to see if you can get in."
Sea
Shadow's rise and fall is a rare peek into the vast and complicated workings of
the American military industrial machine. It is just one of many marvels
hatched by the Pentagon to give the nation an edge in warcraft, then cast aside
when the battlefield changed, the money ran out, or the admirals simply wanted
to try out something else.
In
this case, that quest for an edge produced a ship that really seized the
imagination.
Yet
Sea Shadow's days are numbered: In an auction set to close Friday, the Navy
hopes to find a bidder who will buy the ship merely for its scrap value. This
comes after the Navy spent six fruitless years trying to give the ship to a
museum.
"While
several letters of interest were received … our only disposition option is
dismantling and recycling," said Navy spokesman Christopher Johnson.
Sea
Shadow was conceived during the waning years of the Cold War, when America was
looking for a tactical edge against Russia. The Pentagon directed billions of
dollars into stealth technology, particularly the ability to hide weaponry from
enemy radar.
The
first successful product from this laboratory was the F-117 Nighthawk, a
Stealth attack jet built by Lockheed Martin, which became operational in 1983.
Two years later, Lockheed got another secret contract to apply the same ideas
to America's naval fleet, and Sea Shadow was born.
The
primary goal was to find out if an entire oceangoing ship could be made to
vanish from enemy radar, as well as to test innovative ship controls and
hydrodynamic principles.
At
Lockheed Martin's secret island shipworks along a San Francisco Bay slough,
near Highway 101 in Redwood City, the company repurposed another clandestine
relic to start the project.
The
Hughes Mining Barge-1, or HMB-1, is a one-off submersible barge built as part
of a 1974 CIA mission to lift a sunken Russian submarine from the Pacific Ocean
seafloor. It was a companion for the Glomar Explorer, a much larger ship that
did the heavy lifting.
The
barge had one purpose: To hide the giant claw that the Glomar Explorer would
use to grab the Russian sub. When the mission took place, the barge was towed
out to sea and submerged. Its retractable roof was opened, and the Glomar
Explorer maneuvered above it to lift the claw into its belly.
Because
Sea Shadow also had to be kept under cover, the barge – as long as a football
field – would prove to be the perfect factory floor and long-term garage.
 |
| Sea Shadow |
Phantom
on the water
The
stealth ship was actually built in sections by different contractors so that
none would know its entire shape. The sections eventually had to be welded
together, and as each became ready, it was lowered through the retractable roof
on the barge. Then the roof was closed up tight again to avoid the prying eyes
of Russian spy satellites arcing overhead.
Sea
Shadow's most notable design feature is its angular shape. Head-on, it looks
like the letter "A" skimming across the water on its two splayed
legs.
The
design is a drastic departure: Virtually every other warship at sea has
vertical sides to accommodate lots of crew and weapons. Sea Shadow's sides tilt
in toward each other, which restricts interior space – it has bunks for just 12
– but also scatters radar signals.
The
ship is coated with radar-absorbent materials, the details of which remain
classified, said S.K. Gupta, a retired Lockheed engineer who was Sea Shadow's
test director from 1988 to 1995.
"We
operated with impunity," said Gupta, who lives in Pleasanton. "We
could take anybody down at night."
The
ship, of course, was not truly invisible to the naked eye. But it was difficult
to see at a distance even in daytime because of its low profile. At night, its
flat-black paint made a visual sighting nearly impossible, and its shape and
surface coating made it, indeed, invisible to radar.
Gupta
described one night exercise where Sea Shadow was able to sneak up on an
aircraft carrier, pop one of its flush-fitting deck hatches, and fire three
flares at the heavily defended carrier. Until the hatch opened, Sea Shadow went
undetected.
"They
could barely see where the flares came from, but by the time we had closed the
hatch, we disappeared again," he said.
In
another test, engineers placed a common aluminum soda can atop Sea Shadow's
narrow black deck. The "enemy" radar in the exercise could pick up
the soda can, but not Sea Shadow, Gupta said.
During
the early years of its operational career, the ship was based in San Diego and
generally kept inside the barge. When a test was planned, the barge was towed
out to sea, then partially submerged so Sea Shadow could slip out – and always
at night.
Many
of these tests involved assessing the seaworthiness of Sea Shadow's radical
shape. Gupta's job included seeking out bad weather to test the ship's
performance in a condition called Sea State 5, which involves waves as big as a
two-story house.
The
ship passed easily, he said. Because its mass was centered over two long
catamaran legs, it was far more stable than the conventional ships that usually
escorted it.
"We
basically had a great time watching all the other support ships getting tossed
around," Gupta said. "We were just going through the water like
cutting through butter."
As
far as the public knows, Sea Shadow was never equipped with weapons because it
was merely a test platform, and never engaged in any actual military missions.
But as a test vehicle, it was successful. Some of its stealth architecture can
be seen in contemporary Navy ships such as the Arleigh Burke-class of guided
missile destroyers.
From
marvel to relic
Nothing
the size of Sea Shadow can stay secret forever, and the Navy eventually decided
to unveil the ship on Easter weekend in 1993, off Santa Cruz Island in Southern
California. The reason for this has never been revealed. It may simply be that
major testing with the ship was done.
The
program officially ended in 1994, although the ship was periodically
reactivated for additional testing until it was officially stricken from the
fleet in 2006. For part of that period, the ship and its barge were berthed at
Alameda Naval Air Station, and a stunned public occasionally caught sight of
Sea Shadow making a daytime trip out to sea via the Golden Gate.
The
Navy has had the ship on "donation hold" since 2006 in hopes of
finding a museum to display it. It has always been offered as a package with
the barge, perhaps because this makes transportation easier.
In
2009, the Navy advertised in the Federal Register that it wanted to give the
pair away. The USS Ranger Foundation in Portland was the only interested
bidder. But the group, which is still negotiating to obtain the Navy's USS
Ranger aircraft carrier, had other motives.
It
wanted to trade the barge as a dry dock for Washington State ferries, in return
for shipyard services for the aircraft carrier, said Peter Ogle, the
foundation's president. That deal fell through, and the foundation never
completed an application to acquire the package.
As
compelling as Sea Shadow is, it may not be an ideal museum piece, said Rich
Pekelney, a board member of the Historic Naval Ships Association who lives in
San Francisco. Its stealthy shape makes it cramped inside, complicating
potential tours.
More
important, the only self-supporting museum ships are those with a long service
history or a distinguished past, like the aircraft carrier USS Midway in San
Diego or the Liberty ship SS Jeremiah O'Brien in San Francisco.
Sea
Shadow, on the other hand, was never even blessed with an official
"USS" title.
Yet
the ship is significant, Pekelney said, which is why he recruited Ecker to photograph
it. With the Navy's blessing, the two spent five days aboard Sea Shadow last
summer. Ecker, a commercial photographer, volunteered his time and used
advanced panoramic equipment to shoot 360-degree views of the ship's interior.
As
a result, Internet visitors can now pan through almost every square inch of Sea
Shadow at www.hnsa.org/seashadow/.
"From
the public's perspective, Sea Shadow is just this incredibly exotic-looking
shape," said Pekelney. "But the more I dug into it, the more I came
to realize we really got a lot out of that program, even from what I can tell
as an outsider."
Scrapping
Sea Shadow may not prove any easier than finding a museum to take it.
The
Navy's terms require the ship and its barge to leave the Mothball Fleet within
30 days of the close of the auction. The barge can be repurposed for commercial
use, but Sea Shadow must be scrapped.
Not
only that, it must be scrapped within six months of auction, within the United
States, and amid full-time surveillance by the government.
Johnson,
the Navy spokesman, said these conditions are standard practice whenever a
naval vessel is scrapped. He declined to speculate on what would happen if no
bidder emerges.
In
the end, Ecker's photographs might be the closest this shadowy ship ever gets
to a museum.
"All
these things are pieces of steel floating in salt water. They will not
last," Ecker said. "In 100 years, somebody may value these
images."
Source:
By Matt Weiser (mweiser@sacbee.com). 29 April 2012
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/29/4450648/scrap-heap-may-be-last-stop-for.html
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