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GHOST is a super-cavitating stealth ship which can achieve 900 times less hull friction than a conventional watercraft. It was developed to provide superior protection for US service personnel. It was built by Juliet Marine Systems. ==History== Inventor Gregory Sancoff had decided to focus on small watercraft following the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, after which he recalled saying: "Some yahoo terrorists in a cheap little boat and $500 worth of explosives can kill 17 sailors on a billion-dollar ship?" He also came across a 630-page U.S. Navy report on an exercise called Juliet, where the Navy attacked an enemy force of small, high-speed boats; after two days, the Navy had suffered over 20,000 simulated casualties. Sancoff gathered information on marine technology, including hydroplane racing boats and high-speed supercavitating torpedoes.〔(This Stealth Attack Boat May Be Too Innovative for the Pentagon ) - BusinessWeek.com, 21 August 2014〕 In 2007, Sancoff founded Juliet Marine Systems, named after the Navy exercise that inspired him, and began work on a plywood hull mock-up at Portsmouth, N.H.. In October 2009, Sancoff's patent attorney received a letter from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, with a recommendation from the Office of Naval Research (ONR), enforcing a secrecy order forbidding Juliet Marine from filing its patents internationally or speaking about its technology; the secrecy orders were lifted in 2011. Prototype trial runs were conducted at night; the main hull section failed to lift out of the water on its first dozen runs, it first successfully lifted in 2011, reaching roughly high. Trials revealed the vessel's smoothness, traversing high waves without the crew feeling much seasickness, unlike those onboard an accompanying chase boat.〔 In 2014, Sancoff declared he was "aware" of the Department of Defense's apprehension to working with startup companies. The Navy has a policy of only buying technologies of an announced interest and cannot procure a system without established requirements. In 2009, the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) expressed interest in funding the Ghost, Sancoff rejected this to retain the patent rights. The ONR reportedly produced feedback declaring a lack of trust in the design. He also voiced concerns over potential theft of the design as the patents are publically available, and repeated attempted to breach the company's computer systems. U.S. allies have expressed interest in the Ghost, and Sancoff has said he is willing to make a foreign sale.〔 In September 2014, the State Department permitted Foreign Military Sales discussions with South Korea about the Ghost.〔(The Navy's New Patrol Boat Wasn't Made by a Long Shot Inventor ) - BusinessWeek.com, 23 September 2014〕〔(Shipbuilders Bet on Radical Hull Designs to Defeat Swarming Boat Threat ) - Nationaldefensemagazine.org, November 2014〕 In 2014, it was reportedly offered to several nations including Bahrain, Qatar, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore. High-level discussions were allegedly held with one nation interested in 25 Ghosts in a potential $300 million sale. Juliet Marine also offered a scaled-up corvette-sized Ghost in length during the U.S. Navy's re-evaluation of the Littoral Combat Ship program; costing about $50 million per vessel, it is six times cheaper than the $300 million per-ship cost of a Freedom-class and Independence-class littoral combat ship. One impediment to U.S. Navy procurement of the Ghost is a preference of senior leaders for large-hulled oceangoing vessels that can also perform inshore operations instead of smaller craft specialized for inshore missions.〔〔(Firm Offers the Ghost to Navy as a Versatile Combat Platform ) - Seapowermagazine.org, 28 July 2014〕〔(Littoral Combat Ship Will Be Modified, If Not Replaced ) - Nationdefensemagazine.org, August 2014〕〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Juliet Marine Systems Ghost」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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