Friday, July 8, 2011

Booty: Ship for Sale

Sea Shadow, the U.S. Navy’s floating answer to the stealth bomber, is on the auction block. Not surprisingly perhaps, bidding is slow. Though she looks a little bit more like a houseboat for Anton LaVey than any kind of stealth warrior, Sea Shadow has a surprisingly star-studded history that is keeping her in the news.


As this article from Yahoo! News notes, Sea Shadow appeared in one of the longest running movie series in history. She was the inspiration for the evil super ship in the Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies, giving the villain a seagoing base for the instigation of his dastardly plans.

Sea Shadow, though sometimes erroneously referred to as United States Ship, was never commissioned by the Navy. Her use was purely experimental; find more about her here. She is approximately 160 feet long and 70 feet at the beam with a price tag of around 195 million U.S. dollars. As of this writing, she will go to the wrecking yard by the end of July, or earlier, if no buyer comes forward.

So here’s your chance; a houseboat fit for a villain – or at the very least a rebel – with a bit of a fixer-upper feel. Are you in?

Header: Sea Shadow via Getty Images

4 comments:

Timmy! said...

Ahoy, Pauline! Only $195 million? What bargain! I only need a few more evil plans to come together to make it happen...

Pauline said...

Totally! I want to put a ping pong table and hot tub on top... Get on it!

Timmy! said...

As an update, according to the L.A. Times as of 5/2/12, the asking price is now only "$139,200 or best offer":


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-stealth-warship-20120503,0,1991419.story

That is quite a markdown from the original $195 million price tag that we taxpayers paid for it. Unless I am mistaken, that is less than a penny for every dollar spent to build it... Wow, what a bargain.

Pauline said...

Thankee for the update, Timmy!

Now she's not only cool but afordable - relatively speaking.