Once-secret project developed by Juliet Marine Systems
WMUR Channel 9 New Hampshire
STRATHAM, N.H. —A Seacoast entrepreneur said that after terrorists bombed the USS Cole in 2000, he wanted to do something to help.
What resulted is the Ghost Ship, spied during sea trials off our coast the last few summers.
The high-tech craft, which speeds over the ocean and under the radar, is the brainchild of Seacoast entrepreneur Greg Sancoff, the CEO of Juliet Marine Systems.
“My mission here is to create a technology to protect U.S. sailors who are in troubled waters,” said Sancoff.
Sancoff’s company built it at the shipyard.
Special-ops teams can travel in the command module, while the engines are in pontoons below.
“We’re creating our own path underwater by forming tubular gas tubes and we’re flying through those tubes underwater,” said Sancoff.
The ship can travel up to 40 knots, hundreds of miles out and is incredibly stable.
“You can be riding along in 4- or 5-foot seas in this craft, drinking a cup of coffee and not worried about spilling it,” said retired Admiral Thomas Richards, the vice president at Juliet Marine Systems.
“That allows you to fire very sophisticated weapons systems while the boat is traveling at very high speeds,” said Sancoff.
This is true with a driver, or not.
“Either control it from a remote location, like they do with Predator In The Sky, or have the boat be self-thinking and make its own decisions on getting to a target,” said Sancoff.
“This is more advanced than anything else you’re going to see running around on the surface of the water,” said Richards.
“This is a private company that’s invested up front, so that the taxpayers haven’t been investing in this yet. They’re testing it, doing all the groundwork and talking to the Navy about how they might invest in it, too,” said Gov. Maggie Hassan.
The plan is to start manufacturing the craft in Stratham soon.