Even on land, the Ghost looks futuristic and fast. The angular would-be warship looks like a waterborne stealth fighter. It rides atop underwater torpedo-shaped tubes powered by a pair of 2,000-horsepower gas turbine engines. Gyroscopes keep the ride smooth. Sadly, Ghost is all revved up with no place to go. The brainchild of a wealthy inventor and entrepreneur, Ghost might never be a familiar household name like Humvee or Apache - even if it works as advertised - because its creator has built a warship the US Navy isn't convinced it needs. "It's a revolutionary programme," said Gregory Sancoff, founder and CEO of Juliet Marine Systems. "Nothing like this has ever been built by anybody, not even the navy." He might be right: The Ghost rides on struts connected to engine assemblies he says take advantage of "supercavitation", travelling underwater inside a bubble of gas. It's a new application of technology that Sancoff insists will make Ghost fast - it's so far hit about 56 km/h, but Sancoff believes it can approach 100km/h - while staying stable even in rough seas. Sancoff has taken the usual step of sinking US$15 million into a prototype that he hopes to sell to the navy, turning upside down a process in which normally the military identifies that there is need before soliciting proposals and seeking funding. "The navy is pretty sceptical of what we've been working on but they're starting to take us more seriously," said Sancoff, whose company operates out of a leased warehouse at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Sancoff, who as a young man raced hydroplanes, had hatched his idea for the 18-metre-long vessel after terrorists using a small boat full of explosives nearly sank the USS Cole in 2000 off the coast of Yemen. He thinks the navy needs a fast patrol boat to protect larger and more costly warships when they're most vulnerable, such as when they're passing through the Strait of Hormuz at the southern end of the Persian Gulf. The Ghost's smooth ride makes it an ideal platform for weapon systems - and for transporting Navy SEALs, Sancoff said. Supercavitation has been used to produce high-speed torpedoes, but Sancoff said he's adapted it for the first time to propel a surface warship. Under his design, dual propellers were moved to the front instead of the rear and underwater ailerons control the vessel, which banks like a plane when it's turning. He was so convinced that he created a company and built it. The US Navy currently does not have a requirement for such a patrol boat, said Chris Johnson, spokesman for the naval Sea Systems Command. But Sancoff's design is at least worth a look, even if it turns out to be unfit for military use, said retired Vice Admiral Pete Daly, CEO of the US Naval Institute, an independent, nonpartisan organisation in Annapolis, Maryland. "The propulsion system could be valuable in other applications," Daly said. "You've got to keep that door open to innovation," he said. Sancoff insists the military has expressed at least some interest in his company. He is also proposing marketing his vessel to other navies and wants to build a new version that'll be a bit bigger. He believes it will be flexible enough for other tasks, like anti-submarine and mine warfare operations. Loren Thompson, a defence analyst at the Lexington Institute, said the small company faces an uphill battle. The navy's speedy new littoral combat ships are designed to fulfil the Ghost's mission, and Thompson is sceptical that the navy would be willing to go out on a limb for an all-new design for a ship that's too small and light to accommodate heavy armour and bigger weapons systems.
