Juliet Marine Systems Ghost

GHOST is an advanced super-cavitating stealth ship that can reduce hull friction to 1/900th that of conventional watercraft. It was developed to provide superior protection and capabilities for United States military personnel. It was designed, developed and built by private American company Juliet Marine Systems.

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 United States 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.

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, New Hampshire. In October 2009, Sancoff's patent attorney received a letter from the United States 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 4 ft (1.2 m) high. Trials revealed the vessel's smoothness, traversing 8–10 ft (2.4–3.0 m) high waves without the crew feeling much motion sickness, 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 publicly 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 United States Department of State permitted Foreign Military Sales discussions with South Korea about the Ghost.

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