Sea Fighter

[Bird Dog (Premo)]

Sitting off the "Dock of the Bay" hoping only to watch the tide go away.

Sea Fighter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Aerogal]

aluminum hull? wasn't that the problem with the Brit ships hit by Exocets during the Falkland 'War'?

[Bird Dog (Premo)]

Originally Posted by Aerogal

aluminum hull? wasn't that the problem with the Brit ships hit by Exocets during the Falkland 'War'?

I am not Navy.

I am sure others can comment.

She has been sitting between Pt Lookout and Pt No Point for about three days.

Went out to take a look, pretty cool looking ship

[Gilligan (Premo)]

Sea Fighter (FSF-1) is on temp duty operating out of Little Creek amphib base, supporting some open-water and range testing for a group based there. Her home port is currently Panama City, FL.

She is not a war ship; she is a technology demonstrator and is civilian crewed.

She's a fun ride when the LM2500's are lit off and the hammer down. Fastest I've personally seen on the GPS was 54.7 knots.

That wiki article is chock full of errors and exagerations..looks like it was written by 'somebody's' marketing department without running it by anyone involved in the actual design. LOL..nothing new there, I guess. She also went through a major structural and exterior refit last year and so looks quite different now than in those dated wiki pictures.

[Bird Dog (Premo)]

Thanks

Maybe I'll go out and get some new pictures of her.

[Gilligan (Premo)]

Originally Posted by Bird Dog

Thanks

Maybe I'll go out and get some new pictures of her.

That would be great..even I only have a couple of pics taken since the refit and they were shot from long distances. I watched her glide by only a few hundred yards away from me whilst in Little Creek a few weeks ago. But standing inside a fenced SOCOM compound is NOT the place to be whipping out yr cell phone and snapping pictures..LMAO.

Major changes since we built her include an entire new bow section and forward superstructure, solid 'fence' around the flight deck to replace the nets, relocation of the turbine exhaust stacks to go up through the flight deck instead of out teh ship's sides, and an extensive revision of the stern area to 'close everything in' ..it used to be wide open back there...and was the only place we could smoke. ;-p

[TurboK9]

Originally Posted by Aerogal

aluminum hull? wasn't that the problem with the Brit ships hit by Exocets during the Falkland 'War'?

The sinking of the HMS Sheffield is sometimes blamed on a superstructure made wholly or partially from aluminium, the melting point and ignition temperature of which are significantly lower than those of steel. However, this is incorrect as the Sheffield's superstructure was made entirely of steel. The confusion is related to the US and British Navies abandoning aluminium after several fires in the 1970s involving ships that had aluminium superstructures. The sinking of the Type 21 frigates HMS Antelope and Ardent, both of which had aluminium superstructures, probably also had an effect on this belief though these cases are again incorrect and the presence of aluminium had nothing to do with their loss. In both cases, it is likely the ships would have been lost in any event, due to amount of explosives involved in such small ships, though aluminium fires did break out. Ardent in particular took a severe pounding, suffering eleven bomb hits, five of which exploded; no ship of her type of any era would have been able to survive such an attack. The fires on these ships did result in one clear change, which was the shift away from the nylon and synthetic fabrics then worn by British sailors.

[Gilligan (Premo)]

What he said. The issue with aluminum - warship or passenger ferry, especially ones with large vehicle decks and lots of flammable 'stuff' on baord - is one of structural integrity during a fire and hence structural fire protection. Huge advances have been made in passive (insulation tech) and active (automated fire detection, fighting and control) technologies in the last several decades, driven almost entirely by the foreign high-speed ferry developments but also some foreign navy work as well.

Sea Fighter was the beneficiary/recipient of the latest and greatest in both passive and active FP technologies. She was, after all, designed by one of the premier firms in the international high-speed vessel business, a Brit firm in this case, though many others exist in Norway, Holland, Australia etc. The transfer of technologies like those to a 'test' ship operated for benefit of our own Navy was 100% of the reason Sea Fighter was built in the first place.

[royhobie]

That's it. Thanks for the info everyone!

[Bird Dog (Premo)]

BUMP!!

She's back.

Lots of activity, helicopters, small boats, big boats, and planes.

This must be her August rendevous.

My wife wondered if they can see in the windows. I say probably. Boy, was that dumb.