Stealth Cruise

What was that bizarre sight in San Francisco Bay last week? Darth Vader's helmet? A movie prop for Batman III? No, the vessel steaming across the water on a test mission was Sea Shadow, a 160-ft., 560-ton, welded-steel catamaran that is the latest thing in Navy technology: a Stealth ship. Designed by the same Lockheed "skunk works" that built the F-117A Stealth fighter, the ship has sloping angles and a special coating designed to make it nearly invisible to enemy sonar and radar. Such stealthy boats might someday guard the perimeter of carrier groups, covertly launch surface-to-air missiles or make nighttime troop landings all but undetectable.