Want your own Bond villain boat?
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 9:44 pm
It's not what you'd normally expect to find while scrolling through an online auction.
But bidders with deep pockets can buy themselves a real life U.S Navy stealth ship for a fraction of the $190 million (£115million) it cost to build.
In fact bidding on the experimental Sea Shadow - which inspired the 'invisible boat' captained by Bond Villain Elliot Carver in 007 movie Tomorrow Never Dies - has stalled at a cut-price $100,420 (£61,000).
There's just one condition of sale that will stop budding Bond baddies from using the ship as a weapon - the winning bidder must 'dismantle and scrap' their purchase before it can leave the US.
Anyone who wants to join the sale must also lay down a hefty £6,000 deposit.
Production on the groundbreaking vessel began in 1982 and was completed three years later - but the general public weren't aware of its existence until 1993.
It was taken out of service in September 2006.
The groundbreaking boat measures 164ft by 70ft, weighs 563 tons and was capable of cruising the seas at a maximum of 14 knots.Will it fit in my boathouse?
Weight: 563 tons
Length: 164 feet (50 metres)
Width: 68 feet (21 metres)
Hull: 15 feet (4.6 metres)
It was which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Navy and Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space Company.
Sea Shadow has a Swath Water Plane Area Twin Hull (SWATH) design, where the vessel's angled sides extend below the waterline to torpedo-shaped hulls which gave it exceptional stability in bad weather.
Once veiled in secrecy, the vessel later came into the open and was used as a tool for testing and evaluating new technologies in a realistic at-sea environment.
However, for the last few years it has been holed up in a dry dock in California with authorities hoping to find a museum which could rehome it.
After exhausting all channels it is now resigned for the scrapheap and is offered for sale on the GS Auctions website - an eBay-style website for military products.
The auction closes on May 4.
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