Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 17:44:48 -0600
Newhouse A1
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Boat May Be Hush-hush, but It's Creating Lots of Noise
BY MIKE FRANCIS
c.2005 Newhouse News Service
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PORTLAND, Ore. -- The boat is easily noticed -- about 70 feet long, a sleek design similar to a stealth airplane's -- and roars up and down the Columbia River at high speeds.
Yet no one -- its builder, the military, local river patrollers -- will talk about it.
So the mystery deepens; the rumors take off.
Here's what is publicly known: Oregon Iron Works, which is based in nearby Clackamas, has a $10 million contract with the U.S. Navy to complete and test a specialty boat called SeaLion, which stands for SEAL Insertion, Observation and Neutralization.
The first boat has been delivered, the company says; the second is under construction -- and under wraps.
So what's on the Columbia?
"It's a boat for a particular customer who wishes to remain anonymous," says Chandra Brown, vice president for marketing at Oregon Iron Works.
Brown will confirm that Oregon Iron Works has a contract for the next version of the SeaLion, and that the boat being tested on the Columbia is not it.
"No. The SeaLion II is under construction."
Is it seaworthy?
"No," she says.
The Navy's Sea Systems Command, which oversees experimental technology projects, including the SeaLion, helps only a little.
"The craft looks somewhat similar, but I'm not sure it's the SeaLion," said one of the department's public affairs officers, via e-mail. Her e-mail included a picture of the genuine SeaLion, which corresponds to the other SeaLion images on the Internet.
The boat zooming up and down the Columbia has some of the same details as the SeaLion but also has a lot of differences. But, of course, the public -- perhaps -- has not yet seen the SeaLion II.
With all the tight lips, river watchers are reduced to gossip.
"It's supposedly built for the Israeli navy," says Steve Ryan, who has owned Ryan Marine on the Columbia River for 32 years. "It's supposedly a stealth patrol boat."
The Multnomah County sheriff's river patrol, which plies the Columbia, also can't talk.
"They gave us a heads-up," says Sgt. Todd Lautenbach, referring to Oregon Iron Works. "They said we were going to get calls. They asked us to refer them all to them."
Lautenbach lets on that he knows what the boat is, and who it was built for. And he says Ryan's description of a 4,000-horsepower motor -- or jet engine -- on the mystery craft is not out of line.
He won't comment directly on Ryan's rumblings that it was built for the Israeli navy.
"That's the buzz on the river, huh?" says Lautenbach with an amused tone. "Sometimes those guys know what they're talking about."
Is this the answer?
"And sometimes they don't," the sergeant says.
July 23, 2005
(Mike Francis is a staff writer for The Oregonian of Portland, Ore. He can be contacted at mikefrancis@...)
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