
Impeccable-class ocean surveillance ship

The "Impeccable"-class ocean surveillance ship is a single-ship class of United States Navy special mission-support ship. The original intention was to build six undersea ocean-surveillance ships carrying a SURTASS passive towed array and a Low Frequency Active transducer array. Only the lead ship, , was built.
History.
On March 28, 1991, Tampa Shipyards was awarded the contract to build the first ship of the class, the . The keel was laid on March 15, 1992. However, before the ship was completed, Tampa Shipyards went bankrupt, and construction of the rest of the ship class was cancelled. The Chief of Naval Operations for the United States Navy asserted the requirement to finish the initial ship. The incomplete hull was towed to Gulfport, Mississippi in 1995, where it was completed by Halter Marine Inc. "Impeccable" was officially launched on November 1, 2000.
A second ship, the , was planned. However, the contract was never awarded. and the other four ships were never named.
Similar Ship Classes.
The "Impeccable" class is similar in appearance to the much smaller four ship , led by the . Both classes are SWATH type ships.
The ships perform a similar surveillance function to the older 18-ship , whose lead ship is the . The "Stalwart" class is not a SWATH hull, but a modified oceangoing tug.