There have been more than a few tales and ships condemned to sail on forever, or never reach home—Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, the Flying Dutchman, Edward Everett Hale’s “Man Without a Country”—but this odd sea-going palace of technology that has traveled widely without ever once reaching its specially-built homeport must be unique.
The picture at the top would have been a dead giveaway, but there were no palms waving in the wind when Gumbo took the puzzle picture (above). The object was sitting, if that’s the word, at the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor. The picture was taken from the launch that takes visitors in that long line in the clue picture to the Arizona Memorial.
Gumbo member Still Country Photo identified it by name: SBX-1, which stands for Sea-Based X-Band Radar. The 1 tells us it was the first of its kind, and its history tells us it’s likely the last and only, because it apparently hasn’t functioned as hoped, and cheaper solutions are taking its place. It was built to give the US ballistic missile defense system a platform that could go where needed and operate in high winds and heavy seas.
The builders started with a Russian-built self-propelled twin-hulled oil-drilling platform capable of lowering itself into the water or riding on top of it. It was modified by several contractors and given a homeport at Adak, Alaska, with its own special docking facilities—but as of November 2013, it’s never been there in seven years of operation. In fact, it’s spent most of its life under repair or modification and testing, most often at Pearl Harbor (at least 3 times) or Seattle. When in use or testing, it’s been in many parts of the Pacific, and even near Alaska…but never home!
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