[1] Inventor Gregory Sancoff had decided to focus on small watercraft following the attack on USS Cole in 2000, after which he recalled saying: "Some yahoo terrorists in a cheap little boat and $500 worth of explosives can kill 17 sailors on a billion-dollar ship?"
[2] In 2007, Sancoff founded Juliet Marine Systems, named after the Navy exercise that inspired him, and began work on a plywood hull mock-up at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Trials revealed the vessel's smoothness, traversing 8–10 ft (2.4–3.0 m) high waves without the crew feeling much motion sickness, unlike those on board an accompanying chase boat.
[3][4] In 2014, Ghost was reportedly offered to several nations including Bahrain, Qatar, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore.
It can perform several types of missions, including anti-surface warfare (ASuW), anti-submarine warfare (ASW), and mine countermeasures (MCM): ASuW armament consists of the M197 20mm rotary cannon and launch tubes that expel exhaust downward between the struts of the SWATH hulls, concealing and dissipating the thermal signature of the launch for BGM-176B Griffin missiles and Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System rockets, with an electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) sensor and radar.
The current Ghost costs $10 million per copy, is crewed by 3-5 sailors, has an endurance of 3 days, and can be partially disassembled to fit in a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III for transport if needed.
It is designed for fleet protection for navies with few blue-water needs but require a small and affordable craft in large numbers for near-shore maritime border patrol and defense missions.