Impressive speeds and very different looking than any Navy ship I've ever seen. A few pics on the article.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gtAdCDYzA8NImWi1iBA8ukiBF08wD9BGCUJG0
The Navy's need for speed is being answered by a pair of warships that have reached freeway speeds during testing at sea.
Independence, a 418-foot warship built in Alabama, boasts a top speed in excess of 45 knots, or about 52 mph, and sustained 44 knots for four hours during builder trials that wrapped up this month off the Gulf Coast. The 378-foot Freedom, a ship built in Wisconsin by a competing defense contractor, has put up similar numbers.
Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, noted that Independence sustained 44 knots despite a 30-knot headwind and 6- to 8-foot seas in Alabama's Mobile Bay. "For a ship of this size, it's simply unheard of to sustain that rate of speed for four hours," he said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gtAdCDYzA8NImWi1iBA8ukiBF08wD9BGCUJG0