The 10 Fastest Warships in the World

The USS Freedom, or LCS-1, was the first Littoral Combat Ship of the U.S. Navy. The fast, agile missile-launching warship was decommissioned in 2021 after 13 years of service. These vessels are named after the littoral zone, the nearshore waters too shallow for larger warships.

Like its sister, the USS Freedom (LCS-1), the USS Independence (LCS-2) was set to be decommissioned in 2021 after 11 years of service. It’s part of a multi-billion-dollar plan to replace the U.S. Navy’s first four littoral combat ships with upgraded ones that will reportedly include hypersonic missile capabilities. Both ships are now in the naval reserve fleet.

The USS Flagstaff is one of a series of small fast-attack patrol boats and of Pegasus-class U.S. Navy hydrofoils, ships whose hulls rise above the water’s surface as they gain speed and ride on winglike structures that greatly reduces the vessel’s drag.

The Pegasus is both the name of a small fast-attack patrol boat and a series of Pegasus-class U.S. Navy hydrofoils, including the USS Flagstaff. These boats were retired at the end of the Cold War because of their limited combat capabilities.

As the name implies, these sea racers are designed to move fast on coastal patrol missions. The DV15, equipped with large machine-gun mounts, is the smaller and faster version of the Interceptor DV33, which is ladened with anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles.

Like the Interceptors, the Barracuda XSV-17 is a wave-piercing racer designed to handle many harsh weather conditions. The ship can be used for military and law enforcement non-engagement applications, like patrol and surveillance, but it’s also sold as a high-speed yacht.

Skjold is a Norwegian word that means “shield,” and, as the name implies, these stealthy missile-launching shallow-draft ships are designed to patrol Norway’s thousands of miles of coastline populated by many bays, fjords, islands, and skerries.

The HMCS Bras d’Or was a fast hydrofoil escort craft based on a ship developed by Alexander Graham Bell and his Canadian partner F.W. Baldwin that shattered a speed record in 1919. The HMCS Bras D’Or hit the waves in 1968, but it never graduated from prototype status as cost overruns led to the project’s demise three years later, according to the Canada Science and Technology Museum.

Designed in part to rapidly insert and extract Special Forces without the need for U.S. Navy submarine support, the Interceptor is also an effective high speed watercraft craft for counter-terrorism and anti-smuggling operations.

The Soviet-era A-90 was the most plane-like of the ekranoplans that use a phenomenon known as ground effect to hit high speeds just a few feet above the water’s surface. This plane-boat crossbreed, which was in service until the 1990s and could reach altitudes of nearly 10,000 feet (helpful for avoiding collisions with other vessels) was designed to rapidly shuttle Russian troops and supplies across the Caspian and Black seas.