Russian spy ship patrolling off U.S. East Coast.
'A Russian spy ship is patrolling off the east coast of the United States, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin.
The ship, known as an AGI (Auxiliary, General Intelligence), made a port call in Cuba and has been working its way up the east coast.
Currently the ship is off the coast of Delaware, well in international waters. It is expected to continue north until it gets to the sub base at New London, Conn., then turn around and head south toward Cuba.
The presence of foreign vessels and aircraft near U.S. territory is nothing new. In 2015, there was a flap about a Russian spy ship hanging out in a spot where the transatlantic cables are laid.'
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/russian-spy-ship-patrolling-off-u-s-east-coast/
'Sorry' we missed it! My daughter was at her condo @ MD beachfront last weekend!
= new reply since forum marked as read
This was the one from over the weekend -
This is what's on its way the rest of this week -
at some point they are going to run into some rough seas when the southern stream storm scoots off the SE coast headed NE towards New England (when they either still chugging their way to CT or on their way back down). Meanwhile a clipper is supposed to cut across the northern tier states and combine with that southern storm, where the new single entity will probably undergo "bombogenesis" and rapidly deepen, generating some major wind gusts.
They are going to have to go WAY out away from the east coast area to avoid it (they can't come closer or they'll be out of international waters). IMHO, they need to just go on and follow that storm further northeast as it heads towards the UK and go on and bother England or something.
I was in the Navy in the late 60s. I served mostly on minesweepers. There was a 90 day TDY (temporary duty) where I was aboard this thing:
When I was on board, she was known as MSS-1, or Minesweeper, Special. Before it was commissioned, it was considered a "device". She had a crew of four or five, with a lower grade officer as "captain" and chief boatswain mate as the brains of the outfit. I was there with three other guys for the sole purpose of ptting her spare parts in order. On sailing down the East Coast to Charleston, SC, she encountered rough weather. Thousands of tiny electronic parts like resisters and such spilled from bins. Ours was the heroic ( 
) task of picking up the little things and place into one of the hundreds of small open bis from which they's fallen while at sea.
Anyway, the shit had no superstructure apart from a small forward superstructure topped by a tiny cube mounted to shock absorbers. A weird craft, indeed.
On her way down from the St Lawrence Seaway she encountered Russian "trawlers" who approached pretty aggressively and were seen to be taking pictures. The ship had to put in to Portsmouth NH Naval Shipyard to take on additional gear. In answer to the trawlers, they also had some fun. They welded some 55 gallon steel drums end to end, added a cone to one end, and painted things in bright colors. They then welded these things to the deck. It looked like a massive war machine, bristling with missiles. As Portsmouth was a provisioning yard for boomers, the notion of loading missiles was not far fetched. Well, it was, but that was the story.
MSS-1 was back on her way.
And the trawlers were EVERYWHERE! 
Like a swarm of bees to a spilled bowl of sugar water.
The ship made the trip to Charleston MineLant headquarters to be fitted out further and then off to her testing in the Gulf, out of the Mine Warefare Lab in Panama City.
Anyway, the Russians seemed to like the show of this thing, which was a former Liberty Ship that was to be scrapped.
Oh. Her actual purpose? To explode mines ON. HER. HULL! She was filled with foam and ping balls to make her unsinkable. With nothing below deck (she used these massive outboard motors) it was easy to fill her up.
If you're interested, here's more about the "device". Kind of a wacky story, really.
http://www.navsource.org/archives/11/1701.htm
