High-Speed Marine Craft: One Hundred Knots at Sea

Peter J. Mantle, Cambridge University Press 2015



Very technical but also full of loads of details and illustrations I've not seen elsewhere.
The author started at SARO in 1951, received his Master's Degree from Cranfield in 1958, emigrated to Canada that year and then to the US in 1960. Worked on the MARAD VRC-1 SES test craft program 1960-64, was Technical Director and Program Manager for Bell's SES-100B and, on and on, including stints at the Pentagon, and Program Director for Lockheed's Sea Shadow.
He's 82 and lives on Vashon Island, Washington.

Does it have the picture of them launching an SM-1 off the back?

Yes, however the missile exhaust plume hides the installation details.
Jane's Surface Skimmers 1976-77, has a sequence of three photos
showing the launch, in the 1st and 3rd photos you can see the gantry.
The photos are not large, but details may be visible in a scan.

Interesting but is there any additional material when compared to the Jane's Surface Skimmers series ?

JCC

A lot more material than Jane's, going back to before the MARAD channel wing, lots of info on that as the
author was intimately involved and piloted it on test, projects leading up the 100-ton test program, and what
came after are also detailed. Hydrofoils and Ekranoplans are also covered in context of USN, and US industry,
looking at similar layouts. The book has 604 pp. of text, including index, and 22 pages of introductory matter
(contents, about the author, preface, acknowledgments).

The volume is very technical and includes details (and formulas) on the engineering realities of materials, skirt designs,
weight vs. performance, propulsion etc., etc.