It looked like Spider-Man’s own ride, a 99-foot mystery craft resembling a metallic spider riding on two pontoons. It emerged from a fog bank to dock at the Port of Ilwaco, then left the next day with its crew refusing to talk.

Even as answers on who built the boat are surfacing, the vessel remains an enigma. Photos of the craft shoot across cyberspace while chat sites ponder what the boat could be used for.

But the inventor remains mum.

It turns out California inventor Ugo Conti holds a patent for such a vessel. Conti, who has nine other registered patents, owns a company called Marine Advanced Research, in El Cerrito, Calif.

He could not be reached for comment, but Conti’s wife, Isabella, acknowledged the craft was owned by Marine Advanced Research. She said everyone involved was operating under strict confidentiality agreements.

“We’re planning a press conference in January, given that the boat is not yet finished,” she said.

She offered no more details.

The boat first began drawing stares when it surfaced in mid-September in Sequim. People were shocked when they saw it offshore. Was it military? Could it be a private yacht? No one could get close.

By Sept. 29, it had moored overnight on the at the Port of Ilwaco, in Pacific County, allowing photographers to document the boat’s existence and spread the news through the yachting community.

“When we saw it, the fog was coming in and all you could see was the legs, and it was like, ‘Where did the big spider come from?’ It was creepy,” said Melissa Stern, who works at the port. “It generated a lot of interest.”

The crew, dressed in civilian clothes, slept on board and declined to discuss their craft. The boat carried no identifying marks, as is typically required for all motorized vessels. The U.S. Coast Guard in Washington, D.C., said it had no record of such a vessel.

The next morning the boat vanished out to sea. The crew did leave behind clues, however.

After docking and paying the moorage fees, the captain of the vessel wrote in port records that it was owned by Advanced Marine Research Inc. and had a registration number of DL 0899 AA. That number meant it was registered in Delaware.

A spokeswoman for the boat licensing arm of Delaware said the details contained in boat registration records were private, except for the fact the vessel had been registered.

Yet the boat apparently was manufactured recently, in Washington state.

The mysterious vessel apparently was built in Anacortes under the direction of Jim Antrim, a California yacht designer. A call to his office resulted in a polite no comment, echoing Isabella Conti’s confidentiality agreement.

A call to the Dakota Creek shipyard in Anacortes was not returned. The boat had been seen there this summer, said a spokesman for the harbor master’s office.

Ugo Conti’s patent, approved in April 2005, offers some clues, describing the craft this way: The boat is “an entirely different type of vessel that creates the minimum possible disruption of the waves. In other words, this vessel does not push, slap or pierce the waves but instead ‘dances’ with them.

“The vessel has a pair of flexible hulls flexibly coupled to a ‘cabin’ between and above the hulls, thereby allowing the hulls to independently follow the surface of the water. Motor pods are hinged to the back of the hulls to maintain the propulsion system in the water.”

The patent lists possible uses as rescue or patrol vessels, pleasure craft, military uses or research vessels for deployment of submarines or other instruments.

The patent notes the boat could move at 60 knots or more, with a range of 2,000 miles.

After leaving Ilwaco on Sept. 30, the boat was not seen again until early October, when it moored at the Marina Bay Yacht Harbor in Richmond, Calif.

As of this week, it was still tied up in San Francisco Bay. A spokesman for the moorage said he was not allowed to discuss the vessel.

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