The U.S.S Peregrine is wildly non-canon, but she has such a plausible backstory, and beautiful lines that she needed to be made.
The premise is that Starfleet engineers tried and failed to adapt Romulan cloaking technology to Federation ships. They could get it working briefly.. as Montgomery Scott did with a stolen cloaking device in "The Enterprise Incident" (TOS), but federation power systems simply couldn't adapt to the demands of the device. In one of the attempts, it was postulated that perhaps the shape of the Romulan ships made cloaking easier. The U.S.S Peregrine was constructed in order to test that Hypothesis. The shape didn't help with cloaking, although the ship itself was a complete success in all other respects. The fact that only one of the type was ever constructed has nothing to do with any design flaw, but may have more to do with a reluctance on the part of Starfleet to pay the Romulans so obvious and sincere a compliment as to imitate their signature cruiser design.
For details, stats and images, please visit the makers page at: http://gaeasson-shipwright.blogspot.com/2014/03/uss-peregrine-fully-loaded.html
The premise is that Starfleet engineers tried and failed to adapt Romulan cloaking technology to Federation ships. They could get it working briefly.. as Montgomery Scott did with a stolen cloaking device in "The Enterprise Incident" (TOS), but federation power systems simply couldn't adapt to the demands of the device. In one of the attempts, it was postulated that perhaps the shape of the Romulan ships made cloaking easier. The U.S.S Peregrine was constructed in order to test that Hypothesis. The shape didn't help with cloaking, although the ship itself was a complete success in all other respects. The fact that only one of the type was ever constructed has nothing to do with any design flaw, but may have more to do with a reluctance on the part of Starfleet to pay the Romulans so obvious and sincere a compliment as to imitate their signature cruiser design.
For details, stats and images, please visit the makers page at: http://gaeasson-shipwright.blogspot.com/2014/03/uss-peregrine-fully-loaded.html