Saildrone inks agreement with Norwegian shipbuilder Umoe Mandal to produce USVs

PARIS — Saildrone and Norwegian shipbuilding company Umoe Mandal have signed an agreement to produce unmanned surface vessels, with some parts being built in Norway, company executives said. 

Under the agreement, signed Wednesday at the Euronaval defense show here, the Norwegian company will build the vessel for Saildrone’s 20-meter-long Surveyor USV, and the US-based manufacturer will provide the autonomy suite as well as electronics and navigation systems.

“The Saildrone Surveyor will provide persistent maritime domain awareness in strategically important waters, including the Baltic and North Seas, as well as Arctic waters, while giving customers sovereign control over their operations and data,” Robert Kleist, Saildrone’s European managing director, told reporters here.

The representative added that Umoe Mandal was selected for its expertise in composite structures, such as glass or carbon fiber. Among other things, the Norwegian company supplies the mast for the British Type-26 frigates. 

The agreement is the latest in a series of moves by Saildrone to expand into Europe. Over the summer, the company opened a new headquarters in Copenhagen and, in August, signed an agreement with Polish company Southern Spars to produce Surveyor’s wings in Poland.

Umoe Mandall CEO Tom Fidgeland told reporters that his company has already begun building a new manufacturing site near its main plant, dedicated to producing the USVs.

“This is to answer the demand we know will come in the future. We are doing this without having concrete orders [yet] in place, but we are confident this will be the case based on future work. … We can easily reach two vessels a month, but that can be expanded more than that for sure,” Fidgeland said. 

Kleist cited Northern European countries, including Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Norway, as anticipated interested parties for Saildrone USVs, which could be facilitated through the Nordic Defence Cooperation (NORDEFCO) framework agreement. 

The NORDEFCO agreement allows Nordic nations — Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland — to rapidly procure different types of systems, including USVs. It follows a sort of surveillance-as-a-service model: instead of buying physical USVs, member countries can contract Saildrone to deliver maritime intelligence.

In October, the Swedish Armed Forces became the first country to execute a national deployment under the NORDEFCO framework, launching a year-long maritime surveillance mission in the Baltic Sea using 4 four Saildrone-made Voyager USVs. In this context, Saildrone operates the vessels, which sail under the Swedish flag, and the Swedish Navy chooses the mission parameters and receives a continuous stream of data. 

Kleist said that if other countries opted to adopt this model, it could benefit the regional allies, as they would essentially be looking at the same information, for instance, surveillance of Baltic Sea activities, and could potentially share intelligence among nations as well. 

The Baltic Sea is a key maritime area for Europe, as it connects many shipping routes and critical underwater infrastructure. Some countries have vocalized increased concerns over the protection of such infrastructure, with the rise of hybrid warfare and sabotage incidents seen in Europe in recent months. In addition, Russia has direct access to the Baltic Sea through several entry points: Saint Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast in the east, as well as through the Kaliningrad exclave — situated between Poland and Lithuania. 

When asked whether the companies were worried about Russian forces seizing one of the USVs, Fidgeland said they must consider it, but are not concerned it would happen. 

“We have radars, we have cameras… We can see them [Russians] miles away. If they have bad intentions, we can take nice photographs of them,” Fidgeland told Breaking Defense.