Sea Machines Robotics has announced that its STEAMRACER-class autonomous surface ship has advanced into the U.S. Navy’s final competitive evaluation phase under the Modular Attack Surface Combatant (MASC) programme.
In an update published on 18 February 2026, Sea Machines said it is positioned to provide a purpose-built autonomous vessel based on its existing autonomy technology, which it said has been developed and deployed over the past decade.
The company has invested more than $50 million in venture-backed capital since 2015 to develop and field a fully integrated autonomy stack, aimed at addressing what it described as one of the key technical challenges for unmanned surface vessels: reliable software and hardware integration at scale.
The STEAMRACER-class platform is designed to support fully unmanned maritime operations and is built around what it described as a hardened, AI-enabled remote command architecture. The company said the ship is intended to offer high speed, extended endurance, modular open-deck payload capacity and a secure onboard data environment to support distributed naval operations.
Sea Machines stated that while the vessel is designed for unmanned operations, it is also capable of operating in a limited manned configuration for short durations if required. The company said STEAMRACER is being developed through partnerships with multiple U.S. industrial firms, including St. Johns Ship Building, TOTE Services, Ring Power, Incat Crowther and EMI-W&O. It also said Sierra Nevada Corporation will provide its Maritime Advanced Secure Transmission (MAST) solution to support communications and cybersecurity requirements.
Sea Machines described the vessel as aligned with U.S. Navy efforts to expand unmanned surface vessel production and accelerate the fielding of maritime autonomous systems, stating that it is intended to provide what it called a “ready-now” solution.
“Ready now America first solution”
Their words.
The problem with all of these concepts is the ease with which grey operations could cause massive damage to your capabilities.. there are so many things any enemy could do to these floaty little boats.. which mean unless you want your very expensive tec messed with you are going to have have to keep it close to a crewed vessel..
It sounds wonderful having 20 1000 ton unmanned vessels in the Atlantic.. until on day -1 your enemy runs an old rusty grey fleet tramp into as many of them as it can…
So they don’t replace blue water crewed vessels and I worry that it’s seen as a way to..
What they can do:
Monitor and do sea denial within your own EEZ ( where you can keep an eye on things)
Act as an adjunct to crewed vessels as part of a group ( be the attritional part of the group you send down the threat axis
Act as attritional strike vessels
So you could do some interesting things.. like have a rivers 2 type vessel ( with more self defence) as a mother ship to a group.. have a patrol ship that could be both crewed and uncrewed depending on if your likely to want to board ect.
But the really important thing is that they don’t remove the need for the crewed patrol boat, GP frigate, ASW frigate or AAW destroyer.. they just increase their effectiveness.. and you cannot reduce numbers because physics is physics and 1 ship can only be in one place at one time.
What about even trawler vessels being able to catch these type of vessels and XLUUVs up in their large fishing nets? Assuming if unarmed. For right now to next few years wouldn’t more money better spent on building some extra T31s or AH120/B3 Rivers and maybe 4-6 SSKN’s which can act as motherships/subs while XLUUV technology is still maturing in parallel?
What’s actually going to be in these 40′ containers? Can’t see anything revealing, no protrusions, latches on top.
Have you not watched “Storage Wars” ? 😁
Yes, lol, lord oh lord! I thought you might have suggested “frozen food” but these arent aren’t yourv typical reefer units.