Saildrone expands European footprint with production plans in 3 countries

Summary

Saildrone is establishing production capacity for its wind-powered unmanned surface vessels across three European countries. The first 52-meter Spectre will be assembled at Van Der Valk Shipyard in the Netherlands, the next-generation Surveyor class will be built at Umoe Mandal in Norway, and Southern Spars will manufacture the rigid sail structures for Surveyor units in Poland. These projects follow the opening of the company’s EU headquarters in Denmark and coincide with preparations for the DALO Industry Days exhibition.

The Spectre, a 250-ton platform unveiled earlier this year, is designed for speeds up to 30 knots and is intended to address anti-submarine warfare requirements. It is being developed in cooperation with Lockheed Martin and Fincantieri Marine Group and can accommodate payloads such as the MK-70 Payload Delivery System. The smaller Surveyor and Voyager classes focus on persistent maritime surveillance and intelligence collection, relying on autonomous navigation and wind propulsion to maintain long-duration operations with minimal crew intervention.

Operational data from a six-month Danish Armed Forces trial in 2026 showed four Voyager USVs achieving 92 percent fleet uptime in demanding sea states while registering more than 170,000 unique contacts. The company states it is scaling manufacturing to match European demand, particularly from NATO-aligned operators seeking distributed maritime sensing and response capabilities.

Why it matters

Directly covers defense-relevant autonomous maritime systems manufactured in the Netherlands, aligning with Dutch AI market strengths in edge AI, unmanned systems and NATO priorities for AI-enabled platforms.