Name: Inside the Stealthy Sailboat-Submarine Drone the U.S. Navy Is Using Near Iran
Uploaded: 2023-11-14T05:01:00Z
Duration: 6 min 48 s
Description: As the U.S. races to counter adversaries like Iran and China with drones, Ocean Aero is ramping up production of the Triton, an autonomous sailboat-turned-submarine that can carry weapons and other payloads. WSJ’s Shelby Holliday got a closer look. Photo illustration: Jamie Leventhal

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As the U.S. races to counter adversaries like Iran and China with drones, Ocean Aero is ramping up production of the Triton, an autonomous sailboat-turned-submarine that can carry weapons and other payloads. WSJ’s Shelby Holliday got a closer look. Photo illustration: Jamie Leventhal

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Inside the Stealthy Sailboat-Submarine Drone the U.S. Navy Is Using Near Iran

This might look like a toy boat, but it's part of a growing class of military-used drones. It's the Ocean Aero Triton, and it's billed as the only autonomous vessel that can both sail on the surface and dive to operate in submarine mode. Are they designed to be stealthy?

They are, they are.

Shelby: The Triton is currently being used by the US Navy in the Middle East, where the US is focused on deterring Iran.

Now is the time to scale.

And with a new Pentagon initiative to buy thousands of unmanned systems in the coming months, will more Tritons soon be used to counter adversaries in the world's waters? The Triton has several features that Ocean Aero says makes it useful to the US Military. Each one is loaded with at least five cameras, which helps spot enemies or problems in the water. It's powered by 740 watts of solar panels, which enable it to sail autonomously for three months at a time. And it's payload areas can carry different sensors and weapons, making it capable of various missions. But the thing that sets it apart from other drone boats, according to Ocean Aero's CEO, Kevin Decker, is its dual modality, its ability to sail above and below the surface. Do you think adversaries are scared of this technology?

You know, I think they're definitely concerned about it. Anything that can watch you and you can't find it if it doesn't wanna be found is a concern.

Out on a boat, we got a better sense of how the Triton looks and operates in the water. At 14 feet long and two and a half feet wide, the Triton was designed to have a low radar and visual signature, making it hard for adversaries to detect. And its gray color helps the boat blend into its environment when it's on the water. To dive beneath the surface, the Triton lowers its wing, gradually fills up with water, and descends, eventually disappearing from view. And it doesn't need a human to prompt it. Ocean Aero says the Triton can do this autonomously when it recognizes ships or other threats. Do you have to consider the possibility that an adversary could scoop a Triton out of the water?

Yes, absolutely. One of the highest benefits of being this dual modality vehicle, the only one that can dive in a sail is to get out of the way. And when you're trying to evade an adversary or get out of way of surface energy, being able to dive is tantamount to success and survivability.

Shelby: A Triton costs between two and $3 million, depending on the payloads it's purchased with, and it can sail at speeds of up to five knots, on par with other sailboats, but slower than many of the vessels used by Navys. While being captured is considered a worst case scenario, the Triton, like many other commercially made drones, is considered by some to be attritable, which essentially means it's cheap enough to lose.

A Triton is basically the cost of a Tomahawk missile. So it's not inexpensive, but what I would say there, it's the right sweet spot.

The Triton hasn't logged as many operational hours as some other drone boats, and the company is racing to catch up to some of its competitors in terms of developing more advanced capabilities. What are you guys working on now?

I think the future, the next 12, 24, 36 months, is going to look like smarter Tritons. Where we wanna get to is interconnectivity on a swarm basis, using all these Tritons together.

Will the Triton be weaponized?

I think it's dependent upon what the mission that the customer wants to go do, and that's for them to decide, right? It's for us to provide the platform that can deliver payloads. It's for them to decide what they wanna put on that inclusive of weapons or cameras or anything else that they want.

Soldier: Going down.

Soldier: Yep.

The Triton is being used by US Task Forces in the Middle East. So this is the Triton. We saw it in the Persian Gulf last year as the US Navy paired the Triton and other unmanned drone boats with artificial intelligence to expand its eyes and ears on the water. Navy operators and defense experts say the Triton and other autonomous vessels like it could be used for both offensive and defensive purposes, like protecting ports and naval bases or jamming and attacking them, finding and neutralizing sea mines or laying them, monitoring underwater pipelines and communications cables or disrupting them, and defending navy ships and other assets or destroying them. Drones can also be used for intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance purposes like identifying and flagging threats, and for communications purposes, like creating a 5G network at sea. In Ukraine, cheap drone boats have shown their value time and time again, attacking Russia's infrastructure and large ships to alter the balance of power in the Black Sea. While drones have been around for years, some military analysts have criticized the Pentagon for moving too slowly when it comes to adopting a range of unmanned and artificial intelligence technologies. Acknowledging a need to innovate with urgency, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks announced the Replicator Initiative this summer, a plan to buy thousands of air, sea, and land-based drones over the next two years.

We have an opportunity now for a game-changing shift that we have long pursued.

Ocean Aero, which counts investors like Lockheed Martin, is betting on growing interest in maritime drones, both from the US and its partners abroad. What other countries are interested in your technology?

We're in contact with Australia and the United Kingdom. We are in discussion with India. I was just in Taiwan three weeks ago where I met with members of their Coast Guard and Navy who they clearly, they have a very large need given their geopolitical situation.

Shelby: To keep up with demand, the company built a new factory in Mississippi.

Speaker: Three, two, one.

Shelby: And there to mark its opening were the state's governor and both US senators.

This is gonna be a key part of keeping our nation safe.

Shelby: Senator Roger Wicker, the ranking member on the Armed Services Committee said drones must be deployed quickly to deter China.

The leader of the Communist Party of China has said he wants his country to be ready by 2027 to retake Taiwan.

Shelby: Given Xi's timeline, would you say it is a race to get these systems out in the Taiwan Strait?

Yeah, I absolutely would.

So how long from start to finish?

It takes about three weeks to build a fully complete Triton.

Ocean Aero says it plans to build more than 100 Tritons a year in this new space, and together with another location next door, it says it could crank out 600 a year if needed. What kind of growth are you forecasting?

I think the whole industry is poised for explosive growth, and I think what aerial drones were 20 years ago is what ocean drones are today.

Shelby: Given the new US shift toward unmanned systems, Decker says he's optimistic about the future, but the Pentagon hasn't announced specific acquisition plans under Replicator, and Ocean Aero is just one of many commercial drone companies that will be competing for orders.