excitedly refreshing the page
hoping for mission updates.
Sadly, after more than 1,200 miles,
Scout encountered unknown difficulties
and fell off the map, so to speak. Our
team of excited young engineers, young
adults by this point, hung up our hats and
parted ways. “We were proud, and devastated,
by what we had accomplished,” says Dylan, “but
we decided it was time to move on to bigger and
better things — that’s what we thought, at least.”
Going Pro
Dylan got recruited to an autonomous boat
company based in San Diego. Max began working
for high-performance boat shop Guck Inc., Dan
for Reichel-Pugh Yacht Design, Mike for DMC
Engineering, and Brendan for Bristol Marine.
Tom continued his work with NAVSEA and the
team all stayed in touch, one way or another.
But the story didn’t end there. Over the next
seven years, the notion of returning for another
attempt continued to bounce around. And
as it did, we were gaining industry skills and
experience that would be invaluable for our
next endeavor.
As we worked at companies and tracked the
progress of the growing ASV scene, we had a
common feeling that the costs and complexities
of ASV products were too high. Also, it was clear
that the companies building these ASVs were
ignoring relevant open-source projects that could
leapfrog autonomous technology.
Scout team, Seasats
Sketches began to get thrown around
again and before long a prototype emerged.
“We’ve long felt that we have something
to add to the ASV space,” says Dan Flanigan.
“Scout formed the ashes from which Seasats
will rise.”
Armed with professional experience,
this attempt was a bit different. The
Seasats project kicked off in 2020 as a side
project of Kroova LLC, the engineering consulting
company that Dan, Max, and Dylan had launched
three years earlier. Kroova gave the team a
proper shop and a slim budget with which to
work. The cycle of building, testing, and failing
resumed, with the occasional success to nudge
things onward. By the end of 2020, the team had
built a craft that was less expensive and more
effective than some of the million-dollar products
currently being sold to the US Navy.
That’s when we started to understand the
opportunity we had. Over the years we had
unknowingly accumulated a niche skillset to
build just what the market was missing:
long-range, autonomous surface vehicles
designed for months at sea, but easy enough
to launch in minutes, and at a price point that
could let the advantages of autonomy reach a
wider community.
Today Seasats is in active development. Last
winter we ran missions for the nearby Scripps
Institute of Oceanography, providing water
samples regularly and autonomously. Now
we’re working with customers in whale tracking,
Seasat, the new commercial ASV designed and built by the former Scout team.
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