Seasats Quickfish USV completes 8-day continuous sea trial

Photo: Seasats

San Diego-headquartered autonomous surface vessel specialist Seasats reports that its high speed Quickfish USV has successful completed an 8-day continuous sea trial .The Quickfish is a high-speed interceptor, with a top speed of over 35 knots, and, according to Seasats, is the only known vessel in its class to offer a designed on-station endurance up to multiple weeks. This endurance allows the pre-positioning of Quickfish in key areas to enable rapid response in support of port security, border protection, and coastal defense applications.

Since its unveiling in October of 2025, says Seasats, the Quickfish has been actively completing customer exercises and offshore testing. These events have focused on advancing autonomy, testing safety features, and demonstrating reliable operations. Two key features differentiate the Quickfish from similar vehicles: first, it features a payload bay specifically designed for delivering unmanned aerial vehicles. Second, the Quickfish pairs low-speed electric propulsion with a high-speed jet drive, enabling multiple weeks of on-station time.

“The Quickfish was a natural extension of our proven Lightfish USV. It’s built to provide the persistence that our customers require” said Mike Flanigan, CEO and founder of Seasats. “Solving the persistence problem is a critical piece for moving these vehicles beyond one-way attack missions and into a wider range of maritime operations.”

Seasats is one of the few companies to break past the 1-2 day endurance limit, completing record-setting trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic crossings. Those successes, it says, have led to significant Department of War (DoW) contracts. In 2025, Seasats announced an $89M SBIR Phase III award to support USMC USV efforts, and in 2026 the company announced a competitive $24M Department of War APFIT win.

“Reliable, scalable USVs are going to be key for U.S. and allied maritime defense. Quickfish will play a big part in that,” said Flanigan.