An Essex company that designs and builds uncrewed ships, such as the Maxlimer, which can map the seabed and cross seas under remote control.
SEA-KIT International builds uncrewed surface vessels, which are ships with no crew on board, run from an onshore control room. Its best known vessel is Maxlimer, 11.75 metres long, which can run for up to 14 days and, the company says, uses about 5% of the fuel of a comparable crewed ship. It can work autonomously or be steered remotely from the shore. The vessels carry survey equipment and can deploy and recover underwater robots, so they do jobs that would normally need a larger ship with a full crew. The company's X-class design holds an Unmanned Marine Systems certificate from Lloyd's Register.
The company is British, and Maxlimer was built in Maldon, Essex, for the GEBCO-Nippon Foundation Alumni team that entered the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE. In late 2018 that team won the prize by mapping 278 square kilometres of seabed off Greece in 24 hours using an underwater robot. In 2019 Maxlimer crossed the North Sea from West Mersea in Essex to Ostend in Belgium, carrying oysters one way and beer on the way back, and deployed an underwater robot for Equinor. In 2020 it spent 22 days mapping about 1,000 square kilometres of uncharted seabed south west of England. A planned Atlantic crossing was called off because of COVID-19. We did not find a stated mission or founders' names.
Press releases about the company's growth speak of a production site and research and development base in Essex, in the area around Tollesbury and Maldon, with plans to triple production and to build larger vessels. A Fugro order for one of its larger designs was also reported, but we could not read the details. Because the boats are built by a small British team, most roles are likely to be in the South East of England, and the remote control work can be done on land.
We found no information on culture, values or headcount, and we have not guessed. What the projects show is a small group taking on very large challenges, from prize competitions to survey work for energy companies, which suggests a close-knit, practical engineering environment.
Teams building uncrewed ships need naval architects, marine and electrical engineers, boat builders and fabricators, software and control engineers, remote pilots and mission planners, plus data specialists who process the survey results and business staff for sales and project management. Maths, physics, engineering and computing are useful, and so is time spent around boats. Check the company's website for current roles.
Website: sea-kit.com
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