PARIS — U.S.-based naval drone maker Saildrone has picked Norwegian naval builder Umoe Mandal to produce the Surveyor multipurpose surveillance craft locally, with an eye on new sales in Northern Europe, company executives said.
The Norwegian shipbuilder, headquartered on the country’s southern tip reaching into the North Sea, specializes in composite structures for the naval sector, including masts for British Type 26 frigates. CEO Tom Fidjeland told reporters at the Euronaval trade show here that taking on the work of churning out Surveyors was “technically not difficult,” with a first mold already being readied.
“Mandal’s role in producing the Surveyor will strengthen Europe’s maritime defense industrial base and support the delivery of sovereign maritime domain awareness capabilities to Northern European navies,” Saildrone said in a statement.
The U.S. company will provide its autonomy suite, navigation, electronics and surveillance technology to be mounted on the Norwegian-built Surveyor bodies, the plan goes.
The Surveyor drone is 20 meters long, powered by a diesel motor and wind — a sail-like structure 13 meters high that also houses the onboard electronics. Saildrone markets the vehicle, which can be left alone cruising the ocean for up to 100 days, as a data collector on adversaries and maritime conditions. Multiple drones can be networked to increase the coverage area, according to the manufacturer.
Saildrone’s lineup also includes the smaller Explorer and Voyager models, as well we the larger Spectre, a weapons-capable version still in development.
The partnership comes as the U.S. company has positioned itself to sell naval drones to European navies keen on policing their territorial waters, including in the Baltic and North seas as well as Arctic locales.
Saildrone’s managing director for Europe, Robert Kleist, cited an alliance of Northern European nations Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, NORDEFCO for short, as a potential business generator for naval drones. The pact entails an acquisition track that could spin out national task orders for unmanned platforms, for which Saildrone would then compete, Kleist said.
Umoe Mandall CEO Fidjeland said his company will build a new production site near its main plant devoted to cranking out Surveyors, with an initial production rate of at least two per month.
In October, Saildrone announced a yearlong maritime surveillance mission involving four Voyager drone for the Swedish Navy. Denmark, which straddles the North and Baltic seas, a key transit route for Russian warships heading to the open Atlantic, has been using the craft since 2025.
Saildrone announced a European headquarters in Copenhagen in August, noting plans for an expanded drone production footprint in Europe. Besides Norway, those entail making Spectre boats in the Netherlands at yacht maker Van Der Valk Shipyard, and Surveyor wings in Poland, Saildrone founder and CEO Richard Jenkins said then.