Regent Craft has opened a 255,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Rhode Island as the seaglider developer prepares for customer production and expands its work with the US Marine Corps.
The North Kingstown facility is expected to produce Regent’s commercial Viceroy seaglider and autonomous Squire platform, with the company targeting its first customer deliveries by late 2027. At full production, it is designed to build up to 75 Viceroys and 300 Squires a year. It provides space for structural assembly, wing and hydrofoil integration, battery and systems installation and water-based testing. Regent says it could create up to 750 manufacturing jobs over the next decade.
Alongside the facility opening, Regent has secured a further $5 million from the US Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, taking the value of the partnership to $19.25 million. The latest phase will put the full-scale Viceroy prototype through testing in operationally relevant environments and examine how it could be integrated into military command-and-control systems.
“Phase IV lets us test the full-scale Viceroy prototype outside controlled conditions and moves us from developmental test to operational test,” Becky Russo, Regent’s VP of Defence, told Zag Daily.
The company will assess the vessel across varied sea and weather conditions and mission profiles including contested logistics, search and rescue and medical evacuation.
The next phase will also examine how Seagliders are tasked, tracked and coordinated within defence operations. Russo said the work could inform the commercial platform because the basic requirements for managing a fleet are shared across military and civilian operations.
“We’re a dual-use company. Military and commercial demand grow together, and the Marine Corps program runs alongside our commercial roadmap,” she added.
In September, the Viceroy prototype completed its first flight. The 12-passenger vessel is designed to operate in three modes, floating, foiling and flying, and is being developed as a maritime vessel under US Coast Guard oversight. Regent says the seaglider will eventually travel at up to 180 mph with a range of up to 180 miles.
The company raised $240 million in a Series B round in August, bringing its total funding commitments to more than $340 million. It said the funding would support production of both the commercial Viceroy and autonomous Squire.
