VESSEL REVIEW | Quickfish – Compact naval ASV for interception missions

“The first Quickfish was purchased by a US defence prime whose needs align with many other customers’ needs,” said Seasats. “Specifically, it required an unmanned vessel that can quickly respond to threats, evaluate them, and take action accordingly. It must be fast, reliable, simple to maintain, manufacturable at scale, and able to accommodate a variety of payloads.”

The 17-foot (5.2-metre), 1,600-pound (730kg) ASV improves upon Seasats' earlier unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) that have multi-month sensing capabilities. Unlike the USVs, however, the ASV was designed with an intercept capability.

Quickfish was built to be capable of detecting unauthorised vessels, responding quickly to provide a deterring show of force, and using its onboard sensors and UAVs to collect more data to inform additional response assets if needed. In a conflict setting, the ASV can also be deployed with kinetic and non-kinetic weapons.