The platform
Six metres and eight of carbon under a rigid wing. No fuel, no crew, and a payload bay that changes with the mission.
The point
An engine means fuel, and fuel means coming home. A wing sail means the mission ends when you decide.
Everything on the Maistrale follows from that choice. The hull is light because the wind has to move it. The deck is a solar array because the sensors need power and the wind gives none. The keel carries the hydrophones because a hull without an engine has nothing to drown out the sea.
It is designed around listening first. Cameras, echosounders and water sensors bolt on. The acoustic chain is built in.
Datasheet
Every value is a design target for the first series. Sea trials confirm or correct them, and this sheet is updated then.
Endurance is limited by hull fouling and battery ageing, not by fuel. Two hundred days assumes a Mediterranean season with one hull check halfway.
Configurations
The payload bay and the keel pod change in a morning at the quay. The rest of the vessel does not.
Presence
The vessel as it leaves the yard: AIS, cameras, weather, links. Enough to hold station, report traffic and carry a customer sensor.
For Ports, coast guards, first missions
Listening
A hydrophone array on the keel pod, on-board processing for detections, and a hull with nothing that hums. What it hears reaches the control room within minutes.
For Navies, cetacean research, noise mapping
Seabed
A single-beam echosounder and a current profiler under the hull, running survey lines for weeks at walking pace.
For Energy operators, wind developers, hydrographic offices
Water
Conductivity, temperature, depth, oxygen, turbidity and chlorophyll, plus a camera on the seabed. Profiles every hour, for weeks.
For Regions, protected areas, research
Payload figures are design targets. Sensor makes and models are chosen with the customer.
The hull
Carbon and epoxy, vacuum infusion, post-cure in the autoclave. The Maistrale is built with the processes of a racing yard, because it is built in one.
The same hangar produces catamaran hulls and custom parts for maxi yachts. That is why the drone is light, why a spare rudder sits on the shelf, and why a hull repair is a matter of days.
On board
Four metres and six of carbon wing, trimmed by a single actuator. It feathers in a gale and drives in a breath.
Six hundred and twenty watts of peak solar on deck, and a lithium bank sized for a December week without sun.
Satellite in open sea, LTE within reach of the coast, VHF and AIS for whoever is around. The cheapest link that works is the one in use.
Routes are planned ashore. The vessel keeps them, gives way to traffic it sees on AIS and camera, and calls home when it cannot.
A ballasted fin with a pod at the bottom: hydrophones, echosounder and water sensors, below the noise of the surface.
Questions
It is designed to: sea state 6, a self-righting hull, a wing that feathers. Missions are planned around the forecast and the vessel can run for shelter on its own.
The first hulls will spend a winter at sea before the fleet does.
By crane from any quay with two people, or alongside a support boat. A recovery takes about an hour.
The vessel holds station or continues its route on its own and tries the other two links. If nothing comes back, it heads for a pre-agreed point.
Yes, if it fits the payload bay and its mass and power budget. The bay is wired for it and the integration is done in the yard.
We do. You buy sea days and data. An owned fleet is the exception and is discussed case by case.
Next step
We size the payload and the number of hulls, and come back within a week with a plan.