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Autonomous Watercraft for Contested Logistics

Cryer Boatworks ANT-15 autonomous boat

DEDICATED DESIGNS FOR THE MISSION

Cryer boats are designed specifically for contested logistics missions.  Our application-focused custom designs have the following key advantages compared to autonomized recreational boats:

A maritime radar display screen

Best in Class Stealth

If it can be seen it can be targeted, and if it can be targeted it will be destroyed.  Our boat materials and geometry combine to maximize stealth for optimum survivability in a contested environment.

A map of the Western Pacific showing Australia north to Taiwan.

Superior Range

All Cryer boats use our unique and patent pending multihull design, providing greater stability and range than conventional monohull designs.

Cryer Boatworks SSVU bein unloade at a beach

Direct-to-Beach Logistics

Our designs provide maximum payload with minimum draft, allowing materiel to be delivered  from the point of origin directly to the beach, without need for a last mile handoff.

Vessels

Autonomous Naval Transport

The ANT

Autonomous Naval Transport TM

  • Designed to maximize stealth for use in the most contested environments

  • Fully autonomous

  • Attritable design and pricing

  • Available in 3 variants:

    • 15' length x 100 lbs payload​

    • 19' length x 300 lbs payload

    • 27' length x 600 lbs payload

  • Patents pending​

Small Surface Vessel, Utility

THE SSVU

Small Surface Vessel, Utility TM

  • Designed for maximum versatility and utility

  • Large cargo bay with top hatches and bow drop ramp for rapid loading and unloading

  • Fully autonomous or manned operation

  • Available in 2 variants:

    • 32' length x 3,000 lb payload

    • 48' length x 8,000 lb payload

  • Patent pending

Autonomy

Cryer Boatworks is proud to partner with Sea Machines as our primary autonomy package provider.  Our mission is to get critically needed watercraft in the hands of the warfighter as soon as possible;  and adopting Sea Machine's mature autonomy technology best enables us to achieve this mission. Having been deployed on over 250 hulls to date, the Sea Machines system is a proven performer.

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Key capabilities include:​

  • Complete vessel control from anywhere on the planet via satellite link or direct radio control

  • Remote real time monitoring of all onboard sensors including radar, GPS, engine gauges, cameras, and more

  • Advanced autonomous piloting including dynamic path planning, navigation, and real time threat detection and collision avoidance

  • AI detection, classification, and tracking of objects of interest

  • Multi-vessel command allows up to eight vessels to be controlled by a single operator

  • Interface options include laptop, tablet, or LOS wireless remote helm

  • Rugged, robust, and proven.

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For further information see Sea Machines

The Sea Machines tablet mobile user interface

Tablet Mobile User Interface

About Us

The original Cryer Boatworks was founded by William Cryer in 1890 in San Francisco, California.  For four generations and 99 years the company built and serviced boats in the San Francisco Bay Area, from custom yachts and Coast Guard cutters to WWII APCs.  When duty called, Cryer Boatworks answered.

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Today duty calls again.  The risk of conflict in the western Pacific is rising, and it would be a conflict that the U.S. and its allies are underprepared for.  On a modern battlefield saturated with drones, the limited number of expensive sea and air platforms currently used to sustain forces in a maritime environment will prove vulnerable to rapid attrition.  Large quantities of cost effective attritable systems will be required to prevail in any such conflict.

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Cryer Boatworks was refounded in 2025 with the singular focus of providing these systems.  The founder, Brett Cryer, is the great-great-grandson of William Cryer and marks the fifth generation of boatbuilders in the Cryer family.  He holds a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and has previously founded companies in the defense and aerospace industries. 

 

The new Cryer Boatworks combines both the Silicon Valley ingenuity and energy of the founder and the deep experience of individuals who worked in the original boatyard.  Together they bring history's victories to the new era.

 

For further information on our history Click Here 

A naval APC class coastal transport, built by Cryer & Sons boatyard in 1943

APc-44 Coastal Transport

103' length x 21' beam

258 tons full load

Built by Cryer & Sons

Launched 18 May 1943

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