It may resemble a minimalist aluminum catamaran with Cybertruck overtones, but BlackSea Technologies’ Modular Attack Surface Craft (MASC), being offered to the US Navy as a multi-mission autonomous warship, has more to it than meets the eye.
Autonomous boats, ships, submarines, and miscellaneous watercraft for naval service have been popping with a certain regularity in recent years, with many of them retrofitted into commercial hulls or built along the lines of conventional warships. However, The BlackSea MASC shows what can be done when autonomy is fully embraced.
Based on the company’s Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC), with which it shares a 75% commonality, the MASC is designed to meet or exceed the Navy’s requirements for large and medium-sized Unmanned Surface Vessels (UAV) as set down in its July 2025 solicitation for designs. This includes using the Navy’s Unmanned Maritime Autonomy Architecture (UMAA) to make it a plug-and-play modular design.
BlackSea Technologies
The result is what seems to be a cross between a catamaran and a giant fishing pontoon with a large open deck measuring 900 ft² (83 m²) that can handle standard shipping containers weighing up to 30 tonnes. Below deck, the power plant can crank out 198 kWe for sensors and weapon systems – that’s twice the payload space and electrical power of a comparable autonomous vessel.
What all this means is that it’s very easy to modify the MASC for specific missions simply by bolting a suitable container or module to the deck and hooking up the power. Currently, the craft is geared toward seven different missions, including Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), Anti-Surface Warfare (ASuW), electronic warfare, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), logistics, infrastructure monitoring, combat strikes, and mine warfare.
To aid in carrying these out, the MASC has two thin hulls for seakeeping and speed. The dual Volvo Penta D8-IPS600 integrated propulsion units give it a top speed of 25 knots (46.3 km/h, 28.8 mph), an endurance speed of 10 knots (18.5 km/h, 11.5 mph) and an operational range of 3,000 nautical miles (3,452 miles, 5,556 km), with a 10,000-nautical-mile (11,507-mile, 18,520-km) extended self-deployment range.
“Our approach starts with the mission, not the platform,” said Todd Greene, Deputy Director of Advanced Technology at BlackSea. “We designed a flexible, modular combatant that can evolve with the Fleet and be built at scale today, not years from now.”
Source: BlackSea Technologies
