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KOGE MARINA (Denmark) (AP) – From afar, they look like ordinary sailboats. Their sails are emblazoned the red and white flag of Denmark.
These 10-meter (30-foot-long) vessels are designed to be used for surveillance and do not have a crew. Denmark’s military has put four unmanned robotic sailboats called “Voyagers” into service for a three month operational trial.
Built in Alameda, California, by the company Saildrone. The vessels will patrol Danish waters and NATO waters on the Baltic and North Seas where tensions maritime as well as suspected terrorist has escalated since Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, Feb. 24, 2022.
On Monday, two of the Voyagers were launched from Koge Marina in Denmark, located about 40 kilometers south of Copenhagen. These sea drones are powered by solar and wind energy. They can operate autonomously at sea for months. Saildrone claims the vessels are equipped with advanced sensor suites, including radar, infrared, optical and sonar cameras, as well as acoustic monitoring. Their launch comes after the June 6 joining of two other vessels in a NATO patrol. Saildrone CEO Richard Jenkins said that the vessels are similar to a truck, which carries sensors. They use machine learning and artificial intelligent to provide a full picture of what is above and below the water surface. This can be done for up to 30 miles (50 kilometers) out in the open ocean.
He stated that maritime threats such as damage to undersea cable, illegal fishing, and the smuggling people, weapons, and drugs go undetected because “nobody is observing it.” Saildrone is “going to place… where we didn’t previously have eyes and ears.”
The director of Danish National Armaments, Lt. Gen. Kim Jorgensen said that the security situation in Baltic was tense. “They will cruise Danish waters and then join up with two other NATO exercises later.” They’ll then move from one area to another within Danish waters.
This trial comes at a time when NATO is dealing with a wave of damage in maritime infrastructure, including the 2022 Nord Stream Pipeline explosions and the ruptures of at least eleven undersea cable since late 2023. In January, a fiber-optic cable was severed between Sweden’s Gotland Island and Latvia.
This trial is also taking place against the backdrop of transatlantic friction with U.S. president Donald Trump’s administration threatening to seize Greenland. Trump has said that he would not rule out using military force to take Greenland . Jenkins, the founder and CEO of Saildrone noted
that his company was already planning to open an operation in Denmark even before Trump’s reelection. He refused to comment on Greenland, insisting that the company was not political.
Some maritime disruptions are blamed on Russia’s Shadow Fleet – aging oil tanks operating under opaque ownership in order to avoid sanctions. In December, the Eagle S was seized by Finnish authorities for allegedly damaging a power cable between Finland and Estonia using its anchor.
Western officials blame Russia for a series of Hybrid War attacksboth on land and at sea. NATO is building a maritime surveillance system that combines unmanned surface vehicles such as the Voyagers, traditional naval ships, and seabed sensors. “The challenge is you need to be on water all the time and it’s humongous expensive,” said Peter Viggo Jakobsen, of the Royal Danish Defense College. It’s too expensive to have a ship following every Russian ship, whether it’s a warship, or a civilian cargo vessel of some sort.
