Mass on the Water, at a Price You Can Lose
WaterStrider is a low-cost, payload-agnostic catamaran USV built to be attritable — a maritime truck that carries Customer-selected sensors, autonomy, and effects into contested water where a $650K vessel can’t be risked.
PLATFORM
Built for the Mission, Not the Brochure
WaterStrider is designed around real-world constraints — not trade show demos. Every feature exists because an operator needed it in the field.
Catamaran Hull
A modular aluminum box-beam catamaran on foam-filled, bolt-on pontoons. Shallow-draft, stable, and analysis-validated to Sea State 5 — flotation retains buoyancy even when punctured.
Modular by Design
Light, Medium, and Heavy are built from the same frame and flotation modules. Scale payload and endurance by changing pontoons — no redesign, no factory retooling.
Propulsion Agnostic
A standard tilt-tube interface takes COTS outboards today and alternative drivetrains tomorrow. Trade battery, generator, solar, and fuel against the mission — silent-electric or long-range.
Standardized Payload Interface
A payload grid on 12-inch hole spacing with ½-13 hardpoints, plus Ethernet, CAN, serial, MAVLink, and ROS 2 DDS. A Customer-reviewable ICD lets any payload bolt on with hand tools.
Field Repairable
Two people assemble a hull in the field with hand tools. Fix damage by swapping a flotation section, a beam, an enclosure, or a single bolt — no shipyard, no depot, no OEM.
Multi-Vehicle Coordination
An open ArduRover / MAVLink / ROS 2 baseline with microsecond-class timing across hulls — the foundation for coordinated patrol, mesh networking, and shared situational data.
PLATFORM
Built for the Mission, Not the Brochure
WaterStrider is designed around real-world constraints — not trade show demos. Every feature exists because an operator needed it in the field.
Catamaran Hull
A modular aluminum box-beam catamaran on foam-filled, bolt-on pontoons. Shallow-draft, stable, and analysis-validated to Sea State 5 — flotation retains buoyancy even when punctured.
Modular by Design
Light, Medium, and Heavy are built from the same frame and flotation modules. Scale payload and endurance by changing pontoons — no redesign, no factory retooling.
Propulsion Agnostic
A standard tilt-tube interface takes COTS outboards today and alternative drivetrains tomorrow. Trade battery, generator, solar, and fuel against the mission — silent-electric or long-range.
Standardized Payload Interface
A payload grid on 12-inch hole spacing with ½-13 hardpoints, plus Ethernet, CAN, serial, MAVLink, and ROS 2 DDS. A Customer-reviewable ICD lets any payload bolt on with hand tools.
Field Repairable
Two people assemble a hull in the field with hand tools. Fix damage by swapping a flotation section, a beam, an enclosure, or a single bolt — no shipyard, no depot, no OEM.
Multi-Vehicle Coordination
An open ArduRover / MAVLink / ROS 2 baseline with microsecond-class timing across hulls — the foundation for coordinated patrol, mesh networking, and shared situational data.
PLATFORM
Built for the Mission, Not the Brochure
WaterStrider is designed around real-world constraints — not trade show demos. Every feature exists because an operator needed it in the field.
Catamaran Hull
A modular aluminum box-beam catamaran on foam-filled, bolt-on pontoons. Shallow-draft, stable, and analysis-validated to Sea State 5 — flotation retains buoyancy even when punctured.
Modular by Design
Light, Medium, and Heavy are built from the same frame and flotation modules. Scale payload and endurance by changing pontoons — no redesign, no factory retooling.
Propulsion Agnostic
A standard tilt-tube interface takes COTS outboards today and alternative drivetrains tomorrow. Trade battery, generator, solar, and fuel against the mission — silent-electric or long-range.
Standardized Payload Interface
A payload grid on 12-inch hole spacing with ½-13 hardpoints, plus Ethernet, CAN, serial, MAVLink, and ROS 2 DDS. A Customer-reviewable ICD lets any payload bolt on with hand tools.
Field Repairable
Two people assemble a hull in the field with hand tools. Fix damage by swapping a flotation section, a beam, an enclosure, or a single bolt — no shipyard, no depot, no OEM.
Multi-Vehicle Coordination
An open ArduRover / MAVLink / ROS 2 baseline with microsecond-class timing across hulls — the foundation for coordinated patrol, mesh networking, and shared situational data.
Three classes, one architecture. Light, Medium, and Heavy are generated from the same box-beam frame and bolt-on flotation — so training, spares, and sustainment stay common across the family.
| Light | Medium | Heavy | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hull (L × W) | 9 × 12 ft | 12 × 20 ft | 20 × 20 ft |
| Draft (max load) | ~2.5 ft | ~2.5 ft | ~2.5 ft |
| Max payload | 500 lb | 1,900 lb | 3,500 lb |
| Usable battery | 8.2 kWh | 24.6 kWh | 49.2 kWh |
| Patrol speed | ~3 kn | ~3 kn | ~3 kn |
| Dash speed | to ~20 kn | to ~25 kn | to ~25 kn |
| Endurance | 24+ hr | 24+ hr | 24+ hr |
| Sea state (op / surv.) | 2 / 5 | 3 / 5 | 3 / 5 |
| Per 20-ft CONEX | 6 hulls | 3 hulls | 1 hull |
S&L Technologies LLC is an engineering company focused on building expeditionary, cost-effective autonomous maritime systems.
WaterStrider was designed from the ground up to solve a specific problem: affordable, expendable unmanned surface vehicles that users can deploy anywhere in the world, operate, and repair without contractor support.
Our team combines 50+ years of engineering experience with rapid prototyping capability to deliver systems that work outside the lab.
One Hull, Many Missions
Because the platform is defined by what it carries, the same attritable hull tailors to the mission.
Distributed ISR Picket
A section of hulls carries electro-optical and acoustic sensors across a denied strait — persistent awareness without exposing personnel.
Forward Acoustic Array
Time-synchronized hulls host hydrophones for subsurface sensing across a harbor approach.
Expendable Screen
Low-signature hulls carry EW or decoy payloads into water too contested to risk a manned platform.
Communications Relay
Hulls extend mesh or SATCOM connectivity across a maritime gap.
Logistics Shuttle
Hulls move low-weight supplies between distributed shore points.
Why Attritable
The economics of maritime conflict have inverted. In the Black Sea, sub-$300K surface drones have damaged or sunk more than a dozen vessels — proof that a system cheap enough to lose, fielded in numbers, can hold a high-value fleet at risk. The U.S. doesn’t yet field an affordable carrier to put that mass on the water. Most USVs are integrated mission systems costing upward of $650K per hull, so commanders husband them instead of risking them. WaterStrider closes that gap: a low-cost hull you can place where the threat is highest, recover the data that matters, and accept the loss of the rest.
On the Water Today
WaterStrider isn’t a concept deck — it’s hardware in the water. A prototype completed its first on-water launch under manual control on 28 May 2026, self-funded. The integrated system is at TRL 4, on a self-funded path to TRL 6 by August 2026, with the structure, flotation, propulsion interface, and field-assembly concept already proven afloat.
[WaterStrider launch photo, 28 May 2026 — Fig 8 — Image to be uploaded]
FAQ
Is WaterStrider a sensor or weapon system?
No. It’s a carrier — a maritime truck. The Customer selects the sensors, radios, autonomy, and effects; the hull supplies structure, power, timing, data, and transport.
What does it cost?
Roughly $44K (Light) to $95K (Heavy) per hull at production quantity — an order of magnitude below a manned platform and far below a $650K-class CUSV.
How is it transported?
Disassembled hulls ship in standard CONEX containers — 6 Light, 3 Medium, or 1 Heavy per 20-foot box — and assemble in the field with two people and hand tools.
Who owns the design?
The Customer. All onboard software is open and delivered with a complete technical data package and source code — no vendor lock.
Is the supply chain compliant?
Yes — components are sourced from non-proprietary, multi-vendor domestic supply chains and are Section 889 compliant.
Capabilities
Low-cost, field-ready systems — built by operators, for operators.
WaterStrider
Attritable, payload-agnostic catamaran USV — mass on the water at a price you can lose.
Kill Drozer
A reusable, instrumented counter-drone target you can shoot again and again, with objective scoring.
Buck-40
A purely kinetic 40 mm counter-UAS round for the M320/M203 already under the rifle.
Heavy-Fuel Propulsion
JP-8 hybrid range for small drones at attritable cost — single forward fuel, far beyond batteries.