Maritime forces are being asked to modernise in two directions at once. They must keep crewed boats reliable, safe and ready for daily missions while also preparing for unmanned and autonomous concepts that are advancing quickly but unevenly across regulations, training, maintenance culture and operational trust.
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Cross Water Production, a Swedish–Estonian boatbuilder, is positioning its Cross Water Modular aluminium RIB around a simple premise: many operators do not want two separate fleets – one “traditional” and one “unmanned.” Instead, the company proposes a long-life base hull designed to stay in service for decades, while mission equipment, control layers and autonomy packages evolve on top of it.
“Autonomy will get there, but trust takes time: regulations, training, maintenance routines, and thousands of real operating hours,” said Jürgen Visnapuu, CEO at Cross Water Production. “We’re building a platform that works in crewed missions now, and can adopt unmanned capability step-by-step as a plug-and-play addition without forcing operators to replace the hull every time the mission concept changes.”
A modular deck built around reconfiguration, not refit
Most professional small craft are configured once, then modified through costly refits. Cross Water’s premise is that mission layouts should be changeable without structural rebuild cycles. The Cross Water Modular architecture uses standardised mounting interfaces that allow major components like console, seating, working stations and mission equipment to be repositioned and swapped with minimal disruption.
Cross Water says the same base hull can be configured for patrol, SAR, professional diving support, harbour work or specialist security tasks by changing the deck layout and mission modules rather than commissioning a different boat. For operators, the claimed payoff is speed: changes can be made between missions, seasons, contracts, or as tactics and equipment evolve, essentially without any downtime.
To make reconfiguration practical, Cross Water describes the deck as a set of “integration zones” rather than fixed furniture. Depending on user needs, modules can include different seating rows, a stretcher or casualty-care layout, a dive-support working area with recovery space, or a clear deck for cargo and mission equipment. The same mounting concept can also support changes in sensor and comms fit, such as lighting packages, camera masts, or additional consoles for mission-system operators without redesigning the boat each time. In Cross Water’s view, this is where modularity becomes more than a marketing word: it is a way to keep a small craft aligned with evolving doctrine, payloads and budgets.
Reinforced aluminium hull, longevity and seakeeping as the “fixed” layer
Cross Water’s approach starts with what it considers the least negotiable element: the hull. The company is building in aluminium and positioning the hull as a 25+ year asset, with the expectation that seating, mission equipment and especially electronics and sensors will be upgraded multiple times within that lifespan.
The firm highlights durability and safety margins in difficult conditions. Cross Water states that its boats are designed for demanding seakeeping and reserve buoyancy, with a buoyancy level it describes as around 1.5x relative to a fully loaded boat. The purpose, it says, is to keep stability margins high when operating with heavy payloads and varied deck layouts, especially during recovery procedures and other “hands-on” mission phases.
From “manned-first” to “unmanned-ready” by incremental steps
Cross Water’s “manned-first, unmanned-ready” message targets a common procurement dilemma: autonomy is attractive, but many fleets cannot justify a hard jump to a new platform family that changes training pipelines, maintenance, storage, spares and operational routines.
The company’s roadmap treats unmanned capability as a series of additions rather than a binary state. Early steps are familiar to crewed operators – instrumentation, data logging, remote health monitoring, and decision-support features that improve safety and maintenance. Later steps can add remote operation and supervised autonomy, while keeping human control and well-understood safety concepts in the loop.
Cross Water argues that designing for this progression from the beginning matters, because retrofitting autonomy often exposes constraints in power distribution, cable routing, sensor placement and deck workflow. A deck designed to accept evolving modules, combined with a hull intended to stay in service, creates what the company sees as a practical pathway for agencies that want to “grow into” unmanned capability rather than commit to it all at once.
Operational input and maturity claims
Cross Water states the platform is at Technology Readiness Level 8 (TRL 8), meaning the system is complete and has been demonstrated in operational conditions. The company says the concept has been refined through operational feedback and evaluated with professional units including diving and sonar teams, police, navy and SOF units, as well as tested in Baltic winter conditions where workflow, icing, corrosion management and reliability become operational realities.
According to Cross Water, offshore industry operators, SAR and professional diving and expedition communities are natural early adopters of modular layout thinking, because usable deck space, safe recovery, and mission-specific arrangement of people and equipment can materially affect outcomes. The company argues similar benefits apply to security and patrol roles where sensors, communications, lighting and mission equipment vary between units and evolve over time.
Lifecycle value: one platform, many missions
Cross Water’s broader message is pragmatic: keep the hull durable and relevant, keep mission configuration flexible, and treat unmanned capability as an integration pathway not a separate fleet. The company says its boats meet EU standards, and that a long-life hull supports lifecycle value by enabling incremental modernisation instead of frequent replacement.
“Some organisations will move quickly into unmanned roles, others will adopt more cautiously,” Visnapuu added. “We’re deliberately building for the middle period when operators still need crewed capability every day, but also want a clear upgrade path into automation as requirements mature.”
About Cross Water Production
Cross Water Production is a Swedish–Estonian boatbuilder behind Cross Water Modular aluminium RIB and monohull platforms for professional operators in defence, security, SAR and industrial maritime roles. The company’s modular architecture is designed to enable repeatable configurations while keeping deck layout reconfigurable across the boat’s service life.
