SEA-KIT International Ltd
"Redefining the way we work offshore"
SEA-KIT International is a UK builder of 12 m X-Class uncrewed surface vessels, including XPRIZE-winning USV Maxlimer, and is wholly owned by Fugro.
SEA-KIT International Ltd is a British designer and builder of uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) and hybrid vessels for seabed survey, offshore inspection, maritime logistics, ocean science, defence and security work. The company was incorporated in England on 20 April 2017 (Companies House number 10731151), was founded by Ben Simpson, and has its operating base and production facility in Tollesbury, Essex. LinkedIn lists the company at 11-50 employees. SEA-KIT has been a member of the UK's Society of Maritime Industries since it was founded.
SEA-KIT is now part of Fugro. Companies House records show that SEA-KIT is majority-owned by Hushcraft Limited and that Fugro Holdings Limited has been Hushcraft's controlling shareholder since February 2020. Fugro announced on 27 November 2023 that it had bought the remaining shares and taken full ownership. In October 2025 SEA-KIT's registered office moved to Fugro House in Wallingford, Oxfordshire.
The core product is the 12 m X-Class USV, a configurable mothership with an open payload area that can launch and recover AUVs, ROVs and other sensors, operating either over the horizon or as part of a fleet. The first X-Class, USV Maxlimer, was built in Maldon, Essex, for the GEBCO-Nippon Foundation Alumni Team, which won the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE in 2019. In the final round, Maxlimer carried a HUGIN AUV and the team mapped 278 square km of seafloor off Kalamata, Greece, in 24 hours. Maxlimer is about 11.75 m long and 2.2 m wide, uses diesel-electric propulsion and has an endurance of up to 14 days.
Maxlimer went on to complete several early milestones. In May 2019 it made a remotely controlled crossing from West Mersea in England to Ostend in Belgium, carrying a small cargo of oysters, which SEA-KIT described as the first commercial uncrewed crossing of the North Sea. In July 2019 it repeatedly deployed and recovered a HUGIN for a pipeline inspection for Equinor. In July 2020 it completed a 22-day mission from Plymouth, controlled by satellite from Essex, mapping about 1,000 square km of uncharted seabed some 460 km south-west of England. In 2022 it surveyed the caldera of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano for the NIWA-Nippon Foundation Tonga Eruption Seabed Mapping Project, again operated remotely from Essex.
Fugro is the largest X-Class operator and markets the vessels as Blue Essence USVs. By November 2023 SEA-KIT had delivered five of them. In June 2021 an X-Class built for Fugro became the first vessel to receive Lloyd's Register Unmanned Marine Systems certification. A Fugro X-Class was also the first USV approved by the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency to operate with an electric ROV in UK waters. A larger 18 m XL-Class, with three times the X-Class payload capability, forms the basis of Fugro's Blue Eclipse USV for pipeline and deep-water asset inspection. In December 2022 SEA-KIT made its first export sale, an X-Class USV for ThayerMahan of Connecticut, USA, for delivery in 2023.
In 2023 SEA-KIT opened a second building next to its Tollesbury site, tripling production capacity and adding R&D space for launch and recovery systems, mast gondolas and sensor deployment systems. In September 2023 it introduced GSAVI VCS, a vessel control system built into its GSAVI remote helm station, with in-house autopilot and drive modules, class-oriented hardware and onboard edge computing for local data processing. The same month it won funding from the UK Zero Emissions Vessels and Infrastructure (ZEVI) competition for ZEPHR, a hydrogen-fuelled survey USV with two redundant fuel cell systems. ZEPHR is being developed with the Port of London Authority, Marine2o and Marine Zero, alongside a green hydrogen refuelling station on the River Thames.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
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Contact SEA-KIT International Ltd
WEBSITE
https://www.sea-kit.com/HEADQUARTERS
United Kingdom
Company Facts
Founded
2017
Primary Role
Manufacturer
Company Size
-
Primary Region
Europe
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
Subsidiary / Acquired
Funding Total
-
Certifications & Memberships
Keywords
- SEA-KIT International Ltd
- X-Class
- USV Maxlimer
- Blue Essence
- Blue Eclipse
- GSAVI
- over-the-horizon operations
- hydrographic survey
- AUV launch and recovery
- hydrogen vessel
- Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE
- Manufacturer
- Exporter
- Unmanned Marine Vehicle
- USV
- Oil
- Gas & Energy
- Defense & Security
- Education & Research
