Exploring uncharted seas with the GARC: Weapon of the Week

All right, folks, for our Weapon of the Week this week, we got a good one

We have another entry into the world of unmanned surface vessels, and here to talk to me a little bit more about that is Jason Lamb with Black Sea Tech

Jason, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. So we have the Black Sea, the GARC here

I'm going to butcher it. GARC, what does it stand for? Well, first off, GARC is like Kleenex, like everyone refers to the small USBs as GARC

but it stands for the Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft. Okay, so talk to me about this particular one

Obviously, we're talking about autonomous vehicles. How do you control this? Who controls it

When would it be used? That sort of thing. Absolutely. So the GARC is a 16-foot unmanned surface vessel

Its beam is about 8 feet. It carries a 1,000-pound payload with a 200-horsepower diesel engine

It can give it a range exceeding 600 nautical miles at a speed of cruise speeds 18 knots, upwards of 40-knot max speed

and then you see here on the front of the GARC is the square panel that is a Starlink or Starshield panel

so it can be controlled over the horizon, and then it can be shifted into autonomous mode as well for either simple behaviors

or even collaborative mission autonomy as well. Absolutely. 1,000-pound payload capacity. Looking on the deck here, we could probably put some containerized launchers

I mean, you can move equipment around in the littoral regions in the Indo-Pacific

Is that kind of what this is envisioned for? Yeah, definitely Black Sea Technology as a business is focused on creating relevant capabilities for Indopacom

That whole panel in the center section can be removed and it an open bay with a common interface control document to allow people to rapidly integrate payloads for various missions We had dipping sonars on board loading

munitions, gyro-stabilized weapon systems, all kinds of capability. We can do it very quickly

because of our modular open systems architecture approach to the platform. Absolutely. We're at

soft week right now. What can you tell me about Black Sea's customer base and what's next for

Black Sea? So Black Sea's customer race is weighted heavily towards the Navy, but also special

operations as well. I was previously a Navy SEAL and loved to come back here to Soft Week to work

with our partners. We have contested logistics capability. We built a towed airborne lift of

naval systems called Talons. We did that for the Navy's larger unmanned platforms. Takes 100 pounds

of payload to 1,000 foot of altitude. We built a small one for the GARC to take 50 pounds of

payload to 500 feet of altitude. We're also looking to enter the unmanned underwater vehicle space

and I can introduce you to some of our team and our mission solutions part of our business

which is technology-enabled services, where we have a fleet of motherships specifically designed

to operate uncrewed systems and they operate both autonomous undersea vehicles, aerial vehicles

our surface vessel, in either a contractor-owned, contractor-operated model or also government-owned

government-operated. So one of the things that we're very proud of is supporting the Navy's

newest squadrons, USV Squadron 3 and 7, with our GARC out in San Diego. That's awesome. Well

really appreciate your time today, Jason. Thank you so much for telling us about the GARC. Appreciate it