VIDEO: REGENT completes world’s first Seaglider Manufacturing Facility in Rhode Island

REGENT Craft has announced the com­ple­tion of the world’s first Seaglid­er Man­u­fac­tur­ing Facil­i­ty, locat­ed at 1 Seaglid­er Way in Quon­set Busi­ness Park, North Kingstown, Rhode Island.

The mile­stone was unveiled at the Rein­dus­tri­al­ize con­fer­ence in Detroit, where REGENT debuted a new 3D mod­el and a ful­ly immer­sive 3D expe­ri­ence that lets vis­i­tors vir­tu­al­ly step onto the pro­duc­tion floor and watch Seaglid­er ves­sels take shape.

Seaglid­er ves­sels are high-speed hydro­foil­ing wing-in-ground effect (WIG) craft that oper­ate in three modes: float, foil, and fly. They start on their hulls at slow speed, tran­si­tion on hydro­foils once safe­ly away from the dock, and take off in flight over the water with­in a wingspan of the sur­face, com­bin­ing the speed of an air­craft with the con­ve­nience of a boat.  

The facil­i­ty com­ple­tion sig­nals a defin­ing moment for Amer­i­can man­u­fac­tur­ing: a new cat­e­go­ry of ves­sel, designed and built in the Unit­ed States, ready to serve cus­tomers around the world.

The Seaglid­er Man­u­fac­tur­ing Facil­i­ty will serve as the glob­al pro­duc­tion hub for REGEN­T’s com­mer­cial order book, which exceeds $10 bil­lion across six con­ti­nents, encom­pass­ing orders from lead­ing air­line and fer­ry oper­a­tors world­wide. It will also sup­port REGEN­T’s grow­ing defense busi­ness, includ­ing $15 mil­lion in con­tracts with the U.S. Marine Corps.

Bil­ly Thal­heimer, co-founder and CEO, REGENT, said: “The Seaglid­er Man­u­fac­tur­ing Facil­i­ty is our part in help­ing Amer­i­ca lead the next gen­er­a­tion of man­u­fac­tur­ing and trans­porta­tion tech­nol­o­gy.

“From our facil­i­ty at 1 Seaglid­er Way, we will deliv­er Seaglid­er ves­sels to cus­tomers on six con­ti­nents, cre­ate hun­dreds of high-qual­i­ty Amer­i­can jobs, and show the world what it looks like when inno­va­tion and man­u­fac­tur­ing meet at scale. We built this facil­i­ty the way we build our ves­sels: with pre­ci­sion, pur­pose, and an uncom­pro­mis­ing com­mit­ment to qual­i­ty and safe­ty.”

World-class facil­i­ty built for the future of Amer­i­can ship­build­ing

Span­ning 255,000 square feet, the facil­i­ty fea­tures ded­i­cat­ed areas for struc­tur­al assem­bly, wing and hydro­foil inte­gra­tion, bat­tery and sys­tems instal­la­tion, and water-based test and accep­tance oper­a­tions, with tool­ing, metrol­o­gy, and qual­i­ty check­points embed­ded through­out.

The facil­i­ty’s loca­tion with­in Quon­set Busi­ness Park pro­vides direct water­front access for sea tri­als, estab­lished logis­tics infra­struc­ture, and prox­im­i­ty to Rhode Island’s skilled mar­itime and man­u­fac­tur­ing work­force.  

The lay­out is engi­neered to sup­port phased capac­i­ty increas­es as pro­duc­tion scales, with­out com­pro­mis­ing safe­ty or cer­ti­fi­ca­tion objec­tives.

From this site, REGENT will man­age end-to-end pro­duc­tion of its 12-pas­sen­ger Viceroy Seaglid­er ves­sel and its Squire Seaglid­er drone, while anchor­ing a domes­tic sup­ply chain built for high-rate man­u­fac­tur­ing and cement­ing Rhode Island’s posi­tion as the glob­al hub for mar­itime inno­va­tion.

Mark Duch­esne, VP of Man­u­fac­tur­ing & Sup­ply Chain, REGENT, said: “We have built a fac­to­ry that com­bines the best of mod­ern man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­o­gy with the deep skills of Rhode Island’s mar­itime work­force. Every sys­tem, every tool, every lay­out deci­sion was made with one goal: to pro­duce the high­est-qual­i­ty Seaglid­er ves­sels in the world, con­sis­tent­ly, at scale, and with the trace­abil­i­ty that cer­ti­fi­ca­tion demands. This will be Amer­i­can man­u­fac­tur­ing at its best.”

Made in Amer­i­ca: jobs and eco­nom­ic growth

The Seaglid­er Man­u­fac­tur­ing Facil­i­ty is a cor­ner­stone of REGEN­T’s com­mit­ment to Amer­i­can-made pro­duc­tion and domes­tic eco­nom­ic growth. The com­pa­ny has pledged to cre­ate 300 jobs, with the poten­tial to expand to 750 posi­tions, at the North Kingstown facil­i­ty over the next decade through Rhode Island’s Qual­i­fied Jobs Pro­gram.

These are high-qual­i­ty, skilled posi­tions in man­u­fac­tur­ing, engi­neer­ing, qual­i­ty assur­ance, logis­tics, and oper­a­tions, con­tribut­ing to a broad­er ecosys­tem of sup­pli­ers, sub­con­trac­tors, and ser­vice providers in the Ocean State. REGENT has already rein­vest­ed $71.5 mil­lion into Rhode Island’s econ­o­my and cre­at­ed more than 100 jobs ahead of the facil­i­ty’s com­ple­tion.

Rhode Island’s Quon­set Busi­ness Park, with its sto­ried lega­cy in defense man­u­fac­tur­ing and mar­itime indus­try, pro­vides the ide­al home for this next chap­ter. The site has been for­mal­ly renamed 1 Seaglid­er Way, a recog­ni­tion by local offi­cials of the facil­i­ty’s sig­nif­i­cance to the region’s future.

Fur­ther­more, REGENT is aligned with the broad­er focus on rebuild­ing the Amer­i­can mar­itime indus­tri­al base and the future of Amer­i­can Ship­build­ing.

Through part­ner­ship with the Depart­ment of War and aligned with the Trump Administration’s ini­tia­tives on man­u­fac­tur­ing, restor­ing Amer­i­can mar­itime dom­i­nance, and the Mar­itime Action Plan, REGENT is help­ing strength­en eco­nom­ic, mil­i­tary, indus­tri­al, and nation­al secu­ri­ty for future gen­er­a­tions.

Revealed in Detroit: Immer­sive 3D expe­ri­ence

Thal­heimer announced the facil­i­ty’s com­ple­tion on the head­line stage at the REin­dus­tri­al­ize con­fer­ence, a gath­er­ing ded­i­cat­ed to the renew­al of Amer­i­can indus­try.

At the event, the com­pa­ny unveiled a new 3D mod­el of the com­plet­ed facil­i­ty along­side a ful­ly immer­sive 3D expe­ri­ence that trans­ports view­ers onto the pro­duc­tion floor, offer­ing an unprece­dent­ed look at Seaglid­er man­u­fac­tur­ing in action. REGENT also debuted a Seaglid­er sim­u­la­tor where par­tic­i­pants could take the con­trols and float, foil, and fly, along­side a full-scale inte­ri­or mock-up of the Viceroy Seaglid­er ves­sel.

The immer­sive reveal reflects REGEN­T’s belief that rebuild­ing Amer­i­can man­u­fac­tur­ing requires not just invest­ment and tech­nol­o­gy, but a bold vision that the pub­lic, investors, and part­ners can see and believe in. Detroit, a city syn­ony­mous with Amer­i­can indus­tri­al her­itage and rein­ven­tion, pro­vid­ed the ide­al back­drop for that mes­sage.