Drone Ship Maker Saronic Announces New $3B Shipyard In Texas Capable of Building 850-Foot Vessels
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Saronic, the company that makes the first sea drones ever to be used as kinetic weapons by American forces, announced it will build a big new shipyard in Brownsville, Texas where they plan to construct an array of crewed and uncrewed ships as big as 850 feet. It is a big step for a company whose largest vessel is a 180-foot drone boat called Marauder.
The move comes as the U.S. is struggling to come anywhere near keeping pace with China in the number of ships it can build and amid delays and cost overruns of projects underway. Boosting America’s capacity to turn out new ships and keep existing ones sailing has been a focus of the Trump administration.
The Austin, Texas-headquartered Saronic said it plans to invest more than $3 billion of its own money to build the facility, which it is calling Port Alpha. The location was chosen after a year-long search.
“Brownsville was selected after a rigorous review of workforce availability, infrastructure readiness, land scale, logistics, and expansion potential,” the company said in a release. “Initially situated on 835 acres at the Port of Brownsville, with the opportunity to expand to nearly 4,400 acres, Port Alpha will encompass a shipyard and manufacturing facility capable of producing vessels up to 850 feet. Future site expansion could support the production of vessels over 1,200 ft. The site provides hundreds of acres of waterfront access, deepwater channel connectivity, multimodal logistics infrastructure, and room for long-term expansion—everything required to anchor a next-generation shipbuilding hub.”
Today, we’re proud to announce the future home of Port Alpha: Brownsville, Texas.
Our next-generation shipyard moves from vision to reality through a planned investment of more than $3 billion to establish one of the world’s most advanced shipyards, built for software-defined… pic.twitter.com/vIxkB2YUG0
— Saronic (@Saronic) July 16, 2026
In an interview with TWZ earlier this month, company co-founder and CCO Rob Lehman laid out his vision for the new facility.
“Port Alpha is planned to be the largest shipyard in the Western Hemisphere,” Lehman told us. “We are seeing the need for more shipbuilding capacity, and we are answering the call with a greenfield new yard that will provide the Navy, Coast Guard — all of our sea services — the capacity that they’ve been asking for, and they desperately need.”
“We are here to help address the gaps that we are facing and do it at a speed and scale that hasn’t been seen before,” he added.
Asked about what kinds of ships the yard will build, Lehman said Port Alpha “will be capable of producing everything up to Panamax-sized cargo containers, roll on/roll offs, we are open to a variety of different ship classes, both commercial and military.”
Panamax ships — so named because they are the biggest vessels that can fit through the Panama Canal — have a maximum length of 294 meters and a maximum width of 32 meters, according to SeaRates.com.
Panamax vs Capesize Ships: What’s the Real Difference? #panamax #capsize #ruzave
Lehman said Saronic is focusing on “how do we create a shipyard of the future that is able to support multiple types of vessels and move at a pace and a level of agility that aligns with how technology is advancing. So commercial ships, military ships, modules, everything under the sun.”
“We are keenly focused and ruthlessly focused, frankly, on what does the customer set need, what are they unable to acquire or sustain within the timelines that they require, and how can we address that? So, as long as we know what’s needed, we can put our private capital to work and not force the government to pay never-ending research and development costs.”
At the time of the interview, Lehman declined to provide any further details about the plans or the exact location. However, he did compare it to an existing shipyard the company purchased last year.
“When we acquired the former Gulf Craft yard last April, [compared] to what it looks like now, we’re investing $300 million into that yard already to expand capacity,” he noted. “We’re bringing hundreds and thousands of jobs to the Gulf Coast, and we look to take that same model and just on steroids at Port Alpha. So, unlike Gulf Craft, it’ll be a greenfield yard, so we have all of the flexibility to design the shipyard of the future without the constraints of an existing physical plant.”
“We acquired Gulf Craft because we believe in their culture and what they’ve been able to produce to date… We see the value they can bring to scaling production of our autonomous surface vessels, so we’re going to invest heavily there.” https://t.co/GbaeAMx5JA
— Saronic (@Saronic) April 28, 2025
In the media release issued today, Saronic claimed that “the project is expected to generate more than $160 billion in regional economic impact for Cameron County and $264.5 billion for the State of Texas, while creating up to 10,000 direct jobs. This makes Port Alpha one of the largest economic development projects in modern Texas history.”
Construction is anticipated to begin in 2026, with Port Alpha expected to open for operations in 2028, the release continued. Company officials did not specify exactly what ships will be built at Port Alpha. Currently, Saronic makes three uncrewed surface vessels (USV).
Corsair, the aforementioned USV used as a kamikaze weapon, is a 24-foot vessel capable of carrying up to 1,000 lbs over 1,000 NM.
The Corsair uncrewed surface vessel (USV) (Saronic)
Mirage is a 52-foot USV with a range of 2,500 NM of range and 3,500 lbs of payload capacity.
The Mirage uncrewed surface vessel (USV) (Saronic)
Marauder is a 180-foot USV with a range of 5,200 NM and is capable of carrying up to 150 metric tons in four 40-foot containers, eight 20-foot containers, or other modular payload configurations.
The Navy is set to evaluate Marauder, as well as designs from six other companies, as part of the first round of prototyping under its latest Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) effort. This is part of a larger strategy the service rolled out in March to try to field more USVs and do so faster, as you can read more about here
The Marauder uncrewed surface vessel (USV) (Saronic)
Saronic is on a roll of late. As we noted earlier in this story, three of its Corsair sea drones were used earlier this week to attack “a submarine and ship maintenance facility in Iran,” U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced. It marked the first time that the U.S. used sea drones as kamikaze attack weapons.
Yesterday, using multiple one-way attack surface drones, CENTCOM forces successfully struck a submarine and ship maintenance facility in Iran. Three Corsair unmanned surface vessels hit the port at Bandar Abbas Naval Base, marking the first time American forces have employed sea… pic.twitter.com/bOM2kmgRxz
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 13, 2026
Last month, a Saronic Corsair USV rescued the crew of a U.S. Army AH-64 Apache that crashed in the Gulf of Oman after it was downed by Iran. That was the first known instance of a drone boat being used to recover personnel as part of a search and rescue mission, and has major implications for these operations going forward.
In December 2025, the company was awarded a $392 million contract from the Navy. The production contract was for the construction of USVs like the Corsair.
Big news from #RNDF: @SECNAV announced Saronic has been awarded a $392M production contract with the U.S. Navy, with nearly $200M immediately put on contract.
We are proud to partner with @USNavy to rapidly field advanced autonomous maritime capabilities. From day one, we… https://t.co/wnNROUcgd6
— Saronic (@Saronic) December 8, 2025
If Port Alpha lives up to the hype, it would be a boon to the Navy and an American shipbuilding industry that struggles to get new vessels out on time and on budget, while supporting those that are already in the water.
As we noted in previous coverage of U.S. shipbuilding woes, keeping existing vessels afloat “has been a massive challenge as the Navy’s fleet ages while demands for more hulls increase. Crumbling shipyards around the U.S.and a limited number of them that can support mainline military vessels is a huge problem that has led to major delays in maintenance, greatly harming available end strength. It is also of major concern if ships were to get damaged in battle during a conflict and need to be regenerated quickly. While some improvements and investments have been made in upgrading shipyards, it is still a glaring and highly concerning issue.”
GAO: Poor Conditions at Navy Shipyards
The situation is so dire that “the U.S. Navy has officially issued two Requests for Information (RFIs) to major South Korean shipbuilders to assess their capacity to build American destroyers and fleet tankers,” according to Naval News. Such a move “could end an 80-year ban on foreign warship construction,” the outlet added.
Given the state of U.S. shipbuilding, a lot is riding on Port Alpha and the future of this plan is definitely worth keeping an eye on.
Contact the author: [email protected]
Howard is a Senior Staff Writer for TWZ. He writes frequently about conflict, focusing heavily on the Middle East and Ukraine, and interviews with military and intelligence officials and industry leaders from around the globe. He lives near Tampa, Florida, home of U.S. Central Command, U.S. Special Operations Command.
