The REGENT Viceroy Seaglider, a winged passenger ferry, glides over the surface of Narragansett Bay on a test run, Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025, off the coast of North Kingstown, R.I. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)2025-08-20T13:08:34Z NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (AP) The winged passenger ferry gliding over the surface of Narragansett Bay could be a new method of coastal transportation or a new kind of warship.Its maker, Regent Craft, is betting on both.Twelve quietly buzzing propellers line the 65-foot (20-meter) wingspan of Paladin, a sleek ship with an airplanes nose. It looks nothing like the sailboats and fishing trawlers it speeds past through New Englands largest estuary.We had this vision five years ago for a seaglider something that is as fast as an aircraft and as easy to drive as a boat, said CEO Billy Thalheimer, jubilant after an hours-long test run of the new vessel. On a cloudy August morning, Thalheimer sat in the Paladins cockpit and, for the first time, took control of his companys prototype craft to test its hydrofoils. The electric-powered watercraft has three modes float, foil and fly. From the dock, it sets off like any motorized boat. Farther away from land, it rises up on hydrofoils the same kind used by sailing ships that compete in Americas Cup. The foils enable it to travel more than 50 miles per hour and about a persons height above the bay. What makes this vessel so unusual is that its designed to soar about 30 feet (10 meters) above the water at up to 180 miles per hour a feat that hasnt quite happened yet, with the first trial flights off Rhode Islands seacoast planned for the end of summer or early fall. If successful, the Paladin will coast on a cushion of air over Rhode Island Sound, lifting with the same ground effect that pelicans, cormorants and other birds use to conserve energy as they swiftly glide over the sea. It could zoom to New York City which takes at least three hours by train and longer on traffic-clogged freeways in just an hour. Who will ride a seaglider?As it works to prove its seaworthiness to the U.S. Coast Guard and other regulators around the world, Regent is already lining up future customers for commercial ferry routes around Florida, Hawaii, Japan and the Persian Gulf. Regent is also working with the U.S. Marines to repurpose the same vessels for island-hopping troops in the Pacific. Those vessels would likely trade electric battery power for jet fuel to cover longer journeys. With backing from influential investors including Peter Thiel and Mark Cuban, Thalheimer says hes trying to use new technology to revive the comfort and refined nature of 1930s-era flying boats that were popular in aviations golden age before they were eclipsed by commercial airlines. This time, Thalheimer added, theyre safer, quieter and emission-free.I thought they made travel easier in a way that made total sense to me, Cuban said by email this week. Its hard to travel around water for short distances. Its expensive and a hassle. Regent can solve this problem and make that travel fun, easy and efficient.Co-founders and friends Thalheimer, a skilled sailor, and chief technology officer Mike Klinker, who grew up lobster fishing, met while both were freshmen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later worked together at Boeing. They started Regent in 2020. Theyve already tested and flown a smaller model. But the much bigger, 12-passenger Paladin prototype of a product line called Viceroy began foil testing this summer after years of engineering research and development. A manufacturing facility is under construction nearby, with the vessels set to carry passengers by 2027. Taking flight but not an aircraftThe International Maritime Organization classifies wing-in-ground-effect vehicles such as Regents as ships, not aircraft. But a database of civilian ships kept by the London-based organization lists only six around the world, all of them built before it issued new safety guidance on such craft in 2018 following revisions sought by China, France and Russia. The IMO says it treats them as marine vessels because they operate in the vicinity of other watercraft and must use the same rules for avoiding collisions. The Coast Guard takes a similar approach.You drive it like a boat, Thalheimer said. If theres any traffic on the harbor, youll see it on the screen. If you see a boat, youd go around it. Were never flying over boats or anything like that.One of the biggest technical challenges in Regents design is the shift from foiling to flying. Hydrofoils are fast for a seafaring vessel, but far slower than the speeds needed to lift a conventional airplane from a runway.Thats where air blown by the 12 propellers comes in, effectively tricking the wing into generating high lift at low speeds.All of this has worked perfectly on the computer simulations at Regents headquarters in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. The next step is testing it over the water. Capitalizing on concerns over tensions with ChinaFor decades, the only warship known to mimic such a ground-effect design was the Soviet Unions hulking ekranoplan, which was built to fly under radar detection but never widely used. Recently, however, social media images of an apparent Chinese military ekranoplan have caught the attention of naval experts amid increasingly tense international disputes in the South China Sea.Regent has capitalized on those concerns, pitching its gliders to the U.S. government as a new method for carrying troops and cargo across island chains in the Indo-Pacific region. It could also do clandestine intelligence collection, anti-submarine warfare and be a mothership for small drones, autonomous watercraft or medical evacuations, said Tom Huntley, head of Regents government relations and defense division. They fly below radar and above sonar, which makes them really hard to see, Huntley said.While the U.S. military has shown increasing interest, questions remain about their detectability, as well as their stability in various sea states and wind conditions, and their cost at scale beyond a few prototypes and maintainability, said retired U.S. Navy Capt. Paul S. Schmitt, an associate research professor at the Naval War College, across the bay in Newport, Rhode Island.Schmitt, who has seen Paladin from afar while sailing, said he also has questions about what kind of military mission would fit Regents relatively short range and small transport capacity. Floating past Interstate 95The possibilities that most excite Cuban and other Regent backers are commercial. Driving Interstate 95 through all the cities that span Floridas Atlantic Coast can take the better part of a day, which is one reason why Regent is pitching Miami as a hub for its coastal ferry trips.The Viceroy seagliders can already carry more passengers than the typical seaplane or helicopter, but a growing number of electric hydrofoil startups, such as Swedens Candela and California-based Navier, are trying to stake out ferry routes around the world.Thalheimer sees his vehicles as more of a complement than a competitor to electric hydrofoils that cant travel as fast, since they will all use the same docks and charging infrastructure but could specialize in different trip lengths. MATT OBRIEN OBrien covers the business of technology and artificial intelligence for The Associated Press. mailto