Sam Young saw the problem clearly. Traditional naval boat construction demands molds, fiberglass, skilled labor, fixed shipyards and weeks of production time. A damaged vessel in the vast Indo-Pacific might sit idle for months awaiting replacement from distant facilities. Voltage Vessels, the company he founded and leads in Hawaii, offers a stark alternative. Print the hull on demand. Send a digital file. Use local power, a large-format printer and material drawn from the islands themselves.

The six-meter rigid-hull inflatable boat hull now under evaluation by U.S. maritime defense programs emerged from exactly that process. No factory. No long supply chain. Just additive manufacturing and a proprietary composite called Eclipse X9. Defence Blog first detailed how the company printed the hull on a CEAD system and submitted it for assessment, including potential use in autonomous naval programs.

Eclipse X9 combines recycled PETG thermoplastic with chopped basalt fiber.…