Stop everything you're doing right now and read this story about the former Navy SEAL with a vision that changed the American Navy, possibly torpedoed a Navy secretary's career, and is responsible for making possible the historic rescue of two Army Apache helicopter pilots in the Strait of Hormuz this week.
By now, you may have heard about the dramatic attack on an Apache helicopter over the Strait this week. Honestly, the word dramatic doesn't quite cover the perilous conditions under which these two pilots were nearly blown out of the sky by what turned out to be an armed but unexploded drone that flew right into the cockpit.
Talk about a pucker factor.
If you haven't heard about it, take a couple of minutes and get up to speed about what President Donald Trump told Israel-based Fox News reporter Trey Yingst.
NEW: President Trump tells me he "may keep going" with strikes against Iran and is getting closer to targeting Iranian power plants and bridges.
— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) June 10, 2026
The President also spoke about the U.S. military helicopter that was downed saying that an Iranian drone lodged between the two… pic.twitter.com/j5aQEIzi9s
But that isn't even half the story. The two pilots were rescued within two hours by an autonomous boat — a drone boat — that was made by an American firm co-founded by a former financier and Navy SEAL.
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I had no idea at the time of the backstory of these boats, how many we have, and how much the Trump Administration wanted them.
Recently, on the Adult in the Room Podcast, I suggested that we might use drone boats to draw fire in the Strait of Hormuz to determine where the Islamic Republican Guard missile installations were so we could target them. Beats sending humans, I thought. I know now that these installations are moved around constantly, but I thought it was a solid idea. I even showed footage of a drone boat that a Seattle TV station captured out of the Navy shipyard at Bremerton, Wash. Some veterans in the livestream chat thought someone who hadn't served in the military should keep her trap shut. I wouldn't, of course.
In my effort to prove I was right about the use of and need for autonomous boats, I came across a 2025 interview with Dino Mavrookas of Saronic Technologies on Shawn Ryan's podcast that confirmed that I wasn't such a dumb broad after all.
The former financier and Navy SEAL Development Group (DEVGRU) team member—the uber-elite element of the SEALs—had a passion for getting better equipment to his Navy brothers and sisters and making a business out of it.
In a nearly four-hour interview, Mavrookas told the story of when he hit on the idea that the Navy wasn't paying enough—or any—attention to the need for autonomous boats or surface ships. At a defense conference, he found there were plenty of aerial drones and underwater drones, but no boats or surface ships.
So I walk up to the Zodiac booth and, you know Zodiacs, the little speedboats we use in the SEAL teams with the outboard motor carry six people. They look like they're from Vietnam. They're like 1970s technology. And you're always — the motor's never starting. It's always It's a piece of crap.
If you go on the Zodiac website, they have these really cool, fully electric jet drive, like push button Zodiacs. So, I go up to the booth and I'm asking the guy, I'm like, 'Why on the Zodiac website do I see this thing that looks like it's from 2022 coming off the back of a yacht?' [A]nd he goes, 'Oh, we're actually different companies. That's Zodiac. This is Zodiac Milpro and we're just the Zodiac Military Company.' And so I'm like, 'So you don't innovate?' He's like, 'No, we're different companies.' I'm like, 'Oh, that's interesting' [I thought] ... the Navy has to go in this direction [or] we're not going to maintain naval superiority without autonomous surface vessels.
Interesting, indeed.
So then the second question I had to ask was like, does anybody care that this company doesn't exist? Right? Does it matter? Because it's okay to have a gap in the market. The question is like, is that gap going to get filled? Can you build a real generational company here? Basically, is the Navy actually going to buy thousands of autonomous systems or not? And if the answer is no, that's okay. Then I just don't want to start this company cuz then it doesn't matter.
Just a few years after Mavrookas saw the hole in the market, voilà! His company's Corsair vessel just made military history.
The backstory of his company started with a video "of these two surfers in Germany that built a hydrofoil surfboard out of a Pelican gun case. And of course, two team guys sitting there with the six-pack say, 'Oh, I bet I could put some explosives in that. That'd be cool product.' And so I'm like, 'Well, would it be?'"
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And then he became a man on a mission.
"So we started out building small autonomous boats. So [in 2025], our largest platform is 24 ft, which is, think of a full-size speedboat. We are moving up to a 40- and 60-ft full-size speedboat, but we're also building a 150-ft autonomous cargo ship," he told the podcaster.
Not only did Mavrookas's idea matter, but it's believed that former Navy Secretary John Phelan was ousted because he was dragging his feet on ship building and pursuing other kinds of ships.
If you've got nearly fours to spare, you can watch the 2025 interview.
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