The Herreshoff Marine Museum unveiled some big plans on Tuesday, cutting the ribbon on their new Blue Tech Innovation Center while announcing plans to expand their museum footprint, as well as their marina.

“This was where the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company machined the parts for and assembled some of the most advanced high tech steam engines the world has seen….sounds a lot like blue tech,” said Executive Director Bill Lynn. “Blue Tech offers a specific opportunity to create jobs that will fill the vacant commercial space and bring much needed revenue to the to the town's hospitality and retail sectors. Blue Tech is in Bristol's DNA,” he said, citing the influx of interests like Flux Marine, a company that is relocating to Unity Park to build electric outboards — and bringing 90 jobs with them.

Lynn unveiled a plan that, among other things, will renovate the Burnside Building on the HMM campus as the new home for the America’s Cup Hall of Fame along with the fully rigged Reliance model, and a marina expansion that will serve as dock space for American cruise lines boats that will bring 100 tourists to their dock with each visit.

“This will increase the gravitational pull that will attract a combination of museum visitors, entrepreneurs, employees, students, recreational voters and investors to our campus. It's an exciting opportunity and one that will be transformational for this 50-year-old institution,” he said.

Then he introduced Ian Estaphan Owen, Managing Director of Jaia Robotics, the first tenant of Herreshoff’s new Blue Tech Innovation Center.

Jaia Robotics specializes in developing low-cost, micro-sized autonomous marine vehicles called JaiaBots. They look like small red missiles, about two feet long. But JaiaBots aren’t missiles, they’re aquatic data collection devices that are affordable, easy to operate, rugged and reliable, requiring minimal user training with wide-ranging capabilities. They are capable of working alone or in teams of 20, collecting data hundreds of miles offshore at depths of 100 meters, that will assist scientists studying climate change and the ocean environment.

“I can have a bunch of robots covering a really wide area, so you have data at scale, and you have it quickly,” said Owen. “So the oceanographers, the scientists, environmentalists, people who are trying to figure out what's going on with climate change, they can finally start really understanding what's happening.”

Owen and his team got the JaiaBot from paper to prototype in six months.

“My co founder Jason [Webster, Jaia’s technical director] and I started the company in the middle of the pandemic,” said Owen. “We didn't know what was going to happen, but it's been awesome.”

In town for the unveiling, Senator Jack Reed praised the new center, and Jaia as their first tenant.

“You're going to make a tremendous difference…this is also a great partnership here, between many programs, public and private…And I'm particularly pleased that this organization is embracing the training of young people.”

“Six months from idea to prototype, that's something.”