We started out in Los Angeles with a concept.

A few sprint-weeks later, our young autonomy stack was jibing an old J/24 sailboat rigged with our first prototype wing-sail. Clippership was underway.

The vessels we build blend insights and expertise gained through decades of collective experience, combining aerodynamics that helped Mercedes dominate several F1 championship seasons; engineering, applied physics and systems thinking that made machines act intelligently at NASA and Tesla; and operational problem-solving skills honed through years of overseas deployments.

At every stage of development and production – from drone-herding our test mule to finalizing the details of our 100-ton MVP – the Clippership team looks for new ways to achieve more with less. Every design, iteration and operational test helps us create increasingly simple solutions to a deceptively complex problem: how to use wind instead of fuel to move cargo over water.

  • Nico Cymbalist

    CEO

    Nico has a wealth of experience in bringing high-risk, high-reward engineering efforts to fruition. At Tesla, he led a joint SpaceX & Tesla initiative to design and build aerospace-derived vehicle prototypes. At Mercedes Formula 1, he developed aerodynamic systems during the team’s winning 2019 and 2020 World Championship seasons. Nico holds a PhD from Caltech and is lifelong sailor with extensive offshore experience.

  • Kai Matsuka

    CTO

    Kai turns all types of vehicles into robots. At the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he worked on controls for formation flying of spacecraft swarms. At Tesla, he developed vision-based localization and navigation for the Optimus robot. Kai has a PhD from Caltech, where he led a team from the Aerospace Corporation and JPL in performing autonomous on-orbit servicing.

  • Luca Cymbalist

    COO

    Luca is an operations specialist with 16 years of military experience. He deployed overseas multiple times with the Canadian Special Operation Forces Command, executing complex tasks in diverse and demanding operational theatres. A lifelong sailor, Luca has crewed a wide variety of high-performance sailing yachts.