After laying the final beam on its 255,000-square-foot production facility at Quonset Business Park and securing more than $10 billion in orders, North Kingstown-based REGENT Craft is closer to producing seagliders for customers around the world.

The sea-skimmer, more like a seaboat than a plane, must first become certified by the US Coast Guard.

Billy Thalheimer, the company’s cofounder and CEO, said REGENT submitted its plan for the 12-passenger Viceroy seaglider to the Coast Guard in March, a big step toward certifying a fleet of all-electric vessels. The fleet includes the Viceroy, a 15,000-pound vessel with a 65-foot wingspan, Thalheimer said. The Squire seaglider is a small drone version with an 18-foot wingspan and the ability to carry 50 pounds. The large Monarch will be the size of a regional jet carrying 100 passengers, and could become the largest electric vehicle ever to fly.

Thalheimer, a pilot and aerospace engineer who met cofounder Mike Klinker his freshman year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spoke to the Globe about developments in 2025, bumps during testing of its prototype, and a timeline for its seaglider fleet.

Q. You started REGENT five years ago. Where are you now?

A. Now we’ve proved the technology. We built up a commercial order book over $10 billion, and we’ve been on contract with the US Marine Corps for several years now. We’re testing our full-scale seaglider on the water.

Q. Where are you in the certification process?

A. We’re still working through certification with the US Coast Guard. When we agree on the framework and the requirements, we design and build the vehicle to that specification, and then test it, and then we get our certificate of inspection before we start operations on the vehicle. We’re well into that process.

Q. Are there any other regulatory challenges for operating a seaglider?

A. We’re also working with the International Maritime Organization on the international framework. We are working with Lloyd’s Register, which is a classification service for the marine and offshore industries.

Q. Is a seaglider considered a plane or a boat?

A. Seagliders are a type of vehicle called a wing-in-ground craft, or a WIG. So that means they fly on a cushion of air. They stay within a wingspan of the water at all times, and they only do dock-to-dock over-water routes. They’re in the operational regime of watercraft — we’re flying below the height of a sailboat mast, well below the height of a cruise or cargo ship.

Q. What is the range of your seaglider?

A. With the existing battery technology on our commercial seaglider, which is 100 percent electric, we can go 180 miles. As battery technology improves, we expect to get up to 400 miles and 1,600 miles on our defense variant.

Q. Why did you choose to operate in Rhode Island?

A. We have our engineering and center of operations in Quonset, and then we also have our test operations facility down at Port of Davisville. So it made a lot of sense to keep things together, build out a campus where our engineers and our test professionals can be working with our manufacturers and our staff there at the manufacturing facility.

The combination of being able to build an integrated campus, plus the economic incentives received from the state, plus just the local talent pool. The seaglider is a carbon fiber vehicle. All the structures are carbon composites. And having that incredible talent here in Rhode Island, with the boat builders in the center of the sailing world, and having these composite experts. All those three reasons sort of converge to make it the best spot for us.

Q. How did the aeronautical and boating industries come together to build REGENT’s seaglider?

A. There’s a direct one-to-one mapping in terms of some of the methods and certainly the materials that boat builders are using, especially in the advanced yacht racing, high-performance, carbon-fiber yachting world in terms of what is being built on the seaglider.

Q. In October, WJAR reported that one of your prototypes was seen listing sideways on Narragansett Bay. What happened?

A. Our approach at REGENT is to test and to expose the boundaries of vehicles to ensure that we have an extremely safe and thoroughly tested product before we deliver it to any external customers. In that particular case, we ran into some issues on the water that resulted in sort of a near-term loss of control. We have since identified the string of issues that led to that. This is all part of a normal test campaign for a vehicle like this, as long as we’re keeping the crew safe at all times.

Q. How did you collaborate with world-class boaters on the seaglider?

A. We basically have an America’s Cup team of engineers and technicians and test professionals working internally at REGENT now, sort of like how the automotive racing world, Formula 1, Le Mans, and NASCAR have been the feeding ground for the latest high-performance automotive technology.

The seaglider is one of the first places where you can take this incredible hydrofoil technology and then bring in those advanced hydrodynamic design methods, software control methods, and structures in terms of that carbon composite build-out and then apply it to a commercial setting.

Q. Can you talk about this “huge” seaglider you’re preparing to unveil?

A. We will have a human crew on it from the get-go. So that adds an additional layer of critical and safety planning. Every single test, every progression from float to foil to fly, and envelope expansion throughout is done not only with a vehicle larger than has ever been put into the air with batteries on it before, but also one that has humans on board. So that’s why this testing process sort of takes so long, and why we’re being so slow and methodical through it.

Q. How will it ease projected fares for places like Providence, Boston, and New York?

A. The per-seat mile, we’re talking between 50 cents and $1, right? So these routes are going to be incredibly affordable on a per-seat mile basis, something like Providence to New York would be around $200 or less. So you’re talking fares that are competitive or cheaper than the train or airline tickets, faster door-to-door, have better wireless internet, and better views.

Q. When do you anticipate delivery of these and operation?

A. First, deliveries for both commercial and defense are expected in 2027. We have customers lined up. They have their firm non-refundable deposits down. They’re paying their pre-delivery payments as we get to market. We’re working with Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, and we expect to be having a couple of dedicated Viceroy seagliders for experimentation and further development with the Marine Corps.