DELIVERING THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF PERFORMANCE AND SERVICE
We are putting to use over 150 years of design experience to offer new capabilities to the space industry
Your One Stop for Rocket Marine Services
End-to-End Marine Services
Argo is leveraging over 150 years of combined experience from the world’s top naval architects to become the leading provider of marine services for the space industry. Our fleet is being designed to meet the unique challenges of launching and recovering rockets at sea using a first principles approach that has led to significant patented innovations.
We allow launch providers to focus on their areas of expertise by taking advantage of ours.
Ease of Operations
Argo can provide end-to-end recovery services for your launch company. Tell us where you need us and we will work closely with your team to catch, retrieve or land your rocket and deliver it back to you.
Whether you already have a team in place, or want us to act as your entire marine recovery department, we can create a plan that caters to the specific needs of your company.
Best in Class Vessels
As our client you will have access to a state of the art fleet that:
Has best in class performance capabilities
Is fuel efficient to keep operating costs and carbon emissions down
Is capable of operating in a wide range of conditions, increasing your launch weather window
Our History
Performance and innovation is in our DNA. For over 25 years, Argo’s design team has been producing the most high performance boats in the world including world record breaking ocean racers, America’s Cup catamarans, best in class commercial vessels and many others. We have helped our clients do everything from service the world’s biggest offshore wind farms to win the most prestigious races in the world.
Our Team
Parker Shinn - CEO
Prior to starting Argo Parker worked in acquisitions and property management for a real estate investment company where he oversaw hundreds of units across multiple geographic markets. Previously Parker was a global macro hedge fund analyst where he helped raise over $1 Billion in assets from institutional investors and also a product manager in the tech industry producing applications for clients such as the NBA. He is a sailing world championship bronze medalist, 7 time national champion and is an avid student of yacht design. Parker has a business degree from USC which he is excited to unite with his passion for innovation in naval architecture.
Pete Melvin - CTO
Pete has long been recognized as one of the world’s top naval architects and is known for being a pioneer when it comes to innovation. He has designed and overseen construction of hundreds of vessels to do everything ranging from servicing offshore wind farms, passenger transportation, to breaking every major ocean racing world record. His designs have won two Americas Cups, the most prestigious yacht race in the world, and are also currently used in the Olympics. Pete is a 3 time world champion, 30+ time national champion and was the US Tornado skipper at the 1988 Olympics.
Gino Morrelli - EVP
Gino began his career in the early 80's as a naval architect and is recognized worldwide as a leader in yacht design and construction. He has managed the construction of over 600 vessels, worked with manufacturers in the U.S., South Africa, China and New Zealand and has won 20 Boat of the Year designs. In 1988, Gino designed and competed on Stars and Strips to successfully win the America's Cup, the world's most prestigious sailing race. Gino’s pioneering work then led him to partner with fellow adventurer, Steve Fossett to build a 125-foot maxi offshore catamaran to break every major ocean racing record including the non-stop Round-the-World mark.
Shawn Bennett - Advisor
As the CEO of Baydelta Maritime, Shawn brings decades of experience offering harbor services and offshore towage with the most modern, powerful fleet of tractor tugs on the west coast. Baydelta's fleet of 90+ ton tractor tugs are required to be utilized for the largest vessels (container ships as well as VLCCs) calling on major ports of California. As an advisor to Argo Shawn is eager to share his expertise in growing and operating a large marine services company.
Erik Berzins - Project Manager & Naval Architect
Erik grew up in Canada and earned his degree in Naval Architecture from the University of British Columbia. He has been designing high performance boats since moving to California in 2005 and is responsible for project management, structural design and velocity prediction. He is also an accomplished offshore racer having completed races to Hawaii, Tahiti and Cabo.
Andrew Bloxom PhD - Simulation Engineer
In 2007 Andrew attended the Chesapeake Sailing Yacht Symposium and became fascinated by the numerical simulation of the aero/hydrodynamics of sailboats. Six years later he completed a PhD focused on the fluid-structure interaction of surface effect ship seals. He now brings his high level of expertise in Computational Fluid Dynamics and Finite Element Analysis to our design team.
Mark Peters - Naval Architect
Mark earned his degree in Naval Architecture from the Marine Institute of Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Afterwards he helped build Puma’s state of the art 70 foot “Mar Mostro” at NEB for the Volvo Ocean Race and also designed carbon fiber patrol boats. In 2012 Mark Joined Morrelli&Melvin as a design engineer.
Ferdinand van West - Naval Architect
Ferdinand is both an accomplished yacht designer as well as a world champion multihull racer. In 2012 he completed his Master of Science in Maritime Engineering, Yacht and small craft at the University of Southampton. Now he is combining his professional and sportive passions in life. Before moving to California he worked for long-time M&M client Nacra where he participated in the development of Nacra’s latest designs, namely the Olympic Nacra 17 and the Full foiling Nacra F20c FCS.
Warren Muir - Naval Architect
Warren has over 46 years of experience both designing and building some of the most advanced yachts in the world. He has worked alongside many legendary designers and seen the progression of construction from laminated wood and aluminum all the way to highly engineered carbon composites. It is this ever changing environment and the prospect of future materials and designs unseen today that has kept him inspired and excited to get up each morning, go to work, and be part of this ongoing adventure.
Ravi Parent - Mechanical Engineer
Ravi was originally inspired by high performance sailboats and tuning them to achieve maximum performance on the race course. He has bridged this gap between performance and design by earning a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in Aerospace Engineering from Boston University. At BU he received Dean's List recognition and Cum Laude honors while competing in 4 years of collegiate sailing, earning All-NEISA conference honors.
OUR HERITAGE
Pursuing the highest levels of performance for over 25 years
