WHAT DO AUTONOMOUS SHIPS MEAN FOR THE FUTURE OF SEAFARING?

Posted on 13 April 2017 by Nick Chubb

Rolls-Royce recently announced to great fanfare their concept design for autonomous ships1 which they plan to launch by 2020. How will the introduction of autonomy to shipping affect seafarers and, assuming there are any seafarers left, what will the future look like for them?

WHAT DOES “AUTONOMOUS SHIPPING” REALLY MEAN?

The invention of the chronometer, the move from sail to steam, and the introduction of containers all revolutionised the way the maritime industry works. Over the last few years, autonomous ships have been touted as the next revolution in the industry. Exactly what guise that will take is still unknown, but there are a few options on the table ranging from shore-based monitoring of manned vessels to entirely autonomous crewless ships.

Carnival Corporation already has a fully functioning shore-based monitoring centre in Hamburg. It’s manned 24/7 by two Master Mariners who monitor a fleet of 37 ships and provide navigational support to the bridge team. A full snapshot of the fleet’s status which includes everything from stability data to radar screenshots is beamed to the centre in real time. If one of the monitored ships goes outside it’s planned track window the monitoring team are alerted and will immediately contact the ship if they can’t determine a valid reason for the deviation.

The next stage along from remote monitoring is remotely controlling a ship without a crew. Controlling a ship from a shore-based station is technologically possible but there are other issues such as maintenance, security (particularly cyber security), and what happens when something goes seriously wrong that need to be worked out. If you’ve ever tried to change a valve on a cylinder head, spent months on end chipping and painting (and still had a rusty deck), or experienced a blackout during manoeuvring you’ll know that there are some things that humans can do which computers will always struggle with.

Quite apart from the practical issues to be overcome there are massive regulatory hurdles which stand in the way of full autonomy – “…all ships shall be sufficiently and efficiently manned.” SOLAS, Chapter V, Reg. 14. The IMO operates at a pace that lags so far behind technological advancements that any meaningful commercial operation of an entirely crewless ship is likely to be a number of decades away yet.

Although there are significant challenges attached to developing truly autonomous ships, the financial and safety benefits of running vessels without humans on board mean that the industry will forge ahead with development. Although a clear picture of that future is yet to emerge it is likely that in the next fifty years, a significant amount of cargo will be moved by ships that, for the most part, don’t have humans on board.

HOW WILL THIS AFFECT SEAFARERS?

“I sense a battle coming up between those for whom seafarers are a dying breed that will inevitably become extinct, and those for whom seafaring remains the lifeblood of the industry.” Richard Clayton, IHS Fairplay.

Despite talk of autonomous ships making the rounds for at least the last ten years, the human element has only recently begun to feature in the debate. The simple fact is that if there are fewer ships sailing that require seafarers to be on board, there will be less demand for seafarers. Some sectors will remain relatively immune, any ship that carries passengers will almost certainly retain the need for a highly skilled crew to be on board in a monitoring and emergency response role as a minimum.

Less demand for seafarers, however, doesn’t necessarily mean that there will be less demand for seafaring skill, knowledge, or expertise. Rather than being on the bridge of one ship, a future OOW may be responsible for a fleet of thirty ships from a shore-based control centre with the additional challenge of having to analyse and respond to situations as they develop thousands of miles away. There are also a number of areas that will still require a great deal of human intervention and expertise, for example, salvage and recovery operations (when things inevitably go wrong), loading and discharging cargo, pilotage and berthing, and ship maintenance to name but a few.

Seafaring skill and knowledge will always be required as long as we have ships sailing our oceans. The real question is therefore not how will autonomy affect seafarers but how should seafarers adapt to this new technology and use it to enhance safety, efficiency, and welfare?

LIFELONG LEARNING: THE NEW MINIMUM STANDARD

Eight decades ago radar didn’t exist, four decades ago GPS didn’t exist, just over a decade ago AIS became mandatory, and five years ago ECDIS became mandatory on all new build ships. The principles of navigation have always and will always remain unchanged but the individual role of a member of a ship’s crew has evolved dramatically over the course of the last 50 years.

“Seafarers have always been very good at adapting to technological change.” Andrew Linington, Nautilus

The pace of technological change is now so quick that seafarers need to be constantly learning new technology to keep up. This doesn’t just affect the maritime industry, automation threatens millions of jobs worldwide and the ability to continuously learn is now becoming an economic imperative.

Competency is an ever changing beast that is evolving faster than ever. Just going away to college once every few years is not going to be enough to keep skills up to date and the idea that you can work through your tickets and then sit back and relax is now totally unrealistic (if it ever was!).

The role of seafarers in shipping is constantly progressing away from one of operation towards one of monitoring and maintaining. In the long term it is likely seafaring will progress from being mostly ship-based to mostly shore-based but there is a real opportunity in the short term to automate some of the most dangerous jobs on board and reduce the admin burden on crew through designing intelligent systems.

To make a success of this next industrial revolution it is imperative that as well as maintaining their traditional skills, seafarers, whether on land or sea, continuously develop new skills that allow them to use an ever increasing range of technologies to make ships more safe and efficient.