Our Managing Director Malcolm Parrott recently authored an exclusive, in-depth article about this subject for Shipping and Marine magazine.
Malcolm explored the possibilities across a variety of sectors, including military, commercial, leisure and cruise.
You can read Malcolm’s full article below or visit the Shipping and Marine website here to read online. Our thanks to Shipping and Marine, with images courtesy and copyright of the Startpoint Group and Royal Caribbean.
Zero-emission bulk carriers, mega ships measuring more than 500m LOA, cruise liners like floating cities and warships that are ‘invisible’.
Some of the latest visions of vessels of the future are beginning to look beyond belief when compared with seagoing craft of only half a century ago.
We are already seeing fierce debate about driverless cars and artificial intelligence, but when does science fiction start becoming hard fact for the maritime industry?
Any discussion surely must begin with automatous shipping, or unmanned ships. This application of ‘drone’ technology is perhaps the most contentious factor when it comes to vessels of the future.
Captain Malcolm W Parrott, who is Managing Director of The Maritime Group International (TMG), has 57 years of marine experience under his belt, including being in command of container ships, ferries and a cruise ship and serving in senior and executive management positions ashore for over 30 years. He also was one of the major pioneers of large High Speed Craft in the late 1980s and during the 1990s, so has himself played a part in innovative futuristic design and operation of modern vessels.
He has witnessed firsthand many of the major changes and emerging trends over the past half century and he believe automatous ships will become a reality although there will be obstacles to overcome first.
“My own view is that they are some way off, though I would like to think in my life time I will see them; say in the next 20 years.
“The main problem will be operating high definition sensors in a heavy sea environment.
“Commercial radars (3cm [X-Band] and 10cm [Y-Band]) cannot give a particularly good radar return through ‘clutter’ in even moderate seas and even with today’s suppressors fitted.
“Radar of course (and other electronic aids to navigation) is constantly being upgraded and improved and no longer looks like the radar I first went to sea with.
“I suppose you could say that the ‘mark one eyeball’ is still the best look out!”
With remote monitoring of automatous ships, presumably the drone pilot – sitting in a comfortable air conditioned control room somewhere ashore – will have 360 degree vision through high definition cameras, remote radar and sonar screens, almost as if he/she was actually on the navigation bridge.
When Malcolm went to sea, navigation when out of sight of land was by using a sextant and chronometer to get a fix by the sun, stars, planets and moon. Today’s navigator relies on Satnav!
Malcolm believes this ‘mark one eyeball’ – albeit from a remote gaze of perhaps even thousands of miles away – will still be vitally important.
“Commercial sonar is not sufficiently sensitive enough at present, especially side and forward scanning sonar, to keep automatous vessels from colliding with a whale or floating ISO container that has been washed overboard from another ship (as happens).
“In some respects an automatous vessel will be navigating more like a submarine than a conventional surface vessel and will have to have a ship’s inertial navigation system (SINS) to back up the fitted GS system.”
Even if practicable with the advent of new cutting-edge technology, there would still be issues to resolve in the operation of ‘drone’ ships.
Presumably, they would require new regulations and cyber secure communications systems – particularly in the light of escalating terror attacks, the threat of piracy and state-sponsored hacking online. Autonomous ships would be very prone to high-jacking.
There are plenty of other factors to consider too, particularly for merchant vessels, according to Malcolm:
Could an automatous pilot be driving more than one vessel?
Could vessels be sent in line-ahead convoy, with one pilot controlling all vessels in the convoy?
If this were to be the case, ports would have to redevelop to load/discharge vessels such that the whole convoy would be ready to sail at the same time?
Or would vessels finishing cargo operations be sent to anchorage to await the formation of a convoy?
Would convoy vessels be sent from numerous ports to converge on a convoy rendezvous point (as in the First and Second World Wars)?
The collision regulations which have to be rewritten.
There is also the small matter of berthing and unberthing – would this also be autonomous or would crews be required to be put on board (by helicopter?).
Ropes are still used to moor vessels as they have been for thousands of years.
New methods have been devised but there has been little appetite for change. Rope technology has become highly advanced with new materials, but the mooring still requires manpower to fasten a ship to the shore!
Anchoring could be made autonomous, but what happens when the anchor becomes fouled or you get a fouled hawes?
There are many, many questions to answer and overcome.
Other issues come into play too. What about fuel efficiency, speed, motive power and manpower, commercial and consumer demand, logistics and infrastructure; not to mention environmental concerns?
Average speeds of vessels have increased by more than 250 per cent over the past century, according to Malcolm.
“In 1916 the average speed of a merchant ship was eight knots or under and a 15 knot ship was considered to be very fast.
“So fast in fact that it would have been allowed to travel outside of a convoy in the First World War as submarines would never be able to catch them.
“The magnificent clipper sailing ships of the late 19th and early 20th century very often where able to overhaul a steam ship.
“By the Second World War the average speed had only increased to about 12knots and when Malcolm went to sea in late 1958 to 14 or 15 knots.
“Today, if the fuel is affordable we regularly have 25 knot giant containerships and large conventional RoPax ferries achieving sustainable 30 knot speeds.
“High speed ferries can achieve 55 knots plus, with the future looking to even faster vessels and craft. Of course, with some vessels slow cruising speeds and fuel efficiency are more important than maximum speeds.”
Motive power has also changed over the past 100 years. In 1916 steam was still taking over from sail and it was not until the 1920s that we saw the gradual introduction of diesel engines.
Malcolm said: “Once again, when I went to sea, merchant ships were driven by extremely large slow speed diesels which were not automated and had large crews of engineers and mechanics to maintain them.
“Today many ships are diesel electrically driven. The engine room consists of four or more compact high speed generating engines, driving alternators.
“The electrical power so produced drives controllable pitch propellers (through Azimuth propulsion units known as Azipods) or water jets more efficiently.”
Ultimately, this means that as technology advances crew numbers continue to fall on many vessels.
Manpower has dropped from about 100 seamen in 1916 to about 19 on today’s very large container ships and tankers/bulkers, with the ships themselves going from 7,000 GRT to 240,000 GT today.
Of course, this can depend on the sector. We may able to foresee a day when container ships or tankers are completely automatous but one suspects that the giant behemoths that are cruise liners will still need substantial crew above and below deck.
SHIPSHAPE: Harmony of the Seas – Royal Caribbean international
With cruise ships and container vessels it seems as if size really does matter; big is beautiful when it comes to economies of scale.
The trend towards Ultra Large Container Ships (ULCS) continues, with 19,224 TEU and 395.4m LOA vessels becoming regular visitors to UK waters.
However, ports and shore-side infrastructure must be able to accommodate and service such vessels in order for shipping lines to realise the benefits. Almost inevitably this means huge investment somewhere along the line.
Meanwhile, cruise ships are continuing to balloon in size as well as popularity.
According to figures from the industry body Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) there were some 1.4million passengers in 1980 which had risen to 15million in 2006 – and that is expected to rise to 24million by the end of this year (2016).
Malcolm said: “Who would bet against such giants as Royal Caribbean’s mighty Harmony of the Seas – the largest cruise ship currently in service – being surpassed in just a few years as the industry continues to evolve to meet growing consumer demand and expectation?”
With such huge vessels at sea, there will be increased focus on the need for green technology to steer the maritime industry towards a more eco-friendly future – vessels powered by fuel cell technology, solar cells or rigid sails have all been proposed.
Defence and security needs will also be a key driver in the development of cutting edge technology.
Malcolm said: “Drones, and particularly in airstrikes, have become synonymous with warfare.
“Drone vessels, known as ASVs, do already exist, specifically in the US military where they are used as screens for the mother ship.
“They are not large and certainly no bigger than 20m LOA.
“TMG have suggested that they could be used by the British Border Force to protect our shores.
“Underwater drones have been used for many years, known as ROVs, these machines are used for surveying ship’s bottoms while still afloat, oil and gas pipeline inspections and wreck survey work, etc…
“These craft are invariably controlled from the surface by an umbilical wire connection to the operator.”
Indeed, UK and US forces were due to hold ‘robot’ war exercises off the Scottish coast in October (2016), called Joint Warrior 2016, to test more than 40 different types of unmanned air, sea and underwater vehicles to ensure the western military stayed ‘ahead of the curve’.
He added: “Some UK defence contractors are already developing unmanned vessels and thanks to the remarkable Dreadnought 2050 project we don’t need a crystal ball to anticipate some of the other technological advances.”
The Startpoint procurement group issued an informal challenge to naval architects and engineers on behalf of the Royal Navy and Ministry of Defence under the title of Dreadnought 2050 to visualise the ultimate warship of the mid-21st century.
The idea was to echo the iconic impact on maritime warfare of the first Dreadnought introduced in 1906 by the then First Sea Lord, Sir “Jackie” Fisher.
Futuristic ideas included high speed ships made of ultra-strong plastics or the wonder material grapheme. One of the design concepts is pictured at the top of this post.
‘See-through’ hulls, hypersonic missiles with ranges of hundreds of miles, mastless decks with drone operated radar, torpedoes capable of homing in on a target at speeds of up to 300 knots and holographic command centres are just some of the ‘sci-fi’ features suggested.
Malcolm said: “Time – and tide – wait for no man or woman.
“Pushing the boundaries with visionary and innovative thinking and cutting edge technology has to be the way forward whatever the sector.
“It is tempting to think the future has arrived but many of our visions for 2166 or even 2066 are really based on the most advanced technology of today – or what we can conceive as the technology of tomorrow – rather than the actual demands of the future.
“Are these realistic visions? Only time will tell; vessels of 2066 or 2166 may well look as alien to us as ships of today would look to mariners of a hundred years ago.”
Please contact us for more about any of these issues and to find out how we can help your business succeed in the future.