Will Autonomous Ships Make the Seas Safer or Riskier?

Saw this article today: - Your thoughts?

Could autonomous ships make the open seas safer?

Advocates say the technology is in place, but large-scale deployment is still years away

Could autonomous ships make the open seas safer? | The Verge

Well, autonomous airplanes will make flying safer so it stands to reason autonomous ships will make the seas safer. Most errors that start the chain of events that result in an accident are made by humans. So it's pretty obvious that removing humans from the process to the greatest degree possible will result in increased safety. The obstacle is not technology. It's public acceptance. But that acceptance will increase with each generation and as it does safety will continue to be enhanced.

Perhaps... but I guess my fear is that these large, fast autonomous cargo ships will plow over a lot of smaller vessels (especially at night) without even noticing.

They do this already - but without any human eyes, I wonder if it will increase (or perhaps it will decrease with better sensors for checking in front of the boats).

Anytime now I expect one of the so-called "budget" passenger airlines to propose crewless airliners. The technology is here. The U.S. Navy is launching and recovering drones from aircraft carriers, refueling them in-flight, and of course using them to perform combat operations. I get the advantages - no captured pilots, for one thing. Although membership in the Navy's vaunted Tailhook Association may decline!

Can it only be a matter of time before we see adverts for "discount drone service" to Denver, or the like? For a few bucks extra, you'll be able to sit in what used to be the cockpit, enjoying extra legroom (since those pesky rudder pedals can be yanked out).

None for me, thanks. Not that, nor unmanned ships plying the high seas and showing up at their destination ports with no one on board to greet the pilot. Or will harbor pilots be next, for God's sake?

And once we finish eliminating every last skilled job, rendering most workers as low-skill, low-wage cyphers, how many consumers will be left who can afford to buy the latest smart-phone that comes in via a drone container ship?

Sorry, I just don't see this trend ending well. Anyway, I also predict that this thread is destined for the "Off-the-Deep-End" barrel - rightly so!

The people designing and creating the autonomous airliners and ships and the transportation environments they operate in will be paid extremely well, so they will be able to afford nice vacations.

How many job openings are there for "pyramid builder" these days? Job needs change as our world evolves. The people resisting things like driverless cars and autonomous planes and ships won't be around all that much longer in the overall scheme of things so the public accepance issue will take care of itself.

The young engineers entering the industry I work in talk about autonomous airliners as though they are the most natural path to take and why would one want to do anything else? In not that many years they will be the ones running the air tansportation industry and making the decisions.

I have to assume the same thing is happening in the marine transportation industry.

While I most likely will not be here to see it become the norm I think the idea is terrific. Humans are great at thinking up new ideas and bringing them to reality but they're crap at operating them. That's where all the mistakes are made be they in vehicles, planes, ships, bicycles, you name it. So the more we can remove humans from the operation phase of a system the better and safer that system will be.

It's been happening in vehicles for decades. All sorts of autonomous systems have been developed and implemented to make driving safer, from seat belts to ABS to traction control to air bags. Now we've reached the point where the thinking is to simply remove humans from having anything to do with the operation of the vehicle at all.

So why not ships? Pilots exist to bring ships safely into a port the ship's crew is not familiar with. So we have humans attempting to keep other humans from making a mistake. Automate the process of marine vessels entering and leaving a port, and ultimately docking and undocking, and the need for mistake-prone humans goes away completely. Safety goes up, costs eventually come down, and this will be reflected in lower consumer costs. It's a win-win-win.

if you get in trouble in the open ocean, if your luck holds, it'll likely be a large cargo ship saving your hide. Don't know how that would work out in an unmanned ship.

So where does it ultimately end? Are humans too stupid to actually exist with technology? Or without it? Will we all end up as gibberish babbling Jabba the Hud, born with a joystick coming out a port somewhere in the midsection, see what we want of the world through a chip implant in our eyeballs and no need to actually go anywhere or do anything but can experience it virtually? Give me a huge pillow and a nutrient IV and live my life in one spot. Wanderin Star or the fixed point of the North Star?

Sorry Blissboat. Guess I just took it off the deep end.

Hackers.....cyber terrorist....

No Mast said:

if you get in trouble in the open ocean, if your luck holds, it'll likely be a large cargo ship saving your hide. Don't know how that would work out in an unmanned ship.

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An unmanned vessel will most likely have far better sensors on it than some pairs of human eyes. And it will be receiving vastly more data from weather to everything else than today's ships. So it will probably be far better equipped to "see" and respond to emergencies like this than today's human-guided ships.

Marin said:

An unmanned vessel will most likely have far better sensors on it than some pairs of human eyes. And it will be receiving vastly more data from weather to everything else than today's ships. So it will probably be far better equipped to "see" and respond to emergencies like this than today's human-guided ships.

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Ok, I see where there will still be a human at the "helm" so to speak, although not on scene. Ever done a rescue? Not sure how the auto-bot ship would handle that?

Couple of interesting points from the article:

There's also the question of whether the crewless ships of the future would be safeguarded against hackers and other cyberattacks.

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As I mentioned above.
While they seem to think they have it figured out, I would be willing to bet that there's still some 3rd world hacker can make their way through.

Let's take a tanker full of anhydrous ammonia, petroleum, or other dangerous cargo, and turn it toward a major port. There's a thought.
Maybe a self destruct command ashore?

Or take command of the vessel, load it with what you want and send it on it's way back home.

The upside is, our "manned" Navy can still blow it all to hell and not have to worry about sacrificing human lives.

Levander points out that humans will likely never be completely divorced from shipping operations. Companies would still need highly skilled captains to helm the control room, and cruise ships or vessels carrying dangerous cargo would likely keep a small crew onboard. And there are always unforeseen circumstances that will require humans to make quick decisions

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.

Well at least that's a start.

And there's always the human factor.
While automation is great, you can't fix stupid!
As long as we can still get in the way, we will. Pretty much the same issues they'll run into with cars.

Rolls-Royce believes the technology's benefits will eventually push the industry forward. Shipowners would spend less to maintain their crews, and the lower weight resulting from the elimination of crew bunks, latrines, and kitchens would bring down fuel costs.

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Seriously?
Latrines, kitchens and bunks?

according to a study from the insurance group Allianz. Workers wouldn't be at risk of attacks from pirates, and instead of spending months at sea, they could live at home and commute to port to service incoming ships

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Ah yes, the insurance industry again.....so, with the newer, less costly to operate, safer, and less exposure to payouts, will the insurance rates go down???

I'm making light of the possibilities of course, but I'm not convinced that unmanned ships, any more than autonomous cars or planes, are the safest bet over all. Guess time will tell.

I probably won't be around to see it anyway:lol:

Good luck with that. What happens when things break? Or a fire? Or pirates?

Marin,
I know that I am one of the people who must die off to let the world progress as there is no way I would board a plane without a pilot aboard. I think back to a few years ago when the plane left New York, hit a flock of birds lost both engines, the pilot decided the best action would be to land in the river. Everyone survived. I doubt that would have been the case if it was an automated flight. There is no way a computer can think like a human (that may be a good thing)and there is no way a computer programmer can program for every conceivable problem. They can't even update my phone without screwing it up. On a non eventful flight a computer has a much better attention span than a human, but when everything goes wrong I want an experienced human in control and on the plane with me, not sitting in a cubicle somewhere. I want his/her life to be affected by the decisions he/she makes.

READY2GO said:

...but when everything goes wrong I want an experienced human in control and on the plane with me, not sitting in a cubicle somewhere. I want his/her life to be affected by the decisions he/she makes.

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Amen!!
I'm right there witch ya!

The problem is that you all are looking at the issue through your own, rapidly becoming outated eyes. You are seeing problems that your generation doesnt know how to solve because it lacks the vision or imagination as to how future generations will see these same things and figure out how to solve them. History is filled with examples of this. The only reason we are where we are today is because of people who had vision and refused to be talked out of it by people who didn't.

I remember when I was a little kid and adults would be reading the comics in the paper and laughing at how ridiculous and impossible detective Dick Tracy's "two way wrist radio" and other gizmos were.

I suspect that if these adults were still alive today they'd feel pretty foolish thinking back to their claims about Dick Tracy's wrist radio.

One of Boeing's most influential engineers once described in an interview I did with him the people in this industry he referred to as the "Yeah, Buts." These are the people, he said, whose reaction to visionary or seemingly out of the box concepts is always, "Yeah, but" and then they go on to describe all the reasons the concept will never work.

Fortunately, he said, there will always be people who refuse to accept the lmitations of the Yeah, Buts.

Yeah you have some valid points, but (intentional). Vision and change is fine for some things, like gizzmos. It took me until 2 years ago to accept that a smart phone and texting would be part of my life. Gizzmos and most like technology are a convenience thing. Automated aircraft with 200 to 300 souls aboard is different in my book. Behind the "yeah, but" usually lies some experience. I could accept automated ships long before automated aircraft. Things on a ship do not happen near as fast as on a plane. In 30 years or so it may be the norm but I won't be around then. If it happens in 10 years I will just choose not to fly.

The thing about young people being able to accept things like this more easily I think may be to lack of life experiences. I am not saying that is bad. Sometimes we let our past hinder our future. I guess there has to be a balance, but some automation tips the scale too far.

Marin said:

The problem is that you all are looking at the issue through your own, rapidly becoming outated eyes. You are seeing problems that your generation doesnt know how to solve because it lacks the vision or imagination as to how future generations will see these same things and figure out how to solve them. History is filled with examples of this. The only reason we are where we are today is because of people who had vision and refused to be talked out of it by people who didn't.

I remember when I was a little kid and adults would be reading the comics in the paper and laughing at how ridiculous and impossible detective Dick Tracy's "two way wrist radio" and other gizmos were.

I suspect that if these adults were still alive today they'd feel pretty foolish thinking back to their claims about Dick Tracy's wrist radio.

One of Boeing's most influential engineers once described in an interview I did with him the people in this industry he referred to as the "Yeah, Buts." These are the people, he said, whose reaction to visionary or seemingly out of the box concepts is always, "Yeah, but" and then they go on to describe all the reasons the concept will never work.

Fortunately, he said, there will always be people who refuse to accept the lmitations of the Yeah, Buts.

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Marin,

While I take certain level of personal offense at your suggestion, I'm not going to allow it to cloud my judgment.

What I'm actually looking at, are problems that already exist.
How many times have you heard that "X can't be hacked", is foolproof, or secure?" Only to find, sometimes sooner rather than later, that it was all posturing?

Every government agency in this country has been hacked at one time or another. Look at the number of corporations that have had security breaches. Banking and communication systems have been hacked.

So to bury one's head in the sand, or in this case the sea, and "assume" that it can't happen to the guidance systems in automated vehicles, vessels or planes, is folly for the foolish.

Will the geek squads of the future be able to route these problems?
Only time will tell. So far, no one has been truly successful.

Of course they can build a better mousetrap, at which time someone will genetically engineer a better mouse:lol:

The one thing I consistent flaw I see in our country, is the failure to plan ahead. To plan for failure.

It's great to plan for success, and God knows we all want it; however, if you don't plan for the failure of the systems, then when not if they fail, you are standing there holding your male genitalia in your hand as we have on so many other occasions. Who knows? Maybe the "outside the box" thinkers your Boeing engineer so gleefully described, could use a little more input from the other side of the box

As for being a "yeah but" type,...no.
I was always intrigued by the gadgets, and while not a "techie" by any stretch of the imagination, always wondered how and when some of these things would come to pass?

In reality, I can see the benefit of unmanned vessels in some situations.
I can see the cost savings and the saving of lives. Pirates? Not a problem.
Weapon systems can be installed that will take care of that problem. When you don't have humans at the helm, you can do things that you might not otherwise do. You can change course and puree the scumbags. You could allow them to board then self destruct (hey, I'm just having a little fun here!), or any number of options that might exist.

But in the case of human or hazardous cargo, not so much.

But as Ready2Go mentioned, what do you think a truly automated unmanned aircraft would have done in N.Y. situation?? The human was a trained glider pilot, and had the forethought, training and more than that, the ability, to put her down in the river.

Now, "if" there is still a pilot on the stick, somewhere back in a control room somewhere, then there's still the possibility that they can make the right decisions. But again, as he mentioned, they really have no "skin in the game."

OD

READY2GO said:

...The thing about young people being able to accept things like this more easily I think may be to lack of life experiences. I am not saying that is bad. Sometimes we let our past hinder our future. I guess there has to be a balance, but some automation tips the scale too far.

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Exactly.
Very well stated.

READY2GO said:

I guess there has to be a balance, but some automation tips the scale too far.

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It can by today's way of thinking, but not by tomorrow's. "Too far" is only in the mind of the beholder.

The engineer I quoted earlier also gave me one of my all-time favorite quotes. This was a fellow whose career at this company started as a fresh-out-of-college engineer on a plane we called the Model 200 Monomail. It first flew in 1930 and it marked the departure from biplane transports to monoplane transports, a change some said "would never work" with all sorts of reasons why it wouldn't.

The world's first jet transport, the deHavilland Comet, made its public debut 1949 at the Farborough Airshow in England. This engineer and Boeing's then-CEO were in the crowd at the airshow watching the demonstration. As the Comet flew overhead the engineer turned to the CEO and said (I'm paraphrasing), "You know, life's too short to spend it working on propellers." And that was the end of the piston-engined transport as far as they were concerned. This despite the fact that the currently-accepted means of air transportation at the time was piston-powered airliners and the "Yeah, Buts" had all sorts of seemingly good reasons why jets were a bad idea for a passenger airplane.

This engineer made his mark on every major airplane this company produced from the Monomail through the 767 and 757. The company's highest engineering award is named for him.

In an interview we were discussing the efforts made to reduce the noise of jet transports during the 1950s and 60s. After describing some of the ideas that were tried, he said to me, "A lot of people looked at where we were and said, 'look how far we've come.' I looked at where we were and said, look how far we have yet to go."

I've always loved that quote because it captures the spirit I see in this industry all the time. I've been in it long enough to see the changeover from one generation to another, and now the beginning of the next changeover.

I doubt there is anyone at this company or at our competitors who can say exactly how full automation in air transportation will work. There are far, far too many challenges yet to to be met to make definitive declarations, although I've certainly heard a lot of very plausible proposals on how some of the challenges can be met.

But the one thing I don't doubt at all is that among the people who are now and who will be pursuing the solutions to these challenges, there is no question whatsoever in their minds that the goal will be reached.

I have to assume the same is true in all forms of transportation, not just aviation. After all, the goal is the same across the board: move things from here to there as quickly, efficiently, and safely as possible by removing the greatest negative variable to achieving the objective: humans at the controls.

The human mind is far better utilized in coming up with new ideas and new ways of doing things than in driving machines around and making mistakes that kill people.

In the spirit of Boeing's most renowned engineer, the path of progress is not to look at where we are and settle for what we already know, but to look at where we can be and then figure out how to get there.

Unsinkable ship...pipeline will not rupture...tsunami proof nuclear plant...

Off Duty--- All I can say is that your way of thinking would have had us all stuck back in the stone age for fear of doing anything because doing anything will expose us to Something Bad Happening.

Fortuanately, your way of thinking--- which is the very definition of burying one's head in the sand, BTW--- is not the prevalent mindset in industries like air transportation and other such technological endeavors.

The challenge is not to give up at the first sign of a seemingly unconquerable problem--- which is what you seem to be advocating--- but to recognize these challenges and then figure out how to overcome them.

Will that lead to more challenges? Of course it willl just as it always has. So at what point do you sugest giving up? Because if one follows your line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, at some point the fear of the challenges will simply cause you to stop and simply stay where you are. Or try to.

The good news is that it's not human nature to do this. People keep trying and keep searching and keep overcoming the challenges one by one and then taking on the next one, and on and on it goes.

There will always be the naysayers and fearmongers and the like who express the sentiments you have expressed. But in the end, they are always bypassed or ignored until they're gone as humans continue their upward climb.

Tsuneo Futami, nuclear engineer who was the director of Fukushima Daiichi in the late 1990's, regarding the Fukushima disaster: "We can only work on precedent, and there was no precedent".

Another black swan event in the making.

MurrayM said:

Unsinkable ship...pipeline will not rupture...tsunami proof nuclear plant...

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You've just described how humans learn things.

I just completed a video about an ongoing program in which engineering students from different universities in different parts of the country and from different disciplines work together in real time to design and then build a plane as their senior Capstone Project. They are given a challenge--- design and build a plane to do a specific task-- and they have two semesters to do it.

One of the overseers of this project is former shuttle astronaut Dr. Charles Camarda. In talking about this program he said, "I think problem-based learning is the way to go. Students being able to go out there in the laboratory, test things, fail, and learn from their failures and get that hands on learning is important. I want students that are willing to take a chance, and to take a risk with an idea that's going to be a game-changing idea for the company."

Obviously nobody wants to see failures like the ones you described: ships that sink, pipelines that rupture, reactors that are destroyed by a tsunami. But in the same way the engineering students Dr. Camarda describes learn from their failures, "adults" learn from their failures, too.

It's impossible to anticipate every failure. The first time we stalled one of our newer jetliner models it flipped completely upside down and then dropped its nose straight down and dove for the earth. Nobody saw that one coming despite the thousands of hours of wind tunnel tests and probably millions of hours of computer analysis of the design.

So surprise, surprise, but it did it anyway. Finding the cause and the cure was actually fairly simple in this case but it's not always this way.

Life is about encountering problems and overcoming them. Some are easy, some are hard. Some unfortunately get people killed before the lessons are learned to the point where the mistakes won't be repeated.

But to simply give up because a big, scary obstacle's been encountered isn't the smart course of action. And fortunately, it's not the course of action humans as a whole tend to favor.

Autonomous ships

I've always felt, since William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy showed us the beginning in 1966, that todays Science Fiction is tomorrows technology. All the way through to the latest SciFi they keep coming up with stuff my dad always referred to as"That's Tv. Won't EVER happen!"
If you can think it someone will build it, and someone else will find a way to beat it. Not really sure about the Jedi Knights "force of all the universe" but it won't shock me. OMG, that's my 2nd reference to Star Wars in one day!

Technology is the easy part. I agree that systems will generally get more and more autonomous. As it us, some of us already have levels of autonomy in our cars (lane sensing, auto parking), boats (autopilots steering by waypoints) and airplanes (autoland).

If complete autonomy is to exist, the business case has to exist to warrant it. Is the net benefit really there to remove all of the human element? As this thread shows, AI scares the heck out of people. Just because engineers can build it, doesn't mean that business leaders will accept the solution or the inherent risks.

I truly believe that liability is the bigger factor. The potential for a plane crash, car driving on sidewalk, or ship plowing over kayakers may really be the obstacle.

Furthermore, the ethics associated with programming potential accident response might be detrimental to complete autonomy. I'm thinking of the damned if you do, damned if you don't dilemmas. Kill passengers on board, or kill people adjacent to the scene. The trolley car switch thingy...

Technology has not proven to be perfect. Until and unless it can be shown to have complete 100% redundantly redundant perfection then there will always be a need to have a (poor, stupid, ignorant, feeble) Human as a backup to take over when the ship hits the phan. (so to speak)

My particular example had a computer failure the last day I was aboard. The Techies were falling over themselves because the symptoms had never been seen before. Yet, they couldn't stop the symptoms, nor could they replicate the occurrence. The solution was to replace the computer.

Find a computer that can 'replace a computer' and I will buy into the concept. It hasn't happened as yet. Now add in the variables of the ocean, humidity, short circuits and vibration. The industries not ready (yet).

I would ask: Is brain surgery completely 'human free'? Sure, computers, TV screens, robots, and other aids. But who does the final decision? If they can't completely trust a robot.... Until ALL boats are antonymous, there will always be a 'human' element. There is a term for this: left handed navigation.

Wrong decisions don't make correct solutions.

Northern Spy said:

Furthermore, the ethics associated with programming potential accident response might be detrimental to complete autonomy. I'm thinking of the damned if you do, damned if you don't dilemmas. Kill passengers on board, or kill people adjacent to the scene.

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Well, we get those kinds of dilemmas now, I think, so I'm not sure how the increased use of technology will change that. In fact removing the human factor in the decision might make the outcome more "fair" if such an outcome can be considered that.

You're absolutely correct, of course, nothing happens without there being a business case for it. Unless it's governments doing things in which case there doesn't have to be a logical case of any kind for it.

Fully automated flight or ocean shipping will not become a reality unless a financial advantage--- which includes increased safety, of course--- can be realized from it.

Personally, I believe it can be. Automation has already been proven to greatly reduce employee injuries in the workplace. And employee injury is a major economic hit to big companies like the one I work for. The industry I work in is automating manufacturing and assembly processes as fast as the means of automation can be conceived and implemented.

The motivation is not just reducing injuries, of course. Reducing process time. Enhancing consistency and quality. In some cases doing something that humans simply can't do at all.

For example my industry has started studying the notion of 3D printing an entire airplane fuselage. Big room, big printer, person sits down at a control panel, pushes the Go button, and in x-amount of time there you have it--- a one-piece jetliner fuselage. No riveting, no winding or laying up composites, no autoclaves, and the process will be totally consistent as will the quality of the end product. And..... unless the operator sprains his or her finger pushing the Go button, no injuries.

One reason I believe--- as do more and more people in this industry--- that fully automated air transportation is very achievable is that it's a repeatable process. British Airways Flight 48 always leaves SEA for LHR every day at 1830 or whatever its schedule is.

As I see it the big challenge is not automating the airplane (or ship). We demonstrated that 30 years ago with a 767 media flight from Seattle to Chicago during which the pilots didn't touch the plane from when they had it lined up on the departure runway in Seattle until it stopped on the arrival runway at Chicago.

The big challenge I see--- planes or ships--- is conducting a totally repeatable process in a totally variable environment. But the industry is continuously chipping away at this, finding out how to first collect more and more information and then get it to the "machine" that needs to use it.

But in the end it has to be as Spy says--- a viable aka financial reason to do it. I don't know anything about the economics of the ocean shipping industry, but in aviation an airplane loss like the ones experienced by Malaysia Airlines are financially devastating. While it looks like this won't happen, there was talk at the time of the airline simply ceasing to exist the financial impact would be so great. If automation can reduce this risk significantly, the business case begins to emerge.

cappy208 said:

Find a computer that can 'replace a computer' and I will buy into the concept. It hasn't happened as yet.

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Sure it has. In aircraft it's called redundancy. If one system craps out the function is shifted to another system. I have no idea if the same degree of redundancy exists in ships.

Not only that, but the systems in an aircraft, at least the newer ones, now have the ability to tell computers on the ground what just went wrong if something did, and the computers on the ground tell the airline's maintenance computers what went wrong, and the maintenance computers determine what repair procedures, parts (which may in fact include a replacement onboard computer), and tools are needed to fix the problem, and this information is automatically relayed to the computers at the airplane's destination on the other side of the planet at which point the computers over there tell the maintenance technician what he needs and what to do so when the airplane arrives he's there at the gate ready to make the fix.

And these days this last bit--- the step-by-step instructions for what to do when the plane arrives--- will already be on his iPad put their wirelessly by the destination's maintenance computers.

We filmed this recently in Emirate's massive control room in Dubai and it's pretty amazing to see. Everything I've described except the maintenance technician collecting his parts and tools and ramp van at the destination airport happens in less time than it took me to type this post.

So don't underestimate the power of what computing can do today, let alone what it will be able to do tomorrow.

I don't doubt the ability of the 'puter. But throw in the sea, the corrosion of salt water and murphys law and I doubt there is a solution in the offing now. Later? sure. But currently, No.

Mariners tend to be traditionalists, for good reason. The principles of naval architecture, shipbuilding, and seamanship are the product of centuries of hard-won experience. The history of seafaring is replete with examples of ships and crews taken by the sea with little or no explanation. Sailors probe those events closely, parsing the often scant evidence for clues as to what went wrong and how to prevent it.

As boys and girls become sailors, they pick up what they need from the vast body of inherited knowledge accumulated over a long time. Some of it may be questionable, some grows obsolete, but the most important lessons tend to have been proven sufficiently to endure. I am not alone in having learned a great deal about boats and boating from people who had no idea that they were teaching me as I watched them, and who themselves learned in similar ways. My own experiences enrich what I learned from others along the way.

That's part of what makes the Trawler Forum valuable. Things tend to be done aboard boats in the ways they are because of experience. Like every mariner there has ever been, we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. The seafaring tradition (which I try to uphold) is that we should be generous in sharing what we know.

There is a big difference between inflexible resistance to change, and skepticism toward experimentation in the implacably unforgiving environment of the sea. The former is a losing strategy for survival. Everyone gets that. The latter has proven to be a winning strategy for survival. Dismiss it at your peril.

Aviators resemble mariners, in that the prudent ones are constantly interrogating their situation, asking the "what-if" questions. What if my engine loses power in one minute? In one hour? What if the wind shifts during the night and my anchor drags? We don't live paralyzed by fear – if we did, we’d never attempt anything. We venture boldly, as sailors always have, with a taste for adventure and discovery bolstered by the knowledge that is the product of deep experience.

Just because mariners are cautiously conservative by nature does not make us troglodytes. The technology of seafaring has made great leaps over just the past two hundred years. When new, the U.S. Navy’s oldest warship, the frigate USS Constitution, at 203’ in length, carried a crew of 450. Its newest destroyers, the radically innovative Zumwalt-class DDG-1000s, at 600’ long, require as few as 130, while capable of far greater combat performance. Container ships, such as the Emma Mærsk, at 1302’ feet in length and displacing over 170K gross tons, require a crew of as few as 13.

The topic of this thread is unmanned vessels. Remotely-operated vessels (ROVs) have proven their utility, but translating that success into larger vessels transiting the high seas is a different matter. It should come as no surprise that the prospect of an Emma Mærsk transiting the sea lanes with no mariners aboard strains the credulity of anyone who has spent any serious time at sea.

My earlier post (#4) was a bit glib about unmanned passenger aircraft, but I doubt that I am alone in saying that I would simply choose not to travel in an airliner whose pilot was not aboard. I have too much respect for the skill that comes with experience. For arguably the best aviation writing there has ever been on that subject, see Ernest K. Gann’s Fate is the Hunter (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961), an autobiographical account of his years as a line pilot. (Gann was an accomplished mariner, too – indeed, a former trawler-type yacht of his is presently for sale on YachtWorld.com).