Man Overboard! A thing of the past?

Summary of “Ships without skippers” by SINTEF

SINTEF reported that researchers at MARINTEK believe that in ten to twenty years, there will be fleets of unmanned shipping vessels.  Marintek is one of the eight companies collaborating to tackle the nearly impossible task of developing unmanned ships. There are many benefits to having autonomous shipping freighters. The companies hope that the autonomous ships will be much safer than the ships on the seas today because seventy five percent of all vessel accidents are due to human error.  Working on a merchant ship for weeks at a time with limited contact with friends or family and “looking over an empty ocean", as you can imagine, is not a desirable job.  It is becoming increasingly harder to find employees for this job. Another great benefit is the fact that such ships could save up to 50 percent of the fuel that they burn today. This is accomplished because without the crew, the ships can drastically reduce their speed.  In turn this would save the shipping companies a large amount of money.  Perhaps the biggest challenge is the requirement that all of the technical equipment needs to be functional for weeks at a time. It is projected that a single ‘skipper’ on land will be able to operate up to ten vessels at a time. (SINTEF, 2014)

Having unmanned shipping vessels can be a scary thought, however when you start to add up all the benefits it is easy to see why so many companies are trying to accomplish this goal. I believe that in 10 to 20 years many more things will be autonomous. We already have all the technology to make unmanned ships; it is just a matter of putting it all together and having it work flawlessly. Even though some people may not like the thought of having unmanned ships I believe they and  many more things will eventually be made autonomous.

SINTEF. (2014, September 8). Ships without skippers. ScienceDaily. Retrieved

     September 8, 2014 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/

     140908083529.htm