Coleman 1
Autonomous shipping, for a very dangerous industry, to work in with many safety
hazards, can autonomous shipping be the future. Being a merchant mariner myself I am against
fully autonomous ships. Automation has its place within the world and I agree it is very helpful
in this industry. We use automation on our vessel to open and close ballast valves, which allows
us to ballast the vessel to keep the vessel from capsizing while loading and unloading cargo.
Ballasting allows the vessel to travel from port to port without capsizing the vessel. Automation
is also used on our generators to start the generator and automation allows the generators to
synchronize with one another. The dangers I see with automation are the potential for it to fail
while trying to make a split-second decision. We have instances where the vessel is in rough
weather and the current starts to pull the vessel in the wrong direction we need to have a person
that knows what to do and can quickly make the needed adjustment to properly move the ship
back onto the proper course. Automation is used within the steering aspects of the vessel, but at
times it can not overcome certain issues that can be adjusted accordingly by a human.
Human error, the cause for building and progressively trying to move autonomous
shipping. Many incidents within the maritime industry are found to be from human error. In this
industry, there are long days and short nights and you have to work hard to accomplish many of
the tasks that are given to you, but for the last 20 years or so many laws have been implemented
to the number of work to rest hours you have throughout 24 hours. These laws have been put into
effect to help eliminate these human errors.
Leaning towards autonomy will take jobs from many people. Ships have many onboard
maintenance procedures such as oil changes for the generators, main engines, spring inspections
on explosion door covers, and many other services. Without a crew aboard the vessel, it would
be hard to care for the vessel from afar. The crew makes sure the vessel stays operational and
Coleman 2
able to move from port to port. Several technologies have led to the theory of designing and
building a fully autonomous ship. These technologies are machine learning, the technological
advancement in sensors, and connectivity while at sea. In today’s world, we are all about
technology everyone has a cell phone and knows they are prone to bugs and potential hackers.
Ships can be hacked as well, sure they will have better firewalls and be much harder to take
control of, but it is not impossible. These are thought-about when deciding if autonomous ships
are worth the investment. Autonomous ships have the potential for safety risks.
Autonomous shipping has pros and cons when you discuss the topic of safety. As
unmanned vessels, others will not be aboard if a catastrophic accident were to take place, but
also with an unmanned vessel you have no way to control an incident from becoming a much
larger problem. If the ship were to have an issue with its onboard pilot system and astray from its
course, it runs the risk of grounding or crashing into another vessel that is making way through
the same body of water. Being on the great lakes we travel through multiple rivers on our travels.
Detroit River, Saint Mary’s river and the saint Claire river are rivers we travel through and in the
summertime and there are thousands of boats and personal watercraft that travel through these
rivers jet skiing, fishing, tubing and many other activities running autonomous ships through
heavily populated area put these innocent bystanders at risk if something were to go wrong with
the ship while making way through these restricted waterways. When the ships are manned you
have looks-outs that can see where these individuals are in respect to the ship’s travel course.
These individuals can relay to the captain and he can then decide if he needs to change course to
avoid people that are utilizing the river for extracurricular activities. Grounding, collisions, and
pedestrians are risk assessments that must be taken into consideration when pushing for a fully
autonomous industry.
Coleman 3
Autonomous shipping would take a while to implement, it is not something that would
happen over-night. Many companies would stand to benefit from autonomous ships. The initial
cost would be pricey on the forefront, but with every investment, it should start to make you
money over time until your initial investment is paid off and you can collect a full profit. If they
implement fully electric ships as they have discussed with autonomous shipping this would cut
down many costs for these companies. They will save money on consumables such as oil, fuel,
food for the crew, and labor costs. The articulated tug and barge that I sail on spend about 1.5
million dollars each time we fill up the vessel and we fuel up about twice a hitch. We burn
between 3,000 to 5,000 gallons per day while pushing a barge across the lakes. These engines on
this vessel are also very worn out and they leak oil, and we burn 200 gallons plus per day in oil.
