It was only a matter of time.

[John Albert Evans]

Rolls Royce have produced a prototype of a Crewless ship...wire-56433-1486893632-79_634x349crewless ship..jpg. Probably ready for sea in 2020. Full article in Mail on line today. I don't know how to put it on here but if you Google Rolls Royce crewless ship it will bring it up. Or someone will help please.

John Albert Evans

[Keith at Tregenna]

Rolls-Royce crewless ships `will be sailing the seas by 2020´

Rolls-Royce crewless ships `will be sailing the seas by 2020´ | Daily Mail Online

[vic mcclymont]

Wonder how it will work. When I sailed on the Damage, which was certified for UMS. In close proximity to land we had to have a manned machinery space.
Regards
Vic

[happy daze john in oz]

A good mate of mine in USA tells me that the powers that be have been experimenting with such for about five years now.
Crewless ships, driverless cars, driverless trains already on the London Underground, freight trains in NZ and in some of the WA iron ore mines.

[Nigel Smith]

I may well be missing the point here, but these 'crewless' ships will still be manned remotely by shoreside 'crew'. Insurance premiums will no doubt be raised to compensate for the risks involved. There are the obvious issues such as fire, weather damage, mechanical failure and consequent loss of control, responding to vessels in distress, I could go on but I'm sure the 'experts' have these issues covered. I'm not convinced 'crewless' ships will benefit anyone, for the relatively small cost of providing a crew I just don't get it

[Ivan Cloherty]

I may well be missing the point here, but these 'crewless' ships will still be manned remotely by shoreside 'crew'. Insurance premiums will no doubt be raised to compensate for the risks involved. There are the obvious issues such as fire, weather damage, mechanical failure and consequent loss of control, responding to vessels in distress, I could go on but I'm sure the 'experts' have these issues covered. I'm not convinced 'crewless' ships will benefit anyone, for the relatively small cost of providing a crew I just don't get it

We have another thread somewhere on this same subject of crewless ships with which RR have been experimenting with both in testing tanks and various UK rivers for years, so it really is not breaking news, it may be breaking news for the internet but not those who keep an eye on these things. We agree Nigel that all the aspects of the things you raised are of a concern, however we all know that these things have been discussed and agreed by 'experts' and we must somehow believe in their expertise gained by programming everything into a computer and the computer says 'yes' so that we can all sleep soundly in our beds at night, however as in the past these mostly 'Deskbound Experts' (similar to Armchair Warriors) have never experienced a fight, and in our case a fight with that most unpredictable of foes.........Mother Nature.......who has a habit at the most unexpected times of producing a hurricane/typhoon/cyclone etc etc whilst on a predicted calm passage made by expert forecasters armed with mountains of data supplied by static/seaborne/airborne weather watchers, aah! the computer what a blessing for mankind as Micheal Fish would have said (and did say) in 1987, relax it's never going to happen. Most of us bridge wallahs have said these words 'where the bloody hell did that come from' when checking the barometer and found that numerous millibars had dropped from the reading in just over an hour, yes our 'experts' forget to programme in mother nature who we know doesn't like being programmed

[John Arton]

This concept of "crewless" vessels has been doing the rounds for some time now and to me is just a pie in the sky concept. For them to work they require a secure communications system using satellite transmission. As recent events have shown any system that relies on the Internet in whatever form is open to hacking. It has already been proven that using a simple laptop, that GPS navigation systems can be hacked into. A trial of this was done on a luxury yacht fitted with the latest up to date navigational systems. The GPS was hacked and the course being steered by the yacht using GPS as reference, was slowly altered until its track was 180 deg. removed from its intended track. The frightening thing was that no one on board the yacht realised they were going in the wrong direction.
People will say if we can successfully land rockets on the moon and other planets then surely it must be possible to have crewless ships safely sailing the oceans but terrorists and hackers have to interest in space rockets but imagine their delight if the could hack into the systems of two crewless vessels and cause them to collide with resulting massive pollution or worse.
To date I cannot think of a single mode of transportation that is completely fail safe. Even the driverless car will have someone in it who could take over should its systems fail. An operator sitting in a control room thousands of miles from the vessel he/she is supposedly in control off has no means of taking over manual control in the event of any failure of the on-board systems be that failure caused by person hacking into the systems or failure from any cause on board.
rgds
JA

[Lewis McColl]

I can well understand the concept of crewless ships when you consider the quality of todays generation of seafarers. I spent 43 years on various classes of ships from General cargo to LNG Carriers. I retired in 2013. I was involved in training gas engineers for a joint venture that involved BP & CLISCO (Chinese) I stood by three new builds and delivered them into service. The Chinese trainees were all qualified Marine engineers but they were so bloody arrogant they were dangerous. I had the same thing with U.A.E nationals again a joint venture with BP & NGSCO. I am certainly glad I am retired and thankfully do not live anywhere near an LNG receiving plant. It is not if a serious accident will happen but only when.

[vic mcclymont]

Rolls Royce have produced a prototype of a Crewless ship...wire-56433-1486893632-79_634x349crewless ship..jpg. Probably ready for sea in 2020. Full article in Mail on line today. I don't know how to put it on here but if you Google Rolls Royce crewless ship it will bring it up. Or someone will help please.

John Albert Evans

Only hope it works better than their alternators
Regards
Vic

[happy daze john in oz]

What we must remember is that the concept has been brought about by experts.
Now as we know experst are never wrong, until disaster hits.
Most of the experts have had little or no real experience at sea I think you will find so their concept of 'she'll be right mate' may not be enough.