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After the catastrophic Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse two years ago – causing an estimated $3 billion in damage – innovators are harnessing AI and digital tools to predict disasters, optimise vessels and strengthen cyber resilience across operations.
Speakers in the Digitalisation and AI session at Seawork’s Get Set for Workboat 2050 event in Rotterdam last week showed the work going on to exploit new digital technologies to refine operations and make them safer.
Phil Thompson, Head of Commercial Product Development with BMT, presented his company’s Rembrandt interactive simulator, which forms the basis of BMT’s new DISC simulation hub in the UK.
“We have recently seen large ships hitting quays and bridges, and we have been looking at the root causes with machine-learning software, which uses models and patterns to identify outcomes,” he said.
Two years, ago, the container ship Dali struck Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, which then collapsed, killing six workers.
“With the Dali crash in Baltimore for example, by using our Rembrandt interactive simulator and modelling everything – the wind, water, waves, bollard pull, number of tugs, turning circles and replaying it with or without tug assists, we ran through the variables and actually discovered that if it had happened later, 2,000 people would have died,” Thompson told delegates.
“They found that for the sake of an escort tug, and the ship going too fast, the crash happened. Our system is crucial for learning lessons then predicting future outcomes, not just learning from them.”
John Hearn, senior underwriter with UK P&I Club, said that in his experience, ports in the US were not keen on paying for escort tugs. “Their method is to simply reinforce all their bridges,” he said.
Intelligent vessel availability
Nauticworx is working on a completely different but no less AI-powered technology: a system that can not only find available vessels quickly for operators, but finds the exact kind the operator needs.
“Nauticworx makes recommendations and predicts what’s needed before you’ve even thought of it,” said managing director and co-founder Friso Visser.
“The impact of AI is far more profound on society and economics than the internet has ever been. Increased efficiency in vessel utilisation will expand commercial reach.”
Working with Nauticworx on its system is Iquality, which is developing AI agents (bots) that will go further and make connections between operator and vessel owner.
“The goal is to make data helpful,” said CEO John van Beek.
Digital twins
Third to speak was John Peacock, from Ocealis, who is promising to launch something in Seawork in June – without saying what, for now.
At the Get Set event he explained how Ocealis linked everything together in a similar digital twin sort of way to BMT’s Rembrandt system, analysing the past in the same sort of way that an aeroplane’s black box does.
“We can add the crew, the defects, the engine room,” he said, using live dashboards and real-time visibility to provide data that can then model the future.
“For example, when someone sends a boat out not knowing when it will break down, we will be able to tell by looking at what’s happened in the past,” he said.
”I can show my operation is very, very safe and can prove it digitally, and here’s my challenge to the insurance industry: we can sow you the risk: help us to help the industry to save money. But the design needs to be as simple as possible for operators. AI is coming. Embrace it - if you don’t, others will.”
Cyber security
Floris Dankaart-Chang, lead product manager with the NCC Group, tackled today’s cyber threat issue.
He laid out the four different types of threat: teenage hackers, who do it for fun and do not pose a serious risk if a vessel has a modicum of security; activists, who are higher up the scale but not really a problem; the hijackers, who infect systems with ransomware and pose a monetary risk; and finally even nation states, given today’s geopolitical scenario.
“Here there is a shift,” he said, “where they don’t necessarily focus on the nuclear plants but more on the low-hanging fruit, like SMEs or smaller boats.
“It’s different on different vessels. It starts with awareness and what you have in place. It’s risk management.”
“I’m afraid this is a movement that we will not be able to stop,” said consultant Samson Onyeabor. “The next generation is waiting and they are born with this. Fleet owners who do not adapt it will be run over.”
Image; The Dali crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore two years ago, killing two crew. Today’s digital tools could have averted disaster, speakers suggested.
