FINLANDS SJÖFART J SUOMEN MERENKULKU 27
The International
Maritime
Organisation’s
Maritime Safety Committee
(MSC) has a proud record of
developing and implementing the
international regulations that help
keep seafarers safe – from the
COLREGs to shipbuilding
standards. The Committee
recently saw its 100th session, and
to mark the occasion, a special
event was held at IMO headquar-ters
in London on 3 December
2018.
Although the event started
with a look back at MSC achieve-ments,
the main focus was on the
future, with three speakers
invited to give presentations on
automation and its implications:
Kevin Daffey of Rolls-Royce,
Branko Berlan of the Internation-al
Transport Workers’ Federation
(ITF) and Timo Koponen of
Wärtsilä.
The day of the MSC event had
been a highly significant one for
Rolls-Royce, noted Mr Daffey. In
Finland, just a few hours earlier,
the company had successfully
carried out a voyage demonstrat-ing
Svan, its new remote-con-trolled
and autonomous ferry
navigation system – claimed to be
the first of its kind. The voyage
had been made possible, Mr
Daffey pointed out, by the Finnish
government passing legislation to regulate the use of
autonomous vessels in the country’s domestic waters.
The only other country to have developed such regula-tions
is Norway, and in his presentation, Mr Koponen
spoke of Wärtsilä’s own work to trial an autonomous
vessel in Norwegian waters. We should no longer talk
about automation happening in the future, added Mr
Daffey: ‘The technology is here!’
But how should the global shipping industry deal with
these developments, and what will the impact be on
seafarers? With delegates present from IMO member
nations worldwide, the MSC event allowed some very
knowledgeable and experienced maritime professionals to
challenge the speakers in the panel on their claims and
predictions.
Branko Berlan was first to raise a note of caution about
the new world of autonomous shipping, using his presenta-tion
to point out that, when it comes to maritime safety,
G As reported at the MSC 100 event,
Rolls-Royce and the Finnish state-owned
ferry operator Finferries staged
a ‘ground-breaking’ demonstration
last month of what is claimed to be
the world’s first fully autonomous
ferry. The 54m car ferry Falco
completed a return journey between
Parainen and Nauvo under fully
autonomous control. The vessel
detected objects utilising sensor
fusion and artificial intelligence and
conducted collision avoidance.
It berthed automatically, using a
recently developed autonomous
navigation system, with all operations
monitored at a shore-based remote
operating centre, some 50km,
away in Turku city centre.
IMAGE: ROLLS-ROYCE