T K Sahu, joint managing director of the Indian Register of Shipping, writes exclusively for SplashTech today.
Shipping is being asked to transform on several fronts at once.
The industry must decarbonise, digitalise, improve efficiency and adopt increasingly sophisticated technologies, while continuing to operate safely in one of the most demanding environments in the world.
The pace of change is significant. Over a relatively short period, shipping has had to adapt to the Ballast Water Management Convention, the global sulphur limit, carbon-intensity requirements under MARPOL Annex VI and, most recently, the implementation of the Hong Kong Convention. At the same time, work continues internationally on alternative fuels, automation, digitalisation and other emerging technologies.
Against this background, it can be tempting to frame the challenge as technology moving faster than safety.
I think the reality is more nuanced.
Technology and safety are both developing at an extraordinary pace. But in some areas, technology is inevitably maturing faster than the industry’s operational experience with it. That distinction is important.
The challenge is therefore not simply whether a technology works. It is whether the industry understands the risks sufficiently well to operate, maintain and support it safely at scale.
This is particularly relevant as shipping accelerates investment in alternative fuels, automation, data and increasingly sophisticated digital systems.
Innovation is moving quickly. The more difficult question is whether the wider maritime ecosystem is developing quickly enough to support it.
Availability is not the same as readiness
Alternative fuels demonstrate this particularly clearly.
The industry has ambitious decarbonisation objectives, but the transition away from conventional fuels remains at a relatively early stage. The fact that a fuel or propulsion technology exists does not automatically make it a globally scalable solution.
Methanol, ammonia, hydrogen, biofuels and potentially nuclear energy each present very different challenges. There is no single pathway that can simply be applied across the global fleet.
Each energy source introduces its own requirements for containment, storage, bunkering, ventilation, fire protection, hazardous-area classification, emergency response, maintenance and crew competence. Beyond the vessel itself, the industry also needs reliable supply chains, appropriate port infrastructure and sufficient operational experience.
That is why the conversation around alternative fuels cannot be limited to emissions.
A vessel may be technically capable of operating on a new fuel, but scalability depends on whether the surrounding ecosystem can support that vessel throughout its operating life.
Safety also cannot be established simply because a new technology has operated successfully on a limited number of vessels.
Early projects are extremely valuable because they generate practical experience. We have already seen successful maritime applications of emerging technologies, including hydrogen fuel cells. But the absence of significant incidents should never be interpreted as evidence that all risks have been eliminated.
With many emerging fuels, the industry is still building its experience base.
The correct response is not to slow innovation unnecessarily. It is to learn continuously from each application and use that experience to strengthen design standards, procedures, training and emergency preparedness.
Safety starts before installation
One of the most important lessons from novel technology projects is that risk needs to be considered early.
A comprehensive risk assessment should begin while the design is still sufficiently flexible to change.
That means understanding not only the technology itself, but how it will actually be installed and operated onboard: the equipment arrangement, piping and instrumentation, tank locations, ventilation, fire protection, controls, monitoring systems, escape arrangements and interfaces with existing ship systems.
Only once those relationships are understood can the hazards be assessed properly.
This is also where earlier involvement of Class can make a significant difference.
Classification societies are sometimes brought into projects after equipment selection, system architecture or vessel arrangements have already been decided. If a technical, regulatory or safety issue is then identified, the result can be redesign, additional cost and delay.
Earlier engagement provides more flexibility.
The purpose is not for Class to select technology on behalf of an owner or designer. It is to provide an independent technical perspective while fundamental decisions can still be adjusted, helping to identify approval requirements, interfaces, regulatory constraints and potential safety issues before they become embedded in the design.
For technologies where the regulatory framework is still developing, this becomes particularly important.
More data does not automatically mean better decisions
Digitalisation presents a different version of the same challenge.
Ships today can generate far more machinery and operational data than was possible even a decade ago. Sensors, automation and connectivity offer enormous potential to improve performance, energy efficiency, reliability and maintenance planning.
But volume is not the same as value.
The usefulness of operational data depends on its quality, context and reliability.
Sensors need to be correctly selected, installed, maintained and calibrated. Data needs to be complete, consistent and representative of the actual condition of the equipment. And before predictive systems can influence maintenance decisions, there needs to be a meaningful relationship between the parameters being measured and the condition being assessed.
The objective should not be to create more alerts.
It should be to create information that engineers can trust.
This becomes even more important where data is intended to support survey or regulatory decisions. In those circumstances, confidence is needed not only in accuracy, but also in provenance, continuity, traceability and the methodology used to interpret the data.
Shipping should therefore resist the idea that digital maturity can be measured by the number of sensors, dashboards or algorithms onboard.
The better measure is whether those systems improve decision-making.
Cyber risk is becoming safety risk
The same principle applies to cyber resilience.
As ships become more connected, the boundary between IT risk and operational safety is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain.
Modern vessels depend on interconnected operational technology, communications, remote-support systems and software. A cyber incident can therefore have consequences that extend well beyond loss of data.
This will become more significant as automation increases and vessels rely more heavily on remote monitoring and automated decision-making.
The industry is moving towards a point where cyber resilience will increasingly need to be treated as part of the vessel’s wider safety and operational-risk framework rather than as a separate IT concern.
That shift will also force the industry to confront a more difficult question: who is responsible when automated systems influence operational decisions?
For the immediate future, software and remote support should primarily enhance the capability of the crew rather than replace onboard judgement.
The people onboard retain an important advantage. They are physically present and able to assess circumstances that may not be visible through sensors or shore-based systems.
But responsibility cannot simply be transferred to the crew either.
Owners must provide suitable systems, procedures and competent personnel. Technology providers must define the capabilities and limitations of their products. Shore teams must provide effective support, while Class provides independent assurance within its defined scope.
As automation develops, responsibility will need to follow control, competence and accountability. The industry should avoid creating situations where individuals remain accountable for decisions over which they have little meaningful control.
The next phase must be about operational maturity
Shipping has successfully managed significant technological transitions before, and there is every reason to believe it can do so again.
But speed of adoption should not become the definition of progress.
Over the next few years, competence must develop alongside technology. Regulation must remain robust while becoming sufficiently flexible to accommodate responsible innovation. Operational experience needs to be shared more widely, including lessons from failures, near misses and successful safeguards. And collaboration between owners, yards, technology providers, Class, regulators, flag Administrations and ports must become deeper.
The technologies now entering the maritime sector have the potential to make shipping cleaner, smarter and more efficient.
The measure of their success, however, will not be how quickly they enter the fleet.
It will be whether they strengthen safety as they do so.
Innovation should expand what shipping is capable of without reducing its ability to understand, control and respond to risk. If operational experience, competence and assurance develop alongside the technology, the transition can leave the industry not only greener and more efficient, but safer and more resilient as well.
