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The most difficult challenge with autonomous sailing at the optimal speed for pollution control is maintenance: crews won't sit on a ship that takes 2x or more

The most difficult challenge with autonomous sailing at the optimal speed for pollution control is maintenance: crews won't sit on a ship that takes 2x or more the time to get from A to B (ideal for Earth, not ideal for sailors), and without a crew you can't easily maintain the ship when it's far from any ports. It will be interesting to see how this develops further and how ship design will be influenced (e.g. more redundancy with key systems so the ship can at least keep limping along even with major failures).

phil21 4y ago
Seems like an easily solved problem to me with a bit of crew scheduling. Most tours of duty for container ships I believe are 3 months at a shot (I don't think most port of calls allow for crew to disembark), but I could be wrong. If you take a 12 day sailing and turn it into 24, it just means you're swapping crews at port visits earlier than later.
- konschubert 4y ago
  But you end up paying for more crew per transport which might make the whole thing uneconomical.
yourapostasy 4y ago
I think the headline buried the lede. The important part isn't the "sail itself" bit. It is: > The HiNAS 2.0 system provided an increase in fuel efficiency of 7 percent and a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of 5 percent Your concern about extended time didn't seem to be the case in this journey because 33 days is about right for a Pacific crossing. Most cost structures of shipping stack up around: 1. Fuel 2. Port charges 3. Crew wages and travel 4. Management fees 5. Hull and machinery and P&I insurance premiums 6. Stores 7. Lubricants 8. Spare parts 9. Maintenance and repairs 10. Survey and certification 11. Dry docking 12. Finance (payments) Of these, fuel is the biggest by far so it made sense to optimize on that first. Port charges are the second-largest cost, especially including any canal transits if those are involved. Then management, finance and insurance. Then maintenance (including dry docking). And then crew and crew-related costs. It is an interesting optimization problem for sure.

phil21 4y ago

Seems like an easily solved problem to me with a bit of crew scheduling. Most tours of duty for container ships I believe are 3 months at a shot (I don't think most port of calls allow for crew to disembark), but I could be wrong. If you take a 12 day sailing and turn it into 24, it just means you're swapping crews at port visits earlier than later.

konschubert 4y ago
But you end up paying for more crew per transport which might make the whole thing uneconomical.

yourapostasy 4y ago

I think the headline buried the lede. The important part isn't the "sail itself" bit. It is: > The HiNAS 2.0 system provided an increase in fuel efficiency of 7 percent and a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of 5 percent Your concern about extended time didn't seem to be the case in this journey because 33 days is about right for a Pacific crossing. Most cost structures of shipping stack up around: 1. Fuel 2. Port charges 3. Crew wages and travel 4. Management fees 5. Hull and machinery and P&I insurance premiums 6. Stores 7. Lubricants 8. Spare parts 9. Maintenance and repairs 10. Survey and certification 11. Dry docking 12. Finance (payments) Of these, fuel is the biggest by far so it made sense to optimize on that first. Port charges are the second-largest cost, especially including any canal transits if those are involved. Then management, finance and insurance. Then maintenance (including dry docking). And then crew and crew-related costs. It is an interesting optimization problem for sure.