[QUOTE=ombugge;190987]Yes indeed, what is happening next?
To a degree that will depend on whether this is first call of an autonomous ship in Houston, or even in the US.
If it is, there will probably be a fleet of small boats filled with protester waiting, claiming that this foreign contraption should be banned from entering US waters.
Why? Because it is not an American vessel and therefore must be inferior and dangerous. Could there be a bomb onboard, or maybe the ship is carrying illegal immigrants from Norway looking for a better life in America?
Other, more level headed people, will want to know WHY it is not an American ship and who’s to blame for the US not being in the forefront of Marine Technology.
If we are looking at what will happen when these ships are common and arrival at any port is routine, the answer may be like this;
At an agreed point some distance from the sea buoy, monitoring and control of the ship is taken over by local VTS, or by the Pilot Authority’s Control Centre.
The ship continues autonomously,but supervised by ONE dedicated person, still unmanned and unaided by tugs to the berthing location, where a Pilot on the wharf may supervise the berthing operation visually,or may even take charge by portable remote joy stick and control panel.
Once alongside the required number of pneumatic mooring arms connect themselves to the hull.
A side door opens and a gangway is deployed, all by remote control.
The “shore gang” now have safe access to the vessel to perform whatever repairs and maintenance required.
Since there are no crew, no need for Quarantine, Immigration or Customs to board and no worries about crew jumping ship etc.
is this possible with today’s technology, or an idiotic pipe dream by some dumb Norwegians, Finns, Germans, Dutch and even some Swiss from some of the largest and most advanced European Companies and Universities??
Who knows? Maybe it is all a hoax to get Government grants, or to tricking Americans into believing that it is possible for foreigners to develop such things.
Maybe the computers of some American shipyards, Naval Architects and Marine Technology firms have been hacked and it is all stolen American technology?
We shall see in a few years, when the first autonomous ship is in operation in Scandinavia.[/QUOTE]
I thought my question was going to be answered in the form of elegant solutions for remotely guiding ships entering confined and heavily trafficked harbors. Oh well.
Shame on me for failing to anticipate that you wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to spew yet another vitriolic rant, this time demonstrating your belief that Americans are so lazy and irresponsible that they would react to the arrival of an autonomous Scandinavian ship like a bunch of startled sheep.
Your comment about inspections becoming unnecessary reflects your eagerness to grasp at imaginary castles in the sky. Why would CBP not inspect crewless ships as relentlessly as any other for hidden drugs, dirty bombs, stowaways, insects, etc.? But I digress.
You should stop listening to the voices in your head convincing you that autonomous ships will soon crisscross the planet and that Scandinavia will rule the earth. That vision presumes a universe unfolding in linear fashion with all of its current aspects remaining constant and doesn’t take into account the vagaries of the time/space continuum.
Closer to home, I still think it’s insane to eagerly apply this technology where it will result in putting mariners out of work. How does society gain by this? And I’ll say this again: We have extremely more important issues to focus on than putting sailors out of work.
This exercise might be an interesting project for a horde of Nordic dreamers who don’t get enough sun in the winter and are happy wasting their talents on dubious schemes to show how progressive they are. Their time would be better spent developing gravity defying propulsion systems or ways to feed the hungry.
In this country we already have millions of people being pushed out of their jobs so we don’t need to add more by promoting autonomous ships.
Pursuing this utopian dream is a waste of resources that won’t make anyone safer and will only have very limited applications.