Page 20: of Marine News Magazine (June 2023)

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Feature

Autonomous Vessels

All images: Ocean In? nity

T J R HE OURNEY TO EMOTE

V OESSEL PERATION

Conducting maritime and subsea operations lean-crewed or entirely remotely, is a problem with many moving parts. We meet one company helping to lead the way in this rapidly emerging ? eld.

cean In? nity is a young company with a huge “Our customers must reduce the personnel requirements vision; that the way we use robotics at sea can of offshore operations for multiple reasons. Fewer hu- now be taken several massive steps further on. mans aboard means that operations can be conducted with

O

The business’ activities stand a good chance of much smaller ships. Every extra body aboard requires a changing the way in which seabed and maritime activities surprisingly large amount of extra space in the shape of are conducted, all over the world, forever. galleys, toilets, food and waste storage, and not forgetting all the extra fuel to shunt all that about. We are building

Learning curve partially remotely operated 78-meter ships at Ocean In? n-

Ocean In? nity marine robotics expert Dan Hook is ity that will be run by a crew of just 16, while perform- under no illusion that this is going to be an easy path: ing tasks that would otherwise be performed by a crew of 20 | MN June 2023

MN June23 Layout 18-31.indd 20 5/19/2023 4:20:08 PM