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Insights

Are there other trends and advancements in naval archi- procedure problem. We’ve been able to ? nd ways to support tecture that you ? nd particularly interesting or exciting? weld projects with different strategies, that allows clients to

Certainly. Wind is a huge new ? eld that everyone is talk- take a weld process on some of these military crafts, for ex- ing about. While that touches on alternative fuels, it also ample, that costs a million dollars to do, and scale it back to touches on hull form and other things for optimization for something that costs them just a few thousand dollars to do.

the environment. Interestingly in wind, we’ve got the East

Coast, Gulf Coast, and West Coast which all have very dif- What sort of challenges or concerns are you facing, and ferent environments. There’s a lot of conversation around what’s your approach to dealing with them?

what types of vessels and what types of hull forms are ap- It’s a blessing and a challenge, but the industry is getting propriate for each location. very busy for a wide range of reasons—all the different proj-

We’re continuing to see a lot of interest from universities ect types that we discussed and many more. And of course, and other institutions in supporting wave energy studies we’ve heard for a long time about labor shortages within the and other ways and means to harness the energy of the maritime industry. Finding and having access to skilled and sea and convert that into usable power. There are a lot of talented workers is going to be a growing problem, along different grant opportunities and things that we’re being with most industries, in the future. That’s a real challenge.

asked to support on that front. I think another challenge that we see, and again, it’s a

We are working with a customer, Nautilus Data Tech- blessing and a challenge at the same time, we’re at the early nology, who has a ? oating data project installed in the port stages of arti? cial intelligence. We have read a lot about of Stockton in California. It’s an old barge that has been how to properly integrate AI into engineering and the updated and reused with a data center built on it. Now, work we do. But then also, ensure that it doesn’t override we’re going to be doing a series of new construction data human common sense and human knowledge. It’s not that barges that will be positioned around the world. It’s very we’re afraid of it. We’re just being careful not to go too far unique and outside the box. into relying on such new technology and letting it make

We are also gaining a lot of experience in advanced weld decisions for us. We need to validate AI through human procedures, and we’ve been able to save our clients a tre- knowledge and experience.

mendous amount of money in helping them ? nd a simple There’s a lot of talk in the world about diversity, equity path to what has traditionally been a very complex welding and inclusion, and there’s starting to be a lot of talk about

Elliott Bay Design Group designed Maritime Partners’ Hydrogen One, a ? rst-of-its-kind towboat that will run on emissions-reducing methanol- to-hydrogen generator technology—without diesel propulsion.

Elliott Bay Design Group 12 | MN August 2023