Page 24: of Marine News Magazine (July 2026)

23 25

Tech Talk

Jesse Vecchione, Weathernews erational tool as shipowners balance safety, schedule reliabili- customer work? ows. APIs allow weather intelligence to ? ow ty, fuel costs and increasingly stringent emissions regulations. directly into voyage management systems, while machine

Today, WNI supports approximately 8,000 to 9,000 ves- learning and AI increasingly automate repetitive tasks.

sels every day under some form of service while drawing upon WNI has deployed machine learning to process tens more than 50 years of proprietary meteorological and voyage of thousands of incoming operational messages each day, data. The company operates globally with of? ces spanning helping identify vessels requiring immediate attention.

Asia, Europe and North America, providing services that ex- More recently, it introduced agentic AI capabilities within tend from route optimization and performance monitoring its software platform, allowing users to query weather con- to operational risk assessment and decision support. ditions, routing concepts and voyage information through

Its early success came from convincing skeptical captains intelligent assistants.

to embrace Great Circle routing across the North Paci? c, Yet despite the enthusiasm surrounding AI, Vecchione is shaving days from voyages by exploiting weather patterns adamant that technology alone cannot replace experienced rather than avoiding northern routes. The lesson remains human judgment.

relevant today: the shortest, fastest, safest and most ef? cient “One thing that we’ve tried to maintain over the entire path is often the one informed by data rather than instinct. time was to keep the human risk communication avail-

Like virtually every maritime technology provider, WNI able,” he said. “When things are going sideways in the has undergone its own digital transformation. Yet Vecchi- middle of the North Paci? c Ocean and there’s a captain one argues that simply making weather data available on- that wants to speak to somebody who really knows what line is not enough. “I think anybody that has an internet they’re talking about onshore, we want to be available.” connection could use tools to create a product that would That philosophy re? ects a broader truth about digita- try to push a forecast or try to do weather routing type so- lization in shipping. While algorithms excel at processing lutions,” he said. “But ? rst of all, you need to have the best data, they cannot fully replicate the intuition developed quality weather data to start, and you also need to know through years of operational experience.

how to utilize that data and make it actionable.” Vecchione believes the greatest value WNI provides is

That distinction is becoming increasingly important as acting as the bridge between shoreside commercial expec- operators seek every possible ef? ciency gain. Weather rout- tations and onboard operational realities.

ing has evolved from plotting the fastest voyage between two “The voyage planners and risk communicators are sort of ports to what WNI describes as optimum ship routing — the interface between what the expectation is shoreside and balancing weather, vessel performance, commercial priori- what the masters are actually facing on the ocean,” he said.

ties and fuel consumption while preserving safety margins. He worries that some organizations pursuing digital

The implications are signi? cant. Better routing deci- transformation are inadvertently removing experienced sions can reduce bunker consumption, lower greenhouse safety professionals from the decision-making chain in gas emissions and improve schedule certainty while help- pursuit of greater ef? ciency.

ing crews avoid dangerous sea states. “One of the challenges that we’ve had recently is that with the digital transformation, a lot of people are cut-

Wind & Waves ting out the safety-minded person in the decision-making

At the center of those decisions is wave forecasting, an process shoreside,” Vecchione observed. “It might become area where WNI recently introduced a higher-resolution more ef? cient because we have better tools, but it’s still proprietary model designed to improve voyage planning 100% required.” and vessel position prediction. That balance between automation and human exper- “Wave height and wave direction are one of the more tise may ultimately de? ne the next generation of maritime critical aspects for ships at sea,” Vecchione said. “We’ve weather services. AI can summarize decades of operational done comparisons against the well-known global models data, generate routing alternatives and monitor ? eets at … and the performance is much better.” unprecedented scale, but it remains a tool rather than a

Digitalization has also expanded beyond forecasting into replacement for seasoned mariners and meteorologists.

24 | MN July 2026