SAFETY VERSUS THE ENVIRONMENT

Tom: What concerns me is that over the past 15 to 20 years, we may have taken our eye off the ball on safety design, in preference to the environment and net zero. I worry we aren’t taking advantage of the progress in technology to revisit ship safety. I’ve been to conferences where the emphasis is on fuel savings, without acknowledging that some of these alternative fuels are more toxic and more dangerous to handle.

Martina: I agree. Safety is key. Sometimes at decarbonisation conferences, no one talks about it. Ammonia, for example, is extremely toxic, so what happens to the crew if there’s a leak? A shipowner’s first question is usually about savings and payback period – they assume the system is already safe. So we need to make sure everything we install is properly tested, and that the crew is on board with the technology, otherwise it won’t be used correctly. That means communication between crews, developers, shipowners, operators and regulators.

AUTOMATION AND CYBERSECURITY

Tom: I have no problem with automated ships operating domestically within a controlled environment. What I struggle with is international operation. Take a ship flying a Panamanian flag, sailing between Australia and Japan, with a casualty off the Philippines, and being operated by somebody in South Africa. Who’s responsible, and who provides the international regulation to control that? Norway has set up a tripartite port system for small containerships operating within one country, and that works because it’s controlled by that country’s engineers. International legislation, and countries wanting control over ships in their own waters, could be a stumbling block.

ON MENTORING

Martina: For me, mentorship brings the experience you’re missing. You learn the theory and the physics at university, but a conversation like this one with Tom is invaluable – what worked, what went wrong, what was learned. It’s an honest account of someone’s experience, which helps you make your own judgement, and you can’t learn that from a textbook. I mentor girls through a Danish NGO called High Five Girls, introducing them to naval architecture through activities such as building paper ships and testing how much weight they can carry before they sink.

Tom: I get a great deal out of mentoring because I get to speak to people dealing with issues I never dreamt of. A mentor gives a mentee a wider source of knowledge. Someone who has been around the industry gives you access to their whole network. I’ve had mentees ask what a classification society is, and I once spoke to students who didn’t know that shipping legislation comes from IMO rather than their own country! Universities educate students, but a mentor widens that knowledge and makes the introductions. I’d always say, don’t do something because someone else tells you to, but if you enjoy it, that’s what you should do.

THE ROLE OF RINA

Martina: RINA has played a big part in my own path. I got the RINA student membership, and the first RINA conference I attended was its first wind propulsion conference. I was already a sailor, so I was amazed by the technology, a topic I hadn’t come across at university. That conference led to my master’s thesis at DNV and to entering the industry at the start of my career. On reaching younger engineers, I’d say social media, Instagram and TikTok in particular, is now a requirement. My generation is probably the last that reads a newspaper or watches television as well as using social media.

Tom: As a young naval architect, the RINA transactions were my bible – I couldn’t have survived without the material it gave me access to. RINA used to have a spring meeting and an autumn meeting, with presentations and discussions, and I found them invaluable, because as I came across issues in ship design and construction, they’d often already been addressed in these documents. What we seem to have lost is that single core of knowledge, now spread across many separate conferences. I’m pleased to hear about the benefits of free student membership – it removes a real barrier for young people getting involved.