Events

You can't just add autonomy

There’s a phrase I now hear more often when discussing future submarines – we’ll just add autonomy. It sounds harmless, logical even, but it makes a misleading assumption shaping how we think about next-generation submarine design. Autonomy isn’t something we can simply add and, if we treat it that way, we risk getting it wrong.

 

Autonomy is already moving beyond isolated subsystems into core control and combat functions, filtering data, generating predictions and influencing decisions. As outlined in my ongoing work (to be presented at the RINA Warship Conference in Bath in June), this fundamentally changes the role of the operator and introduces Human–Autonomy Teaming (HAT) as a primary design driver. It also raises trust and reliability, not as abstract qualities, but as design requirements that must be engineered from the outset.

 

For decades, submarine design has followed a stable model: the platform senses, the crew interprets and the crew decides. Systems support that process, but they don’t challenge it. With HAT, autonomy becomes part of decision-making – control is no longer purely human and, critically, it’s not binary. This introduces a new layer of complexity that must be addressed through system architecture and platform design progressing in harmony.

 

Take the control room as an example. There’s a tendency to equate digitalisation with more screens and more data. But submariners don’t need more information, they need clarity. Trust in autonomous systems comes from transparency of intent, consistency of behaviour and clearly communicated confidence and limitations. If autonomy cannot do this under pressure, it is not adding capability, it is adding risk!

 

In my view, current approaches need refinement. We often design systems and then ask operators to adapt. In a constrained, high-tempo and unforgiving environment, that is not viable. Human factors must be treated as a core design input, ensuring interaction between the operator and the system drives performance, rather than undermining it.

 

Authority management is another area requiring care. In a HAT-enabled system, the question of who is in control becomes fluid. That fluidity must be engineered, not assumed, with clear boundaries, predictable transitions and unambiguous override mechanisms forming part of a reliable and trusted system architecture.

 

HAT cannot be treated as a software or integration problem alone; it is a naval architectural issue. It affects control spaces, system structures, function allocation and the relationship between vessel, crew and the wider operational network. To deliver this effectively, platform design, system architecture and human considerations need to evolve together. Increasing technical capability does not automatically translate into operational effectiveness.

 

Submariners already operate at the limits of human performance. Introducing autonomy without properly integrating it into the human system risks increasing cognitive load, reducing situational awareness and complicating error recovery at critical moments. Reliability, in this context, is not just about system uptime, but about predictable, understandable behaviour in demanding conditions.

 

Autonomy is widely expected to play a role in future submarine design. The key consideration will be how thoughtfully and effectively it is integrated, particularly in a way that fosters trust between human and machine. If we treat autonomy as something that can be added late, we risk building submarines that are technically advanced but operationally brittle. If we recognise HAT as a core design consideration, and ensure architecture, platform and human factors develop concurrently, there is an opportunity to deliver submarines that are more resilient, more usable and ultimately safer.

 

That’s the distinction that matters, because in a submarine, complexity doesn’t fail gracefully.

 

Author profile

James Gladman MRINA, chief engineer, naval architecture and platform design, Expleo UK.

 

This article appeared in Opinion, TNA May-June 2026.

Wargaming Baltic Sentry

NATO established the Baltic Sentry mission in 2025 to address the vulnerability of critical undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea. The region contains a dense network of power interconnectors, fibre-optic cables, and seabed installations that have been repeatedly affected by ambiguous or hostile activity.

 

The accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO transformed the Baltic into an almost entirely Alliance-controlled maritime space, creating both the political impetus and operational requirement for a coordinated, persistent security posture.

 

Task Force X (TFX) provides the principal mechanism for integrating maritime uncrewed systems into Baltic Sentry. Its mandate is to deliver scalable USVs, UUVs, and UASs that can augment or substitute for traditional platforms, particularly in the demanding acoustic and environmental conditions of the Baltic. Crewed patrol vessels and maritime patrol aircraft cannot sustain the level of persistence required to monitor multiple infrastructure corridors; TFX assets, by contrast, offer endurance, sensing diversity, and the ability to saturate key areas. Early contributions such as small UAVs, medium UUVs, and basic USVs, provided incremental improvements, while later additions such as interceptor USVs, sail-powered USVs, and containerised towed arrays significantly expanded Blue’s ability to inspect vessels and monitor infrastructure.

Game map, asset capability card and blue assets investigate a suspicious vessel

 

The NATO Digital Ocean programme provides the architectural framework for integrating these systems. It aims to create a “persistent, multidomain sensing and data fusion architecture” by combining seabed sensors, autonomous platforms, satellite ISR, and commercial data sources. A major focus is underwater communications, long recognised as a limiting factor in submerged operations. Prototype underwater mesh networks, acoustic modems, and hybrid optical acoustic links were explored during the wargame series, representing early steps towards a distributed, data-centric maritime surveillance model.

 

The wargames were conducted using UCL’s Cobalt Rocks ruleset, adapted to model physics-based detection, communications latency, bandwidth constraints and probabilistic classification. Three scenarios were constructed: a 2025 baseline, an initial TFX-enhanced posture, and a future Digital Ocean architecture incorporating an ASW glider barrier. A double blind adjudication model ensured realistic uncertainty, with Blue and Red operating from separate rooms and receiving only information their sensors could plausibly observe. Environmental conditions, endurance limits, and launch and recovery constraints were explicitly modelled, reinforcing operational realism.

 

Scenario 1 established the baseline. Blue possessed reasonable surface awareness but “almost no persistent subsurface sensing”, enabling Red to use a seabed operations vessel as a decoy while a grey zone merchant vessel severed a fibre-optic cable. The attack went undetected until after the fact, and attribution remained uncertain. The scenario highlighted the difficulty of distinguishing hostile intent from routine commercial activity in a congested maritime environment and showed the vulnerability of the current posture to deception and timing manipulation.

Typical ship and asset capability cards

 

Scenario 2 introduced initial TFX enhancements. UAVs extended patrol vessel horizons, USVs increased surface domain presence, and medium UUVs provided limited subsurface coverage. Red abandoned at least one planned attack due to the perceived risk of inspection. However, underwater situational awareness remained intermittent, and a Red MUUV successfully exploited a gap in Blue’s patrol cycle. The absence of an underwater comms network meant that even successful detections would not have been reported in time to prevent an attack.

 

Scenario 3 tested a future architecture featuring a digital underwater mesh network, expanded TFX mass, and an ASW glider barrier. The mesh network enabled near real-time reporting and dynamic tasking of submerged assets. The glider barrier successfully detected a Red SSK, allowing Blue to mount a coordinated non-kinetic response. However, Red’s multivector attack, which combined MUUVs, an XLUUV decoy, and a grey zone merchant vessel, showed that even advanced architectures remain vulnerable to coverage gaps and information environment manipulation. The ‘Visby incident’, in which a merchant vessel severed all fibre-optic cables to the island, illustrated the interplay between physical, legal and informational domains.

 

Underwater situational awareness remained the dominant limitation across all scenarios, driven by the Baltic’s shallow depths, variable salinity and complex seabed topography. Platform mass and distribution significantly shaped adversary freedom of manoeuvre, but mass alone was insufficient without optimised tasking. Communications proved a critical enabler; the mesh network dramatically improved responsiveness but remained sensitive to node density and environmental conditions. Endurance constraints created predictable windows of vulnerability, repeatedly exploited by Red.

 

The wargame series demonstrates that future capability development must prioritise persistent seabed sensing, long endurance UUVs, resilient underwater communications, and integrated system of systems architectures. Incremental improvements to individual platforms will not deliver the situational awareness required to protect critical undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.

 

The article above is an abridged version of a paper presented by Professor David Manley from University College London at RINA Warship 2026.

Under water capability   The Warship 2026 conference brought together naval designers, engineers, defence professionals, academics and industry specialists to examine the technologies and strategies shaping future submarine capability.   The theme, accelerating underwater capability through collaboration, ran through a programme covering technology insertion, digitalisation and digital twins, autonomy and human-autonomy teaming, lean crewing, innovative power and propulsion systems, novel materials, survivability, stealth, and quantum technology.   Sessions were drawn from a range of organisations, including BMT, QinetiQ, Siemens Digital Industries Software, Expleo and MARIN, as well as universities such as Adelaide and University College London. The format combined keynote addresses, parallel technical streams, Q&A panels, and roundtable discussions, with a drinks reception and wargaming activity on the first evening. BMT was the event partner.

 

 

This article appeared in Events, TNA May/June 2026.

The future of antifouling

Ulf Hansen, senior advisor maritime at Swedish company I-Tech AB, addressed the RINA Ship Energy Efficiency Conference in Athens in March 2026 with a data-driven challenge to the growing regulatory momentum towards biocide-free antifouling. His answer was unambiguous: yes, biocides remain essential, and prematurely restricting them risks making shipping’s environmental performance significantly worse, not better.

 

The scale of the problem

An estimated 200 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually are attributable to biofouling resistance, representing around 20% of total shipping emissions. A complete absence of effective antifouling protection could push that figure to 400 million tonnes. Even modest fouling carries severe consequences: coating roughness or light slime increases fuel consumption by up to 25%, heavy slime by 25-35%, and small barnacles or weed by 35-55%. By 2050, uncontrolled biofouling could be responsible for a 19% rise in total shipping CO₂ emissions. Hull fouling is also the single largest pathway for non-indigenous species entering European waters, accounting for 41% of the total. Approximately 95% of the global fleet relies on biocidal coatings, a proven, fleet-scale solution across more than 100,000 vessels worldwide.

 

In his presentation Hansen used drydock inspection data, compiled with Safinah Group, to challenge assumptions widely held in industry and regulatory circles.

Ulf Hansen, senior advisor maritime at Swedish company I-Tech AB

 

The first is that barnacle fouling primarily affects slow-steaming or low-activity vessels. The data show otherwise. Barnacle presence was recorded on 89.9% of product tanker hulls inspected, 88.4% of crude tankers, and 71.9% of containerships. Vessels reporting significant barnacle fouling across the global merchant fleet grew from 249 in 2020 to 685 in 2025, a near-tripling in five years. This data is based on 685 vessels’ in-dock data during physical inspection.

 

The key driver is trading pattern, not activity level: tankers and chemical carriers operating in warm, nutrient-rich waters with extended anchorage and frequent idle phases below 6knots are roughly twice as likely to suffer heavy fouling as high-activity vessels. As global sea temperatures rise, this pressure will intensify.

 

The second assumption is that barnacle fouling concentrates on vertical hull sides. Inspection data show the flat bottom is in fact more severely affected, with direct implications for hull cleaning strategies and coating specification.

 

The third is that fouling is primarily a consequence of coating failure. While polish-through correlates with increased barnacle levels, significant fouling is recorded even on hulls with no polish-through, confirming that operational exposure is an independent risk factor that coating selection alone cannot fully mitigate.

 

The available biocide toolbox is limited and shrinking, just when fouling pressures are increasing. Among targeted hard-fouling biocides, only two active ingredients are currently available: tralopyril and medetomidine. Hansen also notes that most commercially successful foul-release coatings still incorporate biocidal active ingredients.

 

A biocide ban, even phased, would leave self-polishing coating systems without their primary defence against barnacle settlement, while foul-release systems would become highly vulnerable in warm-water idle conditions. The result would be increased fouling, more aggressive hull cleaning, and a carbon paradox in which the regulatory measure intended to reduce environmental impact would increase fuel consumption, worsen CII ratings, raise EU ETS costs and elevate invasive species risk.

 

A call for collaboration

Hansen’s conclusion is that a biocide-free future is not yet realistic for most of the fleet. His call is for a more sophisticated response: regulators and industry should evaluate biocide policy jointly and holistically, considering emissions to both air and sea, rather than proceeding substance by substance. Rising sea temperatures and their effect on fouling pressure require proper investigation before further restrictions are imposed.

 

Looking beyond the binary framing of biocidal versus non-biocidal, he advocates collaborative innovation towards ultra-low-biocide formulations that minimise chemical load while maintaining efficacy across all vessel types and operational conditions. The goal is to ensure the path away from biocides does not inadvertently worsen the very environmental outcomes it seeks to improve.

 

This article appeared in Technical, TNA May-June 2026.

Wärtsilä rolls out NTPRO 7 simulator

Wärtsilä, the Helsinki-based technology group, has released NTPRO 7, the latest iteration of its navigational training simulation platform, designed to address the growing complexity of modern bridge operations and the accelerating pace of digital navigation standards.

 

The platform received a Statement of Compliance from DNV ahead of its commercial launch, which was scheduled for May 2026, following two years of piloting and validation.

 

Central to the new release is the RealSea visualisation engine, built on Unreal Engine 5 and paired with an advanced sound system to deliver a physically accurate, high-fidelity training environment. New-generation conning and overhead displays mirror contemporary shipboard systems, and the platform incorporates S-100-ready digital navigation training through Wärtsilä’s Navi-Sailor ECDIS.

 

NTPRO 7 introduces a Virtual Watchkeeper with AI-powered voice command recognition, alongside vessel models and training scenarios supporting wind-assisted propulsion systems.

 

Johan Ekvall, director of simulation and training at Wärtsilä Marine, said the platform had been developed to help training institutions respond to evolving regulatory expectations and vessel technologies. “NTPRO 7 is designed to help training institutions and academies prepare crews for changes by providing a future-ready simulation environment that mirrors modern bridge operations and supports long-term competence development,” he said.

 

The system is offered in scalable configurations, from full-mission bridge simulators to classroom-based setups, enabling institutions to tailor deployments to their infrastructure and instructional requirements.

 

This article appeared in Insights, TNA May/June 2026

Designed for Autonomy

The Royal Navy, like many Western fleets, faces a structural problem that has been building for decades. Warship numbers have declined as unit costs have risen, creating a force structure built around a small number of highly capable but scarce platforms. Fewer hulls mean reduced presence, less resilience to losses and limited ability to surge in a crisis. Meanwhile, personnel recruitment and retention are under growing strain, and the shipbuilding capacity of potential adversaries dwarfs that of the West.

 

The UK’s 2025 Strategic Defence Review confronted this reality, setting out a vision for a ‘hybrid navy’ in which crewed platforms are complemented – and in some roles replaced – by uncrewed and autonomous systems operating at scale. First Sea Lord General Sir Gwyn Jenkins has since framed this transition as existential, warning that a force that waits for autonomous technology to fully mature before integrating it risks being outpaced by adversaries.

 

BMT believes the answer lies not in building more of the same, but in rethinking the vessel entirely. Project MODUS, presented at UDT 2026, sets out a family of modular uncrewed surface vessels conceived from first principles around autonomous operation. The work, led by maritime autonomous systems engineering lead Chloe Yarrien and head of innovation and research Jake Rigby, draws on more than five years of BMT research and development, including programmes into lean-crewed platforms and large uncrewed surface vessel concepts.

 

A family of platforms

MODUS is not a single vessel but a coherent design philosophy expressed across multiple hull sizes, from a 15m pentamaran to a 40m medium uncrewed surface vessel and a 75m large uncrewed surface vessel. Rather than pursuing a multi-role design that attempts to do everything at the cost of doing nothing well, MODUS embraces role-optimised platforms, tailored to specific operational needs.

 

Here we focus on three underwater warfare use cases: military data gathering, seabed warfare and anti-submarine warfare. Six core design principles run through every variant: autonomy, modularity, availability, buildability, adaptability and affordability. The first and last are perhaps the most consequential.

BMT is embedding autonomy in its wider vessel portfolio (image: BMT)

 

Autonomy is a primary design driver, not a retrofit. Every decision about hull form, internal arrangement, systems architecture and maintenance philosophy flows from the requirement to operate without crew. Affordability, meanwhile, is framed as a strategic imperative. Uncrewed vessels that simply replicate the cost of crewed ships will not solve the combat mass problem; they will compound it.

 

Designed around the mission

The three underwater vignettes drive specific and practical design choices. Long endurance, a common requirement across all three, shapes the hull form directly. Narrow-beam, low-resistance hull forms are matched to their intended operational profiles. With no crew onboard, internal volume freed from habitability can be reallocated to fuel, though weight rather than space becomes the limiting constraint. Critically, endurance for an autonomous vessel is defined largely by maintenance intervals, and MODUS targets operational periods of up to 60 days through simplified propulsion, appropriate redundancy, and equipment designed to be removed and serviced on the quayside rather than onboard.

 

Flexible multi-domain surveillance, relevant to the data-gathering and seabed warfare roles, is enabled through a dedicated sonar gondola integrated into the medium vessel. The gondola is optimised for sensor performance and doubles as a stabilising keel. Controlling self-noise is identified as fundamental to underwater performance, and low underwater radiated noise need not drive excessive cost if acoustic performance is addressed early in the design process, rather than managed as an expensive retrofit.

 

For the larger vessel, Navy Persistent Operational Deployment Systems (PODS) integration extends multi-domain flexibility further. True PODS integration is more than simply providing deck space for containers. It requires designed-in access, deployment envelopes, and mechanical, electrical and data interfaces so that mission systems become integral elements of the ship architecture. Offboard systems, including inspection ROVs deployed via a moonpool, towed arrays, survey UUVs, sonobuoys and gliders, extend the sensor field without increasing crew demand.

 

The large uncrewed surface vessel variant, intended for year-round North Atlantic operations in support of anti-submarine warfare, is around 75m following seakeeping analysis supported by historic towing tank data.

 

Steel is cheap and air is free, and the operational benefit of improved seakeeping in the North Atlantic far outweighs the marginal increase in material cost. BMT proposes a stepping-stone delivery model, beginning with medium vessel deployments in UK waters on lower-risk tasks, building operational confidence before scaling to larger vessels in more demanding theatres.

 

Commercial uses

The MODUS family has clear dual-use potential, with the modular autonomous design applicable to offshore survey, infrastructure inspection and logistics, offering a route to drive down unit cost through wider commercial adoption.

 

The fundamental argument of MODUS is straightforward: autonomous vessels must not be seen as direct replacements for crewed ships. They must deliver genuinely different capability, at lower through-life cost, and at the scale needed to restore meaningful combat mass to the fleet.

 

Author profiles

Chloe Yarrien, maritime autonomous systems engineering lead, BMT; Jake Rigby FRINA, head of innovation and research, BMT

 

From top, left to right: Visualisation of 15m, 40m and 75m MODUS vessels; The 40m design incorporates a moonpool; Multiple MODUS units operating in formation illustrate scalable fleet deployment; MODUS design principles embrace modularity (image: BMT)

 

This article appeared in Technical, TNA May/June 2026.

Mapping the unmappable

Capturing actionable seabed intelligence in environments that defeat conventional survey spreads is forcing a rethink of platform architecture and sensor integration. That was the challenge facing Seaforth Geosurveys while assessing the Arctic seabed for a planned subsea fibre-optic cable installation in Ungava Bay, Canada.

 

The Nunavik EAUFON-3 project was spearheaded by Sulmara, a global seabed intelligence company, which specialises in capturing and interpreting high-quality offshore subsea data.

 

Sulmara’s answer was its Discover package, a bespoke technology stack combining a high-resolution 3D synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) sub-bottom system with inertial navigation and positioning sensors.

 

This was mounted on a specialised remotely operated uncrewed surface vessel (USV) to acquire data, with in-house software used for processing, interpretation and delivery.

 

Sulmara Discover can be operated both locally and over-the-horizon from a Remote Operations Centre in Glasgow, UK.

 

For projects such as Nunavik EAUFON-3, platform selection is central. Sulmara chose Ocean Power Technologies’ wave adaptive modular vehicle, WAM-V 16, a USV with an articulated, wave-adaptive frame and shallow draught.

Kevin Rychert, principal acoustic scientist at Sulmara (image: Sulmara/OPT)

 

“The WAM-V 16 USV was chosen for the integration mainly due to its motion compensating frame and versatility as a platform to meet host specifications for our technology,” says Kevin Rychert, principal acoustic scientist at Sulmara.

 

“Its independent wave compensating hulls allow it to adapt to sea states that would typically shut down smaller USVs’ surveys.”

 

He adds that the gimbled payload bay provides the stability critical for this type of work. “Other larger USVs don’t have this stability even with roll stabilisers,” he says.

 

WAM-V 16 is designed for small to medium-sized marine data projects and is a powerful survey tool, whether acting independently or complementing other vessels as a force multiplier.

 

Modularity and integration

Equally important is modularity. Unlike conventional hulls with fixed payload volumes, the WAM-V architecture allows rapid sensor integration without extensive redesign.

 

“The modularity of the WAM-V provides a great platform for developments and new technology integration as it is not constrained to small payload bays that are specifically designed to fit within a fabricated hull design,” says Rychert. “This allows us to add and integrate whatever sensors we need, quickly and easily without many architectural constraints.”

 

Key to the project was equipping the WAM-V 16 with the EdgeTech Buried Object Sonar System (eBOSS).

 

eBOSS can produce high-resolution, three-dimensional sub-bottom data across large tidal ranges and it can cope with cable routes littered with boulders above and below the seabed.

 

Full-volume sub-bottom data set at 5cm resolution is collected across a 120° swathe, enabling rapid coverage over large areas.

 

Rychert says that no other sonar system available can image the sub-seabed at this resolution, swathe width and depth in real time.

 

What differentiates the system is the coupling of sensing, navigation and processing. For naval architects, the integration elevates requirements around power management, data handling, onboard computer and communications bandwidth. In this sense, the USV becomes an active node within a distributed sensing network, rather than a passive survey platform.

 

The design integration is the culmination of years of work through R&D, sea trials and technology integration. “Discover combines the lightest and smallest 3D SAS SBI (eBOSS) on the market with the highest quality INS and GNSS sensors in a uniquely stable unmanned platform,” says Rychert.

 

The software doesn’t just record data; it integrates with the USV’s autonomous communication capabilities to provide real-time volumetric rendering.

A maximum intensity projection from eBOSS for the Nunavik EAUFON-3 project reveals hundreds of boulders ranging from <10cm gravel to >1m in dimension (image: Sulmara/OPT)

 

This allows operators to adjust path based on the quality of the incoming data, ensuring coverage and quality certainty without manual post-processing delays.

 

Rychert explains that the USV and Sulmara Discover pair so well that they have now been integrated on other variants of the WAM-V, most recently the larger 22ft version.

 

A changing methodology

The EAUFON-3 project is a benchmark for subsea surveys in general, Rychert says, and signals a methodological shift. Conventional ROV or ROTV surveys maintain a fixed altitude; a surface-mounted system must manage highly variable stand-off distances while maintaining data consistency.

 

But this survey was different. With water depths shifting dramatically from less than 1m to 20m, the project required continuous sensor adjustment and an entirely new approach to eBOSS data processing.

 

“As we move to surface-mounted systems, the challenge is interpreting datasets acquired at a dynamic range in a single pass without platform changes,” says Rychert.

 

A wider application

The WAM-V 16 USV and the Sulmara Discover package have a much wider application across the offshore technology and subsea sectors.

 

They can be used to survey any buried object such as pipelines and cables, unexploded ordinance, hazardous/lost debris and shipwrecks.

 

“The aim is to deliver the same insight that end clients need through faster automated, lower cost and higher quality technology and vehicle design methods,” says Rychert.

 

“Enabling a USV workforce with new emerging technologies can help achieve this in a safer, greener way.

“Discover has the potential to disrupt the subsea survey industry. Adding automation from AI and machine learning to this package further pushes the quality and efficiency we can deliver,” he says.

 

Projects such as Nunavik EAUFON-3 signal a structural shift in offshore vessel and technology design. Stability is being engineered for sensor performance as much as seakeeping; modularity is becoming essential and autonomy introduces new demands on control systems, redundancy and communications resilience.

 

Perhaps most significantly, though, the boundary between vessel and payload is dissolving.

 

Hull form, structural arrangement, power systems and communications architecture must now be conceived as part of an integrated design platform, optimised for data acquisition, processing and transmission, as much as for propulsion.

 

This article appeared in Subsea surveys, TNA May/June 2026.

Mentoring: Charting a course at Argo Engineering

The company

Argo Engineering Solutions, founded in 2016 by Simon Walley and based at Hythe Marina, Southampton, is a 12-strong team specialising in lightweight structures across composites, aluminium and high-strength steels. The company’s work spans five pillars of expertise: advanced structures, prototyping, high-speed light craft, windships, and hovercraft and air cushion vehicles.

 

The engineer

Emma Shepherd is one of Argo’s five engineering consultants, and her career illustrates how the company develops its people. Having completed an MEng (Hons) in Marine Technology with Small Craft Technology at Newcastle University in 2020, she had already spent two summers with Argo as an intern before joining as a design engineer, progressing to engineering consultant in September 2024.

 

Her technical experience encompasses naval architecture and hydrodynamics on concept projects, preliminary design of RIBs to various rule sets, structural assessment against ISO standards, stability assessments, lifting calculations, weight-critical studies and hoverbarge stability feasibility work. She has developed proficiency in finite element analysis using Strand7 and is practised in hand calculations for hull structures across monohull and catamaran configurations.

 

Her portfolio reflects the kind of multidisciplinary, hands-on engineering career that professional chartership is designed to recognise.

 

She says: “I am looking for an experienced RINA member who has worked on a range of projects and understands the chartership process – someone who could help me review my application and offer guidance and feedback on what I have prepared so far.”

 

What is needed

Shepherd is now preparing her chartership application, and it is here that a gap has emerged, not in her experience, but in the support available to her.

 

Argo has not previously navigated the RINA chartership process, and there are open questions around how to collate experience and present it in the format RINA requires. What is needed is someone who understands the process from the inside: how evidence should be structured, what level of detail is expected and how a candidate’s career narrative should be framed to meet the Institution’s standards.

 

What Argo can offer

Mentoring is already part of the fabric of how Argo operates. The four most senior staff, with between 15 and 30 years of experience each, provide active technical guidance to junior engineers. With six years post-graduation experience herself, Shepherd is well placed to support the four recently graduated engineers who have joined the company in the past three years.

 

Argo also offers work experience and internships to undergraduates, providing experience that contributes directly to logbook objectives. Once Shepherd achieves chartership, she will be glad to act as an external mentor to candidates at other organisations.

 

A mentor who knows the RINA process and can help Shepherd present an already strong engineering career in the right way would benefit not just one engineer, but an entire company’s approach to professional development for years to come.

 

Get in touch: info@argo-engineering.co.uk

This article appeared in Members, TNA May/June 2026.

Simultaneous ROV operations cut vessel days off Senegal

DeepOcean has demonstrated a methodology for combining subsea inspection and full 3D scanning into a single remotely supported ROV campaign, completing both scopes simultaneously across 69 subsea structures at Woodside Energy’s Sangomar deepwater field off the coast of Senegal.

 

Routine subsea inspection and structural 3D scanning are traditionally conducted as sequential, discrete operations, each requiring dedicated offshore mobilisation. By integrating them into a single campaign, DeepOcean completed the combined work in slightly more than half the vessel time that two separate operations would have demanded, while doubling the data output delivered to the operator.

 

The technical capability underpinning the campaign draws on a proprietary ecosystem that DeepOcean has developed over the past decade. The operational package encompasses inspection engineers and ROV pilots working with ROVs equipped with specialist scanning hardware, integrated with data processing software capable of exploiting computer-aided drawings, ROV footage and sonar returns. A proprietary 3D imaging software pipeline converts the combined data into full 3D models, with digital twin outputs generated for ongoing asset management.

 

Key to the methodology is photogrammetry, the extraction of precise spatial measurements and 3D information from 2D photographic data. The discipline combines optics, geometry, computer vision and imaging science to convert ROV footage and survey data into accurate 3D reconstructions of subsea infrastructure. Applied at Sangomar, this enabled the capture of high-resolution structural data that supports detailed planning for future inspection and maintenance activities across the field.

 

“By applying 3D reconstructions in our operations, we improve our capacity to detect structural anomalies like cracks or deformities and understand their proximity to critical components,” said DeepOcean CEO Øyvind Mikaelsen. “This enables timely maintenance and prevents failures.”

 

The Sangomar Phase 1 Development lies around 100km south of Dakar in water depths characteristic of deepwater operations. Production commenced in June 2024, making this baseline survey campaign a timely exercise in establishing the structural reference data from which future inspection findings will be benchmarked. The 69 structures surveyed included 17 subsea trees.

 

DeepOcean was already engaged at Sangomar under a broader subsea inspection, maintenance and repair contract.

 

The Sangomar campaign will be watched closely by operators seeking to reduce vessel day counts without compromising the quality or scope of subsea inspection programmes, a pressure that is only increasing as deepwater portfolios expand and cost discipline intensifies across the sector.

 

This article appeared in Insights, TNA May/June 2026

The big questions: David Andrews

David Andrews is professor of engineering design at University College London. His MoD career encompassed nuclear submarine design, the Invincible class aircraft carriers and early concept work on HMS Albion, HMS Bulwark and HMS Ocean. In 2020, RINA awarded him the William Froude Medal, its highest individual honour.

 

Why a career in naval architecture?

I have wanted to design ships since before I was eight when I was driving a pilot cutter in the summer of 1955 in the Bay of Port Philip, off Melbourne.

 

How has the industry changed since you started – for better and worse?

The ‘them and us’ between the management and the blue collar workforce used to be appalling, but the industry is now a cooperative endeavour where skills are respected, even if the City and government fail to recognise its worth.

 

What’s the most underrated skill in naval architecture?

Modern naval architects are highly capable users of computer-based technologies but lack the sense of life at sea for our end users. I was, as a naval constructor, educated in part alongside the Royal Navy and went to sea with them before designing ships and submarines. That time took in frigates, including full work-up and service off Iceland during the 1971 Cod War, a mine hunter, submarines, and a helicopter carrier.

 

Who in the industry do you most admire, and why?

Young women naval architects, whose excellent personal management qualities are sorely needed.

 

Which vessel do you wish you’d worked on, and why?

The 1950s Dreadnought submarine project with its lead designer, Louis Rydill. He was my professor at UCL and later my PhD supervisor and he had a profound understanding of ship design.

 

What’s the best advice you have ever received and who gave it?

Louis Rydill had a phrase in judging the professionalism of colleagues in the wider profession and the measure of working with them. He said: “His heart is in the right place.” And it was the correct basis for good collaborative working, which is the essence of designing complex vessels.

 

If you could collaborate with a naval architect from history, who would it be?

I am torn between three. First, Louis Rydill. Second, Sir Rowland Baker, whose career from the start of the Second World War to directing both the Dreadnought and Polaris submarine projects showed that technical design skill needs to be matched by management of a project’s acquisition strategy. Third, Sir Stanley Goodall, director of naval construction from 1936 to 1944.

LEARNING POINTS   Do your best But don’t succeed at the cost to your integrity.   “His heart is in the right place” Louis Rydill’s phrase is a good basis for collaborative working.   Design your ship inside out As examined in David Andrews’ article, The Sophistication of ESD of Complex Vessels.

 

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in your career, and what did it teach you?

Having witnessed, under protest, the mendacity of the senior administrators and the indifference of the uniform navy to the fate of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors (RCNC), I finished my government service saddened by the state of the once proud Royal Navy and its ships.

 

The RCNC has a distinguished history stretching back centuries, and to see its standing deliberately diminished was deeply dispiriting. It taught me that our national decline was significantly due to engineers being denied the status that they need to exploit the talent that has been emasculated since the time of Brunel.

 

What advice would you give your 25-year-old self?

Do your best, but don’t succeed at the cost to your integrity.

 

If you had a naval architect motto, what would it be?

I wrote a paper 100 Things (or so) A Ship Designer Needs to Know that is full of mottos.

 

This article appeared in Members, TNA May/June 2026.

Fincantieri to build high-speed Saildrone USV in Wisconsin

Fincantieri has announced it will build Spectre, a new class of high-speed multi-mission unmanned surface vessel (USV) developed by Saildrone, through its US subsidiary Fincantieri Marine Group. The collaboration was announced at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space exhibition at National Harbor, Maryland.

 

At approximately 52m in length, with a displacement of around 250tonnes and a top speed of 30knots, Spectre is the largest, fastest and most capable Saildrone platform to date. Optimised for anti-submarine warfare operations, the vessel offers extreme endurance and an ultra-quiet acoustic signature, while remaining adaptable to alternative mission configurations, including higher-speed and low-observable operational profiles.

 

Construction will take place at Fincantieri’s shipyards in Wisconsin, applying the group’s established industrialised shipbuilding methods and serial production expertise in advanced aluminium vessels to a next-generation autonomous platform. The programme is designed to deliver production continuity and industrial robustness alongside technological performance, reflecting growing demand from naval forces for autonomous platforms capable of being deployed in numbers. Spectre is engineered to integrate a wide range of mission systems and payloads.

 

 

Chartwell and Japanese shipbuilders sign wind deal

 

Chartwell Marine has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Cooperative Association of Japan Shipbuilders, which represents 59 Japanese shipyards, to support the development and local construction of crew transfer vessels and service operation vessels for Japan’s offshore wind industry.

 

The agreement, signed in Tokyo in March, builds on collaboration between the two organisations that began in 2023, including a Nippon Foundation-supported programme that introduced Chartwell’s crew transfer and service operation vessel designs to the Japanese market. The association will act as a bridge between domestic shipowners, operators and yards, and Chartwell, facilitating knowledge exchange to support vessels in meeting project requirements and local content rules.

 

Hiroyuki Nishida, managing director of the association, said: “By working together, we can help support the development of locally constructed vessels and contribute to the long-term growth of the industry.”

 

Andy Page, managing director of Chartwell Marine, said: “We look forward to continuing to work closely with the association and Japanese stakeholders as the offshore wind sector scales up.”

 

 

	HISTORIC TUG TO BECOME LUXURY YACHT   AURELIA Design, based in Amsterdam, is restoring the 1956 Wijsmuller Titan tug as a long-range yacht, retaining the original hull form while replacing conventional propulsion with a fully emission-free system currently under development.

 

 

These articles appeared in Insights, TNA May/June 2026