ShipCrunch

Tech threat: How a cheap device could sabotage shipping lanes

An excellent piece of reporting from Lloyd's List uncovers a threat to shipping's digital future 

By Ryan Skinner (email)

Imagine you're driving down an unfamiliar country road, in the dead of night, in a storm. You're tracking your route carefully on your car's GPS, when suddenly the signal begins to jump around the screen. According to the GPS, you've swerved off route and are racing into the forest at 300 kilometres an hour and swinging wildly. Lightning strikes and thunder ke-racks! Your car's warning lamps are now shrieking, and it feels like the gearbox is locking up. Lastly, your steering column ceases to respond, the muffler explodes and the accelerator gives its all, independent of your foot.

It's a nightmare scenario for ships' officers sketched by Craig Eason in an excellent piece of reporting recently in Lloyd's List.

10 technologies to change shipping - #2 composite hull materials

By Ryan Skinner (email)

In paradigm-changing shipping technologies, we swing from the ballistic (ballast water) to the futuristic. The idea of switching out steel with lighter stuff has been around for as long as ships have been built with steel. In the 90s and 00s, though, some ship design groups began making ground with unique composite materials.

Naturally, navies are leading the drive (what expense can the tax-payer not afford?). The US's latest destroyer class - Zumwalt - features a composite wheelhouse. Elsewhere, composite materials are being introduced wherever they are practical for cost and weight reasons. Some designs are more far-flung than others.

A leading Swedish research group has recently published final reports on composite materials in marine applications.

It's hard to beat steel in terms of price, flexibility and performance. It's pretty easy to beat in terms of weight, though, and this may matter in a world of peak-oil bunker prices.