Page 12: of Marine News Magazine (November 2026)

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Insights

Rik van Hemmen he regards the International Maritime Or- ganization as an example of successful in- ternational cooperation.

He credits IMO with helping estab- lish broadly accepted rules that improved

The Martin & Ottaway crew today.

maritime safety and environmental per-

His principal concern is that shipowners may select fuels formance, citing MARPOL and double based on immediate price advantages without fully consid- hull tanker requirements.

“People like to make fun of United Nations, but IMO is ering long-term operating and infrastructure consequences.

Ammonia is one example. Van Hemmen worries that its part of United Nations. If you want to talk about success, potential economic advantages could encourage widespread it’s incredible.”

His larger frustration concerns the absence of consistent adoption before the industry fully accounts for its toxicity strategic direction, particularly in government programs. and handling requirements. The result, he fears, could re-

Recalling his defense engineering experience, van Hemmen semble the historical experience with heavy fuel oil.

describes promising technical projects that were abruptly can-

Autonomy & Maintenance celed, leaving engineers to pack away their work. He sees a

Van Hemmen expects autonomous technology to become similar lack of sustained direction contributing to problems in U.S. Navy shipbuilding. “A government needs to set goals an increasingly important part of maritime operations. He and let commerce achieve the goals and the winner makes is less convinced that large oceangoing cargo ships will soon operate entirely without crews, as machinery requires main- money.” Without clear objectives, he argues, even capable en- tenance during a voyage. “It makes much more sense to have gineers and shipbuilders struggle to deliver economical results.

maintenance on these ships with crews that maintain them as the ship is running than to do it on the dock.”

A Hybrid Future

He expects automation to reduce certain watchkeeping

Van Hemmen sees the transition to cleaner marine en- requirements and shift some navigation and planning func- ergy as one of the industry’s most important coming de- cisions. He expects hybrid propulsion arrangements to tions ashore. But removing every person from a large com- become increasingly common, with designers balancing mercial vessel creates operational and economic problems that cannot be solved through navigation software alone.

batteries, engines and fuel choices according to vessel re- “So you probably have fewer watchstanders, you have quirements. But he also believes shipping would bene? t reduced bridge crew, maybe navigational planning takes from convergence around a broadly usable fuel.

His current preference is methanol. “I think methanol place ashore, stuff like that. But to see truly unmanned ships going, I don’t quite see that yet.” is the way to go.”

He approaches arti? cial intelligence with similar pragma-

He favors its handling and distribution characteristics, its tism. Martin & Ottaway is actively experimenting with AI for potential use in combustion engines and fuel cells, and the rel- research, engineering calculations and maintenance planning.

ative ease of integrating it into existing fuel supply practices.

Van Hemmen describes using AI to calculate vessel de-

He is careful to distinguish a preference from a de? nitive prediction. “I’m not saying that is the actual answer, and celeration in a marine casualty investigation. The system

I’m actually in a study group that is trying to ? gure out if quickly produced the relevant equations and a useful tech- nical explanation. But he emphasizes the need for profes-

I’m stupid or not.”

He previously believed liquid hydrogen would emerge sional judgment.

“A lot of times it’s not,” he said of AI-generated answers. as a broadly transportable fuel and acknowledges that his thinking has changed. Hydrogen, he believes, will remain “So that judgment still has to be there anyway.” AI can short- important, particularly as a means of converting surplus en the route to an answer. It does not eliminate the engineer’s responsibility to determine whether the answer is correct.

renewable energy into other fuels.

12 | MN November 2026