It’s true, the future is a foreign country

The strange object has recently found in a Shanghai coffee shop. The item, which resembles a single sheet of paper made of black wafer-thin Perspex has, after some head-scratching, been identified as a highly-advanced tablet computer.

Its password cracked, it has been revealed as the iPad belonging to a shipping industry executive working in the year 2065. How the tablet arrived in late 2014 from is still uncertain, though it is believed that it may have fallen through a wormhole in space-time when the unwitting executive was ordering a double-shot latte and a cinnamon swirl.

Having been thoroughly examined by security analysts, selected contents of the tablet have been released and the material, gathered from numerous future-contemporary sources, provides a fascinating glimpse of shipping 50 years hence.

The first revelation concerns the 10 year anniversary of the official end of maritime piracy, thanks to an agreement under which the pirates agreed to switch sides having reached the limits of earning power under their economic model. With pirates now acting as official coast guards and search and rescue agencies, shipping companies are able to rely on life-saving services in the place of those that few governments can now afford to provide.

This of course came as a blow to the private security sector. Many of the companies offering armed guards have been forced to adapt their business plans. The popular choice has seen some offer protection to shipping against the risk of meteor strikes, though many more have left the sector altogether.

In other news plans are confirmed by a major iron ore exporter to commission and build an 800,000 dwt bulk carrier to haul enough of the raw material to satisfy the demand in south, east and north Asia simultaneously. Whether such a behemoth was even possible had been uncertain, the tablet reveals, but a new design by the African shipyard that also will build the ships, has been approved by class, flag and insurers, the last of these at a healthy profit.

The owners also are close to sealing agreement three littoral states to have the Straits of Malacca and Singapore deepened to allow the ships to trade into Asia but new techniques derived from fracking technology suggest that this may be possible with minimal environmental damage.

The newbuilding contract seals the reputation of Africa’s shipyards, though competition was fierce from Central American rivals which have also become a reliable choice for owners seeking a quality product with delivery on time and to budget.

Meanwhile, the scrapping of tonnage continues all along the Gulf Coast of the United States, with good prices being given and the plentiful available of low-cost, unskilled labour continuing to fuel the US’ reputation as the world’s leading ship recycling nation.

Environmental groups continue to voice concerns that labour standards at US scrapping facilities are below those of the Hong Kong Convention but officials in Washington deny this, stressing the progress made in recent years to protect the health of workers.

The protection of the environment continues to occupy the minds of shipping professionals and perhaps with the end of conventional and unconventional oil and gas in mind, the executive had on his tablet designs for a two-plus-two series of hydrogen-powered containerships, for construction at an east African shipyard.

The ships are described as ‘Nicaraguamax’ – able to trade through the country’s new canal – but are probably intended for the South Africa-Japan voyage via the Northern Sea Route. The ships would of course be subsumed into the A1 alliance, the global umbrella under which all containerships will trade in the future; years of volatility, unprofitability and consolidation having run their natural course.

The executive was able to secure charters for the ship using a novel arrangement known as the ‘in-house competitive broker’. After years of attempts to impose electronic trading solutions and the greater use of technology on brokers, it became apparent that it was the most efficient solution simply to sit them in the same office as their clients to enable them to work together directly.

The newbuilding plans were marked as ‘as yet unapproved’, which puzzled the analysts until they were able to access a future edition of BIMCO News which explained that all shipowners were by this time subject to international rules covering capacity limits on the global fleet. These rules have succeeded in preserving the supply/demand balance in owners’ favour, though only after the high profile convictions of a number of owners in the tanker, bulk carrier and boxship sectors.

An editorial clipped from respectable industry publication TradeWinds spoke favourably of the rules and also of IMO’s new strategy of developing new regulations to a strict time limit that mean any urgent need can be fulfilled in a matter of days.

While there were objections to this from the countries whose role at IMO is to make such objections, the time limit concept was welcomed by many, though the European Union delegation warned that it would continue to press for ‘same-day’ regulations in extreme cases.

The editorial noted with regret that the Ballast Water Management Convention remained unratified but praised the recent decisions restricting the use of robots and unmanned ships. Technology developments have seen navigation via telepresence and virtual reality all but remove compliance issues around digital navigation, but the increased use of autonomous systems had caused concerns.
The enquiry into a collision between two semi-autonomous vessels in the Indian Ocean found that the robots controlling the ships had incompatible operating systems and were unable to understand demands made by each that their ship had the right of way. The only crewmen onboard were unable to intervene as they were in their cabins using free HD satellite communications to 3-D print spare parts for the main engine.
Opinion is divided on how to act further on the information contained within the tablet, some arguing that it distorts competition and others that it presents a moral conundrum. The consensus at present is that the battery will run out very soon, after which all we can do is wait.