Are sustainable fuels and AI the key to yachting's future?
At METSTRADE 2024 industry professionals could explore the latest trends shaping the future of the marine industry. During the event, several key discussions revolved around the integration of sustainable fuels and artificial intelligence (AI) in yachting, as the sector navigates its transition towards zero-emission solutions. This article highlights how these innovations are influencing boat design, operational efficiency, and the overall sustainability of the industry.
Yards are struggling with uncertainty about what will be the future energy source for yachting as the route towards zero emissions is progressing. Total electric is a possibility, already applied in medium sized cabin yachts and possibly achievable for large yachts in the near future. But with which energy are the batteries charged? Apart from the environmental footprint that is caused by battery manufacturing, is the environmental footprint of a yacht minimised by electrification if the energy comes from a grid that is powered by coal-fed power plants? Methanol is believed to be a viable option to be embraced by commercial vessels, and large yachts could benefit alongside this fuel that could effectuate substantial emission reductions. But there is uncertainty. Some advocate nuclear power to reduce emissions. The little remaining emissions would be radioactive, however. In the context of building large yachts future-proof, the yard representatives explain that they build their yachts with enforced and double-shelled tanks so switching over to methanol as a fuel can be done quickly and easily without the need for a long and costly refit. Until methanol is widely available, fossil diesel is bunkered.
Clean today
What about bunkering cleaner fuels today? Sales director Pier Posthuma de Boer of Feadship shares how he tried to provide his clients with plant-based diesel HVO: “We have tried to provide HVO for bunkering at the locations where the yachts go. As the local bunkering stations often do not have this fuel, we could bring a barge to bunker the yachts. This is quite a logistic challenge and one might ask: how much environmental gain is reached when a barge full of fuel needs to be transported in the wake of yachts? The supply of HVO is also limited. If the production of this fuel would be increased rapidly, this would mean that agricultural ground is dedicated to producing clean fuel at the cost of food production for humans. This cannot be morally justified.” “Bringing HVO to where the yachts are, is probably too expensive and causes its own pollution,” Niels de Vries of naval architecture office C-Job agrees. “Yet it could be a great gain if HVO was available at the main yachting hubs. That is where the yachts bunker for the season.”
Follow cars
At the E-fuels versus Electric forum discussion, the limited availability of ethanol, methanol, and the technological implications of using hydrogen are acknowledged. With the current state of technology, pure electric boating and yachting is only suitable for a small segment of boats. “Will the slow transition of the sector towards zero emission be acceptable for politics?” Research project manager Iacopo Senarega of Azimut Benetti Group foresees that governments will tax emissions heavily, and boating and yachting will therefore become quite expensive. “For leisure boating, I think it would be good to follow the route that is nowadays explored by the automotive industry. Manufacturers there are heavily investing in the exploration of hydrogen as an energy carrier for vehicles.”
Uncertain optimism
In the transitional phase the industry faces by the end of 2024, all the sustainable solutions appear as small steps towards yet unknown overall solutions for zero-emission boating and boat building. The sector puts marketing effort into attracting a more diverse audience to boating and finding new boat owners. Intentions to create true sustainability are sincere. Greenwashing or halfway solutions are clearly not what the industry is looking for. The final solution for zero-emission production and operation of boats is not yet found. Optimism is felt with all of the opportunities that the yachting and boating industry can embrace in the near future, but challenges remain in developing true zero-emission production and boating in time to avoid heavy taxation.
AI as the driving force
“We can embrace artificial intelligence to help us look at the essentials of innovation in the marine industry,” Icomia president Darren Vaux pointed out in his opening speech at METSTRADE, Tuesday morning at the breakfast briefing. Numerous green technologies emerged in the last decade. Today, the sector is exploring the integration of innovations to create the boat of the future. This transitional phase poses challenges, is the message that resonates through all the speeches and panel discussions in and around the trade show floor.
In his speech, Vaux (Icomia is the International Council of Marine Industry Associations) identified A.I. as the buzzword of the industry during this time at METSTRADE. Directly in his wake, skipper and head of sailing operations Terry Hutchinson from American Magic shared how his team, as a challenger in the America’s Cup, is using A.I. “Our crew and our engineers have shifted from time on the water to time at the simulator. A.I. can instantly provide feedback on how crew can act to improve the performance of the boat, while it gives feedback to the design team on how the boat is performing with certain parameters. The engineers use this to improve the design, without having to build costly hulls for testing. The good thing is: A.I. can present a lot of possible solutions and scenarios at an instant, where engineers would need hours of calculations. The America’s Cup is ultimately a designer competition, which is then won by sailors.”
Leveraging AI for enhanced design and performance
The buzzword is defined many times for its functionality, applications, possibilities, and suitability for yacht designers, designers of components and parts, and for sailors. At the Yacht Racing Forum panel discussion, A.I. researcher Mickael Brossard, partner at Quantum Black, said: “Yes. A.I. can make a boat go faster or help boat builders create a better design. It can help choose the best answer out of thousands of options. In a boat, there can be different configurations of electric components, hydraulics, propulsion power, the hull form and trim of the sails, and in some cases the shape and trim of hydrofoils. Finding the optimal configuration from all of these variables is something that A.I. is very good at.” His panel co-speaker Marcus Warrelman, CEO of SEA.AI, a manufacturer of A.I.-driven instruments that help avoid obstacles at sea, underlines the importance of good data. “The secret to getting good results is to feed A.I. with good data. For our cameras and sensors to identify objects floating at the surface or just under it, we want to build a very large database of floating objects so the computer can recognise such objects better. Would the kind of waves that are detected, different from the normal wave pattern, be caused by some loose floating debris, or would this be typical for an iceberg?” -”Indeed, creating augmentation and finding the right dataset is key if you want to put A.I. to good use,” Brossard agrees. Panel member Christian Dumard, CEO of Marine Weather Intelligence, recognises: “A.I. can analyse these thousands of variables in context much better than humans can do this. But getting all the data and using them as input into your A.I. tool is the hardest part of the process.”
AI to optimise fuel efficiency
When you know what the desired outcome of a calculating and design process should be, A.I. is already creating value for designers and manufacturers. It’s much harder if the final say is not your algorithm, but world market mechanisms that determine the availability of fuels. During the panel discussion ‘Fit for Refit’, organised by a joint Dutch marine engineers’ association, representatives from several yards that design and build large yachts are contemplating the possibility to include A.I. in the design process and in the yachts during operation. “For optimal performance and to secure sound maintenance, we equip our yachts with sensors that enable predictive maintenance,” sales manager Wim Verhoeff of OceAnco reflects. “As we already gather all the data, why don’t we provide this to intelligent software that can help the crew manage the yacht most efficiently? There is no doubt that A.I. can optimise a lot in fuel-saving operations of a yacht.”
