Splash247: The common language shipping still lacks

Published by Splash247

Shipping’s digital ambitions are accelerating faster than the structures beneath them. The industry largely agrees on the need for open standards, but adoption remains constrained by proprietary interests, regulatory fragmentation and the absence of firm mandates. The latest chapter from SplashTech’s new magazine.

Shipping is no longer digitising in a regulatory vacuum, but the rules beneath its technology remain uneven, incomplete and slower moving than the tools entering daily use.

The clearest recent marker comes from the International Maritime Organization, whose Maritime Safety Committee has just adopted the International Code of Safety for Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships. The voluntary MASS Code entered into force on July 1, opening an experience-building phase before mandatory requirements are developed.

The code covers decision-support systems, remotely controlled ships, fully autonomous vessels and remote operations centres. Its weakness is scope. It says far less about the AI assistants, predictive maintenance tools and administrative software already spreading through wheelhouses, engine rooms and shore offices.

Classification societies are beginning to fill parts of the gap. DNV’s RuleAgent, for example, links its answers to source rules, establishing an important principle: maritime AI should be assistive, traceable and open to challenge. At Geneva Dry, the world’s premier commodities shipping conference, Lloyd’s Register’s Alberto Perez argued that accountability requires companies to define the function being deployed, its decision boundaries and its performance limits.

A ship is not a collection of isolated equipment. It is a system

The pressure is increasing as the EU AI Act moves into full enforcement, exposing companies to penalties when they cannot explain how systems are governed, what data they use and who remains accountable for decisions shaped by automated recommendations.

That governance challenge sits above a more basic problem. Shipping still lacks a common digital language.

One language for vessel data

Asked which single standard the industry should mandate, contributors repeatedly return to vessel data. P K Mishra, managing director of IRClass, calls for common definitions covering equipment identity, sensor tags, voyage events, emissions, maintenance and noon-report equivalents.

“Shipping does not suffer from a lack of data; it suffers from inconsistent data definitions,” he tells SplashTech. The aim, he stresses, is not to centralise every record, but to define minimum structures and meanings so information can move reliably between owners, yards, manufacturers, charterers, class societies and software providers.

Patrick Ryan, senior vice-president and chief technology officer at ABS, says integration is among digitalisation’s largest hidden costs. Owners repeatedly fund bespoke work to connect systems because each vendor uses its own format and interface. With standardised data, adding a tool could become “close to plug-and-play rather than a six-month exercise”.

Pankaj Sharma, chief executive of OneLink Performance, describes interoperability as the foundation for AI, autonomy, emissions management and safer operations. Daniel Koch, head of vessel optimisation at Manta Marine Technologies, makes the commercial case: too much time is spent cleaning, preparing and integrating information before anyone can use it.

Pradeep Chawla, chief executive of MarinePals, focuses on machinery. The full benefits of automation and reliability cannot be realised, he argues, unless data produced by different equipment can be analysed together. Casper Jensen, chief executive of GTT Marine, similarly calls for standardised, high-frequency operational data that automates reporting and prevents owners being trapped inside proprietary ecosystems.

Nikhil Mathew, chairman and co-founder of Admaren Tech, widens the proposed standard to cargo particulars, tank data, hydrostatic information, port restrictions, voyage instructions and operational status. “A common standard would not force companies to use the same software,” he tells SplashTech. It would allow systems to communicate while preserving competition, provided secure authentication and responsibility for shared data are built in from the start.SUBHEAD: Enter once, use everywhere

The strongest immediate case for standardisation may be reporting. Gry Sørås, head of branding and sustainability at Siglar, selects a global format for emissions and voyage data exchange. The same information currently exists in multiple forms, increasing cost while weakening data quality precisely as environmental performance becomes a commercial issue.

Friederike Hesse, managing director of ZERO44, would begin with the noon report, the foundational input for EU ETS, FuelEU Maritime, CII, EU MRV and IMO DCS. Reports arrive in numerous proprietary formats, forcing operators, compliance platforms and verifiers to cleanse and normalise data before meaningful work begins.

Credible frameworks already exist, Hesse notes, including the Smart Maritime Council’s Standardised Vessel Dataset and Energy LEAP’s Vessel Emissions Reporting Standard. “The technical groundwork is largely done. What is missing is mandate,” she tells SplashTech. Vendors have little incentive to surrender formats that create switching costs.

Michael DeVolld, cybersecurity lead at ABS Consulting, reaches the same conclusion from the regulatory side. He calls for one harmonised emissions format across IMO DCS, EU MRV, FuelEU and national schemes: information “entered once, reused everywhere”. This would return thousands of working hours while improving the evidence received by regulators.

From chartering to port calls

Standards are also needed around commercial decisions. Christoffer Svard, chief commercial officer at Sea, wants a harmonised record of chartering communications. Negotiations and decisions are scattered across WhatsApp, email and Teams, leaving the industry dependent on inconsistent, difficult-to-reconstruct threads. A common structure would make that information usable across the value chain without forcing every participant onto one platform.

Capt Kuba Szymanski, secretary-general of InterManager, points to the continuing bureaucracy surrounding port calls. A genuinely global Maritime Single Window would allow one standardised documentation set to be accepted by every port, replacing repeated submissions and incompatible national requirements.

Other contributors identify less obvious but equally valuable common languages. Henning Davies, chief executive of LedgID, advocates a globally interoperable standard for professional identity, credentials and verification events. Qualifications and compliance records should move securely across employers and jurisdictions rather than being repeatedly collected and checked.

Ronald Spithout, managing director of OneHealth by VIKAND, extends that concept to seafarer-owned professional, personal and health records. A consent-based framework could reduce administration, improve labour mobility and give medical teams trusted information during emergencies.

Vikas Pandey, chief executive of Shipfinex, proposes a universal, real-time vessel ownership and encumbrance registry. Title, mortgages and liens are currently fragmented across flags, banks, insurers and law firms. One authoritative record would reduce fraud, accelerate transactions and make shipping assets easier for institutional capital to understand.

Craig West, chief executive Europe at Weathernews, wants a machine-readable standard for operating severity. Terms such as heavy weather remain subjective, leaving systems, operators, insurers and regulators without a shared baseline for disruption, claims or voyage decisions.

The answer is not one giant maritime database. Peter Kraehenbuehl, vice-president at WinGD, argues for structured ship-wide exchange combining common data models, cyber principles, access rights and clear responsibilities. “A ship is not a collection of isolated equipment. It is a system,” he says.

Shipping already has many of the technical ingredients it needs. What it lacks is disciplined adoption and authority. A standard only creates value when competitors use it, regulators recognise it and customers can move their information without penalty. Until that happens, AI and automation will continue to sit on fragmented foundations, and the industry will keep paying people to translate between systems that should already understand one another.