Digitalising seafarer credentials sounds straightforward, but replacing paper certificates with PDFs only solves part of the problem. In this episode of UnDocked, Nick Chubb and Raal Harris discuss new Thetius research into making crew qualifications more secure, interoperable and seafarer-friendly. They also cover Baltic maritime surveillance, GPS spoofing, a potential solution to shipping's 'sail fast and wait' problem and robotic hull cleaning.

CHAPTERS

• 05:52 – Thetius report: digital seafarer credentials
• 10:44 – Why scanned PDFs aren't enough
• 16:00 – The risks of paper certificates
• 21:44 – Creating a fake certificate with AI in 11 minutes
• 23:56 – Building trust in digital credentials
• 30:26 – Offline verification and interoperability
• 34:04 – Industry standards, seafarer rights and who pays
• 43:23 – Mysterious surveillance cameras in the Baltic
• 47:00 – Windward acquires Azimut AI
• 53:45 – GPS spoofing and navigational resilience
• 01:01:33 – StormGeo buys Portchain: fixing 'sail fast and wait'?
• 01:08:36 – Can MAGNETO clean your bottom?

Nick and Raal begin with Securing Trust: The Transition to Digital Seafarer Credentials, new research from Thetius commissioned by Maritime Passport.

The report examines how shipping can move beyond fragmented paper-based certification towards a system that allows qualifications to be securely issued, held and independently verified.

Nick recounts the experience of a master mariner carrying 4kg of certificates and demonstrates how he created a convincing fake training certificate using AI in just 11 minutes.

They discuss the importance of common standards, protecting personal information, offline verification and ensuring seafarers retain control over their credentials without having to pay for access to their right to work.

The conversation then moves to an unusual story from the Danish island of Bornholm, where a mysterious request to install coastal surveillance cameras eventually leads to Windward's acquisition of Azimut AI. Nick explains how computer vision could help track vessels operating without AIS.

Raal raises concerns about GPS interference, prompting a discussion about the vulnerability of interconnected bridge systems and whether traditional navigation skills, including celestial navigation, deserve renewed attention.

Next, StormGeo's acquisition of Portchain offers a potential route towards better coordination between vessel arrivals and terminal availability, tackling the persistent inefficiency of ships sailing at speed only to wait outside port.

Finally, Cargill's partnership with Neptune Robotics brings robotic hull cleaning into focus, with Nick and Raal considering the opportunities for safer maintenance and improved vessel efficiency.

Read the Thetius report:
https://thetius.com/securing-trust-the-transition-to-digital-seafarer-credentials/

EPISODE PARTNER

This episode is sponsored by Insight.

What if compliance simply happened as your business operated, instead of being chased after the fact?

That's the advantage of building NIS2 cyber requirements, IMO safety compliance and EU ETS reporting directly into operational workflows from the outset — not bolted on afterwards. Insight and SmartSea make that possible with an integrated digital approach that keeps these requirements running in the background of daily operations, not as a separate compliance project.

Because when compliance is built into how the fleet runs, it becomes another driver of performance, not a drag on it.

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Does keeping a human in the loop always produce better results? Heather Carroll, Chief Revenue Officer at Path Robotics, joins Nick Chubb and Raal Harris on UnDocked to explore how physical AI is changing robotic welding and what this could mean for shipbuilding, skilled workers and the future of maritime manufacturing.

CHAPTERS

00:00 – Heather's journey into robotic welding

02:53 – Robots, jobs and the shortage of welders

05:53 – How AI learns to weld through practice

09:07 – The origins of Path Robotics

16:01 – Why conventional automation struggles in shipyards

17:17 – Rove: the robot dog that can weld

19:16 – How automation could change skilled work

21:55 – The submarine welder's extraordinary working conditions

23:55 – Rebuilding American shipbuilding capacity

34:32 – HII, Path Robotics and the HYPR programme

41:58 – What tomorrow's shipyards could look like

48:09 – Weld quality, inspection and costly rework

53:23 – Could robotic maintenance eventually move onboard?

56:51 – Challenging the human-in-the-loop assumption

1:01:24 – How AI operates within welding standards

1:06:06 – NAVSEA, ABS and accepting robotic welding

1:09:31 – Resilience, reshoring and future shipbuilding

Heather's interest in welding is personal. Her husband operated a manufacturing business that struggled to find skilled welders, a problem that eventually contributed to his decision to sell it.

She explains how Path Robotics trains its Obsidian AI model using real-world welding data, why conventional industrial robots struggle with shipbuilding and how mobile systems such as Rove might offer new possibilities.

The discussion covers Path's collaboration with Saronic and its work with HII and GrayMatter Robotics. Heather also describes the working conditions faced by a submarine welder, raising difficult questions about safety and how skilled labour is used.

Later, the conversation turns to an assumption familiar across maritime AI: that a human should always remain in the loop. Heather makes the case for allowing trained models to adapt within approved welding procedures, while acknowledging where human involvement and technical oversight remain essential.

Nick and Raal also explore the potential for robotic maintenance at sea, the challenges of gaining technical acceptance and what a more automated shipbuilding industry could look like.

EPISODE PARTNER

Adding another digital system to the fleet is easy. Getting it to work seamlessly with everything else is where the real work starts.

Disconnected platforms create duplicate data, manual workarounds and unnecessary complexity across a fleet. Insight and SmartSea bring it together through a common integration layer connecting onboard operations, applications and data into one end-to-end environment — a fleet that's easier to manage, easier to scale, and ready for whatever comes next.

Because the best technology doesn't work in isolation. It works together.

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#UnDocked #Shipbuilding #PhysicalAI #MaritimeTechnology #Robotics

Recorded live at the Digital Ships Summit in Athens, Nick Chubb and Raal Harris debate whether shipping should prioritise efficiency or resilience as AI reshapes technology decisions.

From vendor dependence and workforce skills to governance and boardroom accountability, they ask how operators can embrace automation without surrendering control or flexibility.

CHAPTERS

• 00:20 IT's move from support to strategy
• 04:50 Episode partner: trusted fleet data
• 05:33 Efficiency or resilience?
• 09:42 Vendor lock-in and skills fade
• 15:14 Transforming organisations for AI
• 17:10 Leadership and AI governance
• 21:55 Measuring returns and building capability
• 27:11 Audience: data risks and shadow AI
• 32:29 Digital twins and human resilience

Live at the Digital Ships Summit in Athens, Nick and Raal begin with IT's move from back-office support to strategic decision-maker. What should shipping prioritise as technology becomes more central to operations?

Raal argues resilience must take priority over efficiency. Geopolitical disruption, recovery planning, vendor lock-in and skills fade can make efficient technology choices dangerously brittle. Nick calls this a false choice: resilience is unavoidable, while the bigger decision is how organisations transform for AI.

That requires informed leadership, practical governance, measurable returns and capabilities beyond IT. The audience confronts shadow AI, sensitive data and digital twins built from decades of institutional knowledge. They finish by considering how technology transformation can strengthen resilience rather than undermine it.

EPISODE PARTNER

Better decisions start with better data. But across maritime, fleet data is still fragmented, inconsistently standardised and uneven in quality.

A weak data foundation leads to unreliable decisions. The same is true for AI and analytics: they're only as good as the data they're fed. That's why getting the fundamentals right — data standards, structure and governance — has to come before scaling innovation.

When leaders trust the data, they move faster, invest with more confidence and turn digital ambition into measurable outcomes. Build trusted data foundations with insight. Follow the link in the episode description. Discover data solutions from Insight.

Two maritime conferences, one city, and two perspectives on shipping's future. Nick reports from Shipping UK, where geopolitics, resilience and digital investment dominated. Raal brings insights from Demystifying AI in Maritime, exploring trust, governance and seafarer wellbeing. Together, they examine the decisions maritime leaders can no longer afford to postpone.

CHAPTERS

• 00:00 Two conferences, one city: What you missed
• 01:12 Shipping UK: Geopolitics and national security
• 09:51 Resilience, decarbonisation and the true cost of shipping
• 14:01 Digital ROI: Measuring the return on technology investment
• 23:05 Demystifying AI in Maritime: From potential to practical application
• 27:47 The verification tax and AI's trust problem
• 30:24 Real-world AI applications and emerging risks
• 40:37 AI in the boardroom: Investment, accountability and people
• 50:31 Seafarers, shadow AI and the STEER project
• 55:14 AI bias and the importance of critical thinking

Nick and Raal compare notes from Shipping UK, hosted by the UK Chamber of Shipping, and Demystifying AI in Maritime, organised by Intent Communications. From national security to artificial intelligence, both events raised difficult questions about how shipping prepares for an increasingly uncertain future.

At Shipping UK, geopolitical risk dominated the conversation. A sobering keynote from Major General Paul Maynard highlighted the growing importance of commercial shipping to national security and the possibility that the UK may need to draw upon maritime expertise in a future conflict. But after decades of limited government investment in commercial maritime capabilities, is the industry equipped to respond?

The discussion turns to resilience and an uncomfortable economic reality: shipping may need to become more expensive. Building redundancy into supply chains, preparing for disruption and funding decarbonisation all require investment.

On a more practical note, Nick shares insights from his panel on digital return on investment. New benchmarking data reveals a significant jump in spending on AI and automation, while conventional IT budgets are being squeezed.

Across London, Raal attended Demystifying AI in Maritime, where the conversation has matured from excitement about AI's capabilities to more fundamental questions of trust and accountability.

Raal shares practical examples, including AI-powered food waste monitoring on cruise ships, alongside emerging threats from fraudulent certification, cyberattacks and information overload. A discussion with ABS also challenges the assumption that giving AI more context necessarily produces better answers.

The conversation then moves into the boardroom. How should directors evaluate AI investments when the technology is evolving faster than conventional governance processes? Finally, attention turns to seafarers, who are already adopting AI tools regardless of whether their employers have formal strategies in place.

EPISODE PARTNER

This episode is sponsored by GTT Marine.

Every integration RFP in shipping asks for a single source of truth. Almost no fleet actually wants one in practice.

Why? Because, as one operator told the team at Thetius, the moment you force everything into one platform, you risk sacrificing best-in-class functionality.

The great integration, the new Thetius and GTT Marine report, makes the case for something more achievable.

A consistent view across the systems your teams already trust. Recommended reading for anyone running an integration RFP.

Download it here.

Eman Abdalla joins Nick Chubb and Raal Harris to discuss building SeaThrew Marine, why ownership matters for safety and seafarer welfare, and what meaningful maritime transformation demands. The conversation spans operational accountability, career reinvention, decarbonisation, collaboration, incentives, technology, and the challenge of turning ambition into everyday practice at sea.

CHAPTERS

• 03:31 Why ownership changes accountability
• 07:46 Commercial viability and seafarer safety
• 09:30 Using technology to reduce risk
• 11:58 Courage, culture, and difficult decisions
• 16:03 Why transformation fails at adoption
• 18:51 Transforming operations at Cargill
• 23:26 Turning operations into a P&L enabler
• 29:59 Leaving the corporate identity behind
• 33:12 Designing a career with intention
• 41:03 Decarbonisation beyond future fuels
• 47:55 Fixing incentives across the value chain
• 51:50 What effective collaboration requires
• 56:18 What comes next for SeaThrew Marine

Eman Abdalla joins Nick and Raal to explain why founding SeaThrew Marine was the culmination of a career spanning chartering, operations, logistics, governance and strategy, and why her original ambition was not simply to advise shipowners, but to own and operate vessels herself.

In Emans’s view, influence only goes so far. Charterers, managers and operators can set standards and shape behaviour, but ultimate responsibility for safety, seafarer welfare and investment decisions still rests elsewhere. Her aim is to build a business where commercial performance and operational accountability sit in the same place.

The conversation moves into the practical meaning of transformation. Eman argues that technology should do more than optimise fuel consumption: drones, better data, AI and redesigned processes should also reduce risk for seafarers and improve the quality of everyday decisions.

She also reflects on her time at Cargill, including the work of repositioning operations from a perceived cost centre into a function that protects and enables P&L. That required trust, stronger communication, talent development and a clear link between organisational values and daily decision-making.

The discussion then turns to career identity and Eman’s decision to leave the security and visibility of a major corporate role. She describes the vulnerability of separating her own professional identity from a large company name, alongside the freedom to pursue board work, entrepreneurship and problems where she believes she can have a direct impact.

Finally, the conversation examines shipping’s decarbonisation challenge. Eman argues that uncertainty over future fuels cannot become an excuse for ignoring operational efficiency today. Better voyage planning, port coordination, contractual incentives and data sharing could cut avoidable emissions now, but only if owners, charterers, ports, cargo interests and operators stop optimising their individual piece of the system in isolation.

EPISODE PARTNER

Compliance in maritime is too often treated as a constraint. Done properly, it's the foundation for better operational performance.

The real barrier isn't the regulation — it's fragmented data and inconsistent standards, which make compliance manual, slow and reactive. Standardise the data and strengthen the governance, and compliance starts improving data quality and reducing inefficiency across the fleet, instead of just sitting on top of it.

Compliance isn't the anchor holding the fleet back. It's the keel that keeps it stable — and lets you move faster with more confidence.

Build compliance into every workflow with Insight.

Nick and Raal explore how LLM-native apps could reshape maritime workflows, why shipping companies are struggling to define the modern CTO role, and what CCTV, digital identity and maritime single windows reveal about interoperability.

CHAPTERS

• 03:40 MCPs, LLMs and the future of maritime transactions
• 14:52 When maritime standards meet the wider technology ecosystem
• 18:30 Shipping’s “unicorn” CTO problem
• 25:44 AI-powered CCTV arrives on board
• 30:15 Surveillance, privacy and the social contract
• 36:53 The Hawthorne effect and monitoring crew behaviour
• 39:29 Why the Maritime Single Window still isn’t truly interoperable
• 49:11 AI agents, digital identity and converging workflows
• 52:14 Why all of this lands on the CTO’s desk
• 57:02 Strategic choices, resilience and avoiding technology drift

The episode opens with Nick testing Princess Cruises’ new ChatGPT integration and asking what happens when the browser stops being the default interface to digital services.

That leads into shipping’s search for increasingly improbable technology leaders: CTOs expected to understand cloud infrastructure, cyber security, AI, data, vendors, transformation and the operational realities of ships. Nick and Raal consider whether companies need deep maritime experience, deep technology expertise, or teams deliberately designed to combine both.

The discussion then moves on board, where AI-enabled CCTV promises better safety analysis, automated evidence and reduced administrative workload while raising difficult questions around privacy, crew acceptance and surveillance.

Finally, they examine the Maritime Single Window, seafarer identity and certification as examples of a wider interoperability problem. Digital systems may be individually compliant yet still fail to work together.

Tickets are still available for the Digital Ship Summit in Athens. Join maritime IT leaders for practical discussion around the technology choices shaping the fleet.

EPISODE PARTNER

This episode is sponsored by Insight.

Most organisations invest in preventing a cyber incident. Fewer can say, with confidence, how they'd keep operating on the day one happens.

Insight and SmartSea build resilience so an incident is a disruption, not a shutdown — connecting technology, people and operational workflows so critical decisions can still be made even when a single system is compromised.

Because resilience isn't only about stopping attacks. It's about keeping the business moving when one gets through.

Future-proof your digital defences with Insight.

This week, Nick and Raal examine how geopolitical disruption is exposing hidden dependencies across shipping: from helium shortages and future-fuel investment choices to soaring freight markets and cyber risk. They also trace the global supply chain behind a Greggs sausage roll, revealing how deeply everyday life depends on maritime trade.

CHAPTERS

• 01:03 Helium shortages and an unexpected shipping dependency
• 03:35 Qatar, Hormuz and the global helium supply chain
• 08:40 Shipping’s difficult alternative-fuel investment choices
• 15:20 What the newbuild engine mix says about 2050
• 19:00 Ammonia safety and the long road to fuel adoption
• 24:25 Could alternative fuels reshape tramp shipping?
• 40:19 The sea miles behind sausage rolls

Nick opens with one of shipping’s less obvious supply-chain vulnerabilities: helium. Its role in MRI scanners, semiconductor production and aerospace makes disruption to Qatari supply more consequential than the commodity’s profile might suggest.

Raal then turns to study published by the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD) and Boston Consulting Group on shipping’s fuel transition and the decisions being embedded in today’s newbuild orderbook. The pair discuss the economics of conventional fuels, LNG, methanol, ammonia and onboard carbon capture, and why carbon pricing, hydrogen costs, bunkering availability and safety requirements make a 25-year investment decision exceptionally difficult.

That uncertainty raises a bigger operational question. If future fuels are available only along selected corridors and port networks, could shipping become less flexible? Nick considers whether tighter dependence on known bunkering locations could constrain tramp operations and encourage more fixed trading patterns, while Raal points to combination carriers as an example of how the industry can extract more efficiency from established routes.

Nick brings that global system down to the scale of a single Greggs sausage roll, tracing ingredients and inputs across Canada, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, India, Morocco, Ukraine and the US.

The episode closes with a more immediate operational concern: a cluster of reported cyber incidents involving tankers and gas carriers. With allegations involving cargo-monitoring and control systems rather than only conventional IT or navigation, Nick and Raal discuss why cyber resilience is increasingly a safety and fleet-management issue, not simply an information-security problem.

EPISODER PARTNER

This episode is sponsored by Insight.

Fleet IT shouldn't mean a constant cycle of hardware refreshes, scattered support contracts, and capital tied up in kit that's hard to maintain.

It's the same discipline behind Insight's day-in-the-life device management on the Aroya refit — every one of 650-plus onboard devices tracked, maintained and accounted for across its lifecycle, on schedule and within budget.

Insight's Ship-to-Shore IT Asset Management brings that same model fleet-wide, modernising onboard technology without upfront capital spend — shifting fleet IT from a lump CapEx cost to a predictable service.

It's a smarter way to run fleet IT — freeing your teams to focus on operations, not infrastructure.

Simplify your fleet IT with Insight.

This week, Nick and Raal ask whether bunker suppliers could become an unlikely force for crew welfare, examine why the world map may finally change, and explore South Korea’s bet on sovereign AI. They also unpack mounting AI safety concerns before ending with shipping’s newest minimal-techno artist: Handysize.

CHAPTERS

• 01:32 Could bad crew welfare cost shipowners their bunkers?
• 07:22 Why maritime suppliers may have more leverage than we think
• 11:36 Connecting crew performance, maintenance and procurement data
• 14:57 Why doesn’t better training affect insurance premiums?
• 19:25 Can maritime risk data drive prevention, not just pricing?
• 21:33 The end of the Mercator map?
• 30:42 South Korea’s plan to make AI a public utility
• 43:20 AI insiders sound the alarm over the race to superintelligence
• 52:01 Would AI regulation protect incumbents?
• 01:01:17 Shipping gets a techno artist: Handysize and 14 Knots

The episode opens with an unusual proposal for tackling one of shipping’s most persistent welfare problems: what if suppliers simply refused to do business with operators that mistreat or fail to pay their crews?

Raal highlights Suzun Marine Fuels’ move to include crew-welfare provisions in bunker contracts, allowing it to refuse or cancel supply where operators have been reported over issues including unpaid wages, poor conditions, forced labour or modern slavery.

That leads to a wider discussion about the overlooked influence of maritime suppliers and how unpaid wages can be used as a signal for financial distress at the organisation-level.

From there, they turn to P&I and loss prevention, asking why investment in crew competency and training is still so weakly connected to the way maritime risk is priced.

From there, Nick gives a brief history of the Mercator map and its proposed replacement: The Equal Earth projection.

The second half moves into AI. South Korea’s plans for a sovereign, widely available generative-AI capability prompt a discussion about what happens when AI starts to look less like a software subscription and more like national infrastructure.

That optimism is followed by the darker side of the AI race. Raal tracks a rapid sequence of resignations, safety warnings and calls for greater oversight from researchers and industry leaders.

They finish on a less apocalyptic note with former Shipfix co-founder Antoine Grisset’s return to electronic music as Handysize, including his debut track 14 Knots, dedicated to women at sea.

You can support Handysize and women in maritime here:

EPISODE PARTNER

This episode is sponsored by OneOcean

Weather has always shaped shipping. But what happens when conditions become more extreme, less predictable, and the consequences start reaching far beyond the voyage plan?

On 29 September, Digital Ship Media and OneOcean are bringing together senior maritime leaders to explore what that means in practice - from vessel performance, cargo and fuel consumption to schedules, crew wellbeing and commercial decisions.

You’ll hear from Capt. Harpreet Singh, COO of Suisse Atlantique, and Peter Turner from OneOcean, in a discussion moderated by Nick.

Register here and join the discussion on 29 September.