Less than twenty years is well within the lifetimes of many of the ships that are sailing today, but can we expect the next generation but one – the class of 2030 – to be dramatically different?We need, as we consider this question, to look at some of the “drivers” that will govern ship design in future years. What are the customer of the ship designer, and the ultimate users of ships – the shippers– going to be looking for? Here are a few guesses.
Ships will continue their move towards increased specialisation , although more intelligent operation may well reduce those number of empty voyages. It is called better utilisation and may come from bigger shipping companies or greater co-operation between them.
They will be more efficient in terms of their fuel usage, with better engines and less waste products. We can get some sort of clue from the automotive industry, with the sort of efficiency improvements they have been able to deliver in recent years. Marine engine builders will be doing the same. And who knows, we might see the advent of commercial nuclear “cassette” power plants that can power a ship for up to seven years without refuelling, along with their specialist engineers. We will see more scale economies, with bigger and better ships of all kinds, with the proviso that the ports and the infrastructure can handle them. It makes a lot of sense from all sides, but only if the ports don’t get choked up with goods they cannot shift after big ships have arrived.
We could see some revolutionary changes in the bulk trades, with less waste rock accompanying the iron ore on its long sea voyages, perhaps seeing part processing close to the mining operations, and mineral products rather than raw materials seeing spectacular growth. And in the tanker trades, it is perhaps likely that we will see more icebreaking tankers with the energy development in the Polar regions, and a shift in the deep sea oil trades as the refinery world changes.
Look for some dramatic changes in the cruise market, with innovative designers changing the whole shape of the “platforms” they need to provide floating visitor attractions. We might, at long last, see a return to the coastal shipping services in a big way, with coastal and short sea distribution taking over from choked road systems in so many industrialised countries. Look for dramatic breakthroughs in Europe, Japan and the United States in particular, where the scope for landside transport is most constrained. Enter, perhaps, the “sea lorry” and its fast, clean, congestion-free operations!