Professor Lawrence Brennan was quoted for a BBC article on the benefits and risks of unmanned commercial shipping.
For Lawrence Brennan, a retired US navy captain and adjunct professor of admiralty and maritime law at Fordham University School of Law, all these virtues of uncrewed cargo ships come with certain caveats.
Ships with no sailors mean no risk to human life from fires or other hazards at sea. No-one needs to recruit staff, pay them, keep them trained or guard against unlicensed crew. The boats can go anywhere.
But, in Prof Brennan’s view, the first Achilles heel of unmanned shipping might be the very technology that created it.
A failure in communications between vessel and base will render it a ghost ship, hopelessly drifting without a soul on board, a hazard to its owners, the owners of its cargo, and the environment, he argues.
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“Unmanned ships may be stopped by pirates by disabling shots or damaging the ship’s propeller and rudder,” Prof Brennan continues.
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