ACTISENSE EYES COMMERCIAL MARINE

“We were doing things in a much more basic way, so it’s been a big step up. Each product is almost like a little computer in itself – it’s got its own website, you can see what it’s doing in a live situation – and with a satellite connection you can change all the settings on a boat remotely with a VPN.”

Data is everything – almost “Behind the scenes, everything is bits of data,” says Whitehurst. “It’s all happening in the background and telling you about the depth of water, speed, direction, hazards, range –everything.

“We’re all about the expertise, about understanding the boring bits that the navigators don’t want or have to know – like how to get the data and convert it. This is what the company’s philosophy is all about, from the sensor right up to the data that connects to the controls.”

He says low-earth orbit satellites could open up a lot for the sector with even more data becoming available, such as live situational data, which could tell a fisherman exactly where all the other

Fishing vessels in the fleet are at any one time.

“We can now make a leaner crew, where the crew on board are there just to keep things running day to day and not necessarily to do the heavy-duty navigation tasks – you might just have a couple of watch officers making sure that visually everything’s okay, but most of it can be done electronically.”

Which isn’t to say we will see fully autonomous ships for a while yet, he concedes – ‘there’s always someone that needs to go round with a screwdriver’ – and in very bad weather if satellites are taken out there needs to be a core crew there ‘at least in limp-along mode’ until things get fixed.

But it’s moving fast, and after the recent Type Approval, Actisense has seen an uptick in orders that as they reach deeper into commercial marine is looking likely to rise much higher.