The tone was set by Futurenautics editor, Kate Adamson, who talked about the future of shipping leading to autonomous shipping. The navigational aspects of this movement were of interest to the audience, but she also highlighted economic aspects, as autonomous ships may save 40% on operations and potentially change the business model of shipbuilding and operations. This impressive glimpse into the future was followed by a contribution by Mark Nicholson of the University of York on organisational aspects of the monitoring navigator – especially the application security of it. Eric Styhr Peterson continued on this track, digging into aspects of the human-centredness of e-navigation systems.

Peter Blackhurst of INMARSAT presented the developments from the communications and data transmission perspective. This is a challenge, especially when looking at updates and the technical possibilities of arranging automatic updates.

John Klippen spent some time on the interests of stakeholders with their respective links. The day continued quite technically, with Nick Lemon of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority discussing the data and system architecture on board and a presentation by Capt. Sriram Rajagopal on implementation aspects. Training aspects are important, as Harry Gale of the Nautical Institute emphasised.

The Mona Lisa Project is a frontrunner in new developments in the ECDIS and e-navigation world, and Mikael Hagg gave an insight into the status achieved. One aspect – the options to sail and update usingECDIS and ENCs – was further elaborated upon by Tor A. Svanes of NAVTOR.

Day 2 of the conference was more hands-on regarding the presentations, with Bob Cockshott of the Knowledge Transfer Network explaining how vulnerable GNSS reception may be, especially in relation to the possibilities of jamming it, either intentionally or using a device. Dr Andy Norris dug deeper into this matter.

Charting aspects then came into play during the presentation by Roger Barker of Trinity House. There are new risks that are charted and he showed examples of wind farms and the Varne Bank on ECDISsystems and how mariners navigate in reality. William Heaps took the hydrographic perspective by taking the audience into a practical harbour situation where bigger ships have to manoeuvre. He made everyone aware of the surveying, charting and navigational aspects related to this, as well as the organisations that contribute from the start of a survey to the final docking of a vessel. Continuing with this practical aspect, Tom Mellor of the UKHO gave a presentation about the updating and revision of ECDIS systems and the challenges that this entails.

After these contributions, the delegates spent time in round-table discussions which were evaluated into conclusions.

Delegates to the conference also agreed to form a Special Interest group on e-Navigation, which would be hosted by IMarEST. They were supportive of this concept, as this could reinforce the road towards further implementation and development of the technology