Uncertainty has always been part of the shipping industry. But as vessels become increasingly connected and the volume of data available to operators continues to grow, the challenge is no longer simply having access to information. It is knowing what matters, what can be trusted, and how to turn it into effective decisions.
In this interview, Ollie Raymond, Global Director of Shipping and Offshore at Pole Star Global, explores how technology, data and human expertise can work together to support safer and more efficient maritime operations. From increasingly sophisticated weather models and AI-driven insights to real-time intelligence and the role of experienced meteorologists, Ollie discusses why more information does not necessarily mean greater clarity.
Ultimately, effective decision support is about more than collecting data. It is about filtering, analysing and adding the right context, so masters and operators can build a clear picture of the situation around them and make decisions with confidence.
Transcript
Hello and welcome. I’m joined by Ollie Raymond, Global Director at Shipping and Offshore at Polestar Global.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Good to be back now.
Has managing uncertainty become a permanent part of running a shipping organization?
To a certain extent, Shipping’s always operated on the periphery of the unknown.
Effective operations involve making the most well informed decision on the back of the best available data and an ability to make that decision as swiftly as possible.
Historically, vessels access to this kind of data was severely limited.
So the ship was very much reliant on the tools, on the equipment and the experience of the seafarers on board to be able to make those kind of judgements.
Nowadays vessels have incredible access to data.
Connectivities improved tenfold and the information the vessels recording is being streamed shore side.
t’s being combined with additional data sets and metrics all adding context to that submitted information.
And this is extremely valuable for comparisons, for benchmarking.
And of course this can also then be sent back to the ship to improve the decision making on board and and to complete that feedback loop as a result.
So all of this helps to manage and ultimately reduce that uncertainty as much as, if possible.
Fantastic. And when receiving huge amounts of vessel data, how important is human judgement in deciding what actually matters?
At the end of the day, it remains to be fundamental, particularly in the current age of AI, where there’s perhaps the dangerous assumption that that alone is sufficient to be able to make these kind of decisions.
Human experience is unrivalled, particularly in situations where we might not have the complete picture, we might be missing specific data sets.
As such.
Now, machine based outputs are extremely valuable.
They’re a very important tool as a contributing factor to make that decision.
But so long as there’s risk for seafarers, there’s risk to life as a direct consequence to the decisions that have been made.
We’ve got to maintain absolute accountability and ownership of how and why these decisions are being reached.
And how much can masters and operators rely on increasingly sophisticated weather models?
And where do the involvement of meteorologists actually make the difference?
Streaming source weather model data to a vessel is a very airtime and resource heavy process, let alone the time it then takes to examine those kind of results.
So our approach is actually to complete the extraction, the analysis, the comparison of this data choreside where we have far better computing power, far better connectivity and a team of marine meteorologists to apply their expertise to, to understand exactly which weather model is most likely to be accurate on which occasion.
And then to concisely present their findings to the vessel so the master can take the the most relevant course of action from that point onwards.
Monitoring a transoceanic crossing is a 24/7 undertaking and and we know that operators and masters already have a multitude of tasks to be getting on with.
So to have an entire team there to oversee the vessel, to engage in discourse with the vessel back and forth, providing additional clarification, not only does this provide uninterrupted coverage, but it helps improve the safety on board the ship and helps to improve the efficiency of the vessel as a result.
And we have one final question for you.
Is there a danger that that the industry starts confusing having more information with more uncertainty?
And if so, what does good decision support look like in practice?
That certainly can be the case.
There is the argument that having more data would lead to a loss of clarity.
It can dilute what’s important.
On the other hand, if you’re going from one data source to two, it actually adds complexity to the situation, particularly if the results are conflicting.
It’s only by adding more context or perhaps a third data source, you start to recognise trends and anomalies where they exist.
Good decision support involves a multitude of accurate, reliable data sources, plus an additional layer of human input on top, vetting those results based on experience and based on corroborating reports.
A good example at the moment is the ongoing events in the in the Gulf.
Operationally, geopolitically, it’s continuously changing from a safety and security perspective.
We need to be forwarding across to those vessels live factual reports on incidents in the proximity of the of the ship.
This can’t be based on hearsay, it can’t be based on speculation.
And given the immediacy in the turn around of these reports, quite often we don’t initially have the complete picture.
So that’s where the experience of the Shoreside team is fundamental in ensuring the master can build a sufficient picture of what’s going on around them and make the best decision as a result.
We can’t keep adding data to a situation and hope that it’s going to improve the clarity.
Instead, we’ve got to be able to effectively filter, analyse, combine and and ultimately explain the available information in a way that improves the clarity.
Then when you have that final layer of human input on top, from the right humans, I must add, that’s where the outputs can be genuinely trusted and it instills far more confidence in those making the decisions and those ultimately responsible for acting upon them.
Fantastic. It’s always a pleasure to have you in the studio with us. Thank you for your time and insights today.
Thank you.