A Letter from the new Co-Chairs

Welcome to this letter in which we hope to give you an overview of what the Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) SIG is about and what we plan to be doing in 2024.

You may have noticed a change in Chair. This is simply because Gordon, the previous Chair, has now become so busy that he feels it would be better for the SIG if he did not have such a prominent role. Gordon will still be a vital contributor to the SIG and as Chair of MASSPeople, he remains very much a key member of the MASS network.

Neil Salter has agreed to take on the role of Chair and Bob Doncom has kindly agreed to take on the role of Co-Chair. Neil is very grateful for this support from Bob and welcomes his expert knowledge regarding this exciting and rapidly developing area within the maritime industry.

In this SIG, we aim to bring together the many, disparate strands that all coalesce and contribute to the greater MASS picture. This will be done by inviting industry experts to share their perspectives on MASS plans and developments. As part of this, we plan to provide quarterly technical bulletins.

We recognise that many people are busy and have difficulty finding time to digest detailed technical bulletins so our approach will be to deliver a concise snapshot with 3 or 4 complementary experts giving their views on a couple of questions. This way, we will be able to provide a flavour and stimulate interest without overwhelming readers.

We also aim to provide a couple of regular webinars, again in fairly succinct form, but we will be inviting a fairly small panel of experts to respond to questions from any interested members. These webinars, which have been championed and originally conceived by Gordon, will be publicised well in advance to enable our audience to submit questions to the panel.

As you can see, 2024 is going to be an exciting year for the SIG and we look forward to taking you with us on this journey.

Compliments of the season,

Neil and Bob

MASS SIG Co-Chairs