Marine Log magazine interviewed Metal Shark’s Chris Allard as its CEO Spotlight, asking him about his company’s emergence as a leading force in its market sector in a short time. In the article he says:

“While I initially thought autonomy would come last to this sector, we are already seeing in being adopted. We are already seeing trucks in Europe ‘link’ together in highway trains. It would seem logical that this could occur in the inland sectors as well, and even offshore, for that matter. It is a lot easier to deal with autonomy if the boats can talk to each other, and in the most rudimentary form they already do, in the form of AIS and target avoidance alarms.”

Read the full article to hear Allard’s thoughts on marine autonomy, vessel connectedness, cyber security and more. Sea Machines and Metal Shark partnered in 2019 on the introduction of a new 29-foot autonomous vessel now commercially available through Metal Shark’s “Sharktech” autonomous division. This Sharktech 29 Defiant welded-aluminum monohull pilothouse vessel features OEM-integrated, Sea Machines technology offering a full range of advanced capabilities, including active control and collision avoidance. The system allows for traditionally manned, reduced-crew or unmanned autonomous operations to deliver “human-in-the-loop” navigation during both line-of-sight and over-the-horizon operations.