Remote-Vessel Operations Board Examiner — Offshore Services

The mandate

The board repeatedly asks which vessel decisions may shift to a remote operations centre and what happens when communications, sensor confidence or staffing falls below design assumptions. Programme papers describe autonomy levels and link availability, but do not make the human command transfer, degraded envelope, workload or cross-vessel concentration understandable enough for an investment and safety decision.

The adviser will reserve three days monthly for chair preparation, simulator or control-centre observation and management challenge, plus five scheduled committee meetings. A written perspective on a material trial incident is expected within one Norwegian business day. Formal safety case authorship, vessel command or supplier scoring requires a separately commissioned scope and cannot be folded into the retainer.

The initial term runs ten months from January 2027. At month eight, the committee will judge whether it can apply the remote-operation evidence framework before the next fleet decision. One four-month renewal may be approved by full-board vote for a specified unresolved phase; management cannot extend the term, carry time forward or turn advisory access into programme direction.

The examiner has no line authority, executive responsibility, navigation command, safety-case approval, class role or procurement vote. Advice challenges evidence and decision boundaries but cannot authorise a trial, direct a master or certify compliance. Accountable marine and safety executives retain every decision, and the appointment cannot be cited as independent assurance or transfer of statutory duty.

The monthly commitment may sit alongside at most two portfolio roles whose emergency demands cannot collide with a marine trial. Interests involving vessel operators, autonomy suppliers, satellite or private-network providers, class societies, insurers and current bidders require disclosure. Work on a competing remote-operation design or access to another owner’s incident evidence may create conflict that recusal cannot credibly resolve.

Why the board wants this voice

Directors bring marine, finance and safety experience but have not operated fleets where command, perception and intervention are distributed between ship and shore. Vendors present component confidence, while crews raise workload and practical failure concerns. The board wants a practitioner who can expose coupled human and platform risk without becoming a shadow master or programme executive.

What you will own

• Press directors to define which navigation, machinery and mission decisions remain aboard, shift ashore or revert under degraded conditions.
• Test communication, sensing, control, staffing and alert assumptions against realistic workload and simultaneous vessel events.
• Challenge autonomy-level language that obscures who notices uncertainty, accepts handover and carries command at each instant.
• Shape investment gates around witnessed intervention, safe state, recovery, operator competence and concentration risk across remote centres.
• Probe supplier dependencies where proprietary telemetry, control logic or communications constrain investigation, training or orderly exit.
• Frame scenarios involving link loss, conflicting perception, cyber isolation, fatigued shore operator and unavailable vessel expertise.
• Coach the committee to separate technology capability, class evidence, safety case and accountable marine judgement in its minutes.

Candidate qualifications

• Held senior marine-technology, fleet-operations or safety authority involving remote, autonomous or highly automated vessels.
• Governed transfer of command between vessel and shore under explicit communications, staffing and sensor-confidence conditions.
• Designed or challenged simulator evidence covering simultaneous events, workload saturation and degraded autonomy.
• Presented remote-operation investment and safety choices to vessel-owner boards, class or maritime authorities.
• Challenged a supplier architecture whose proprietary controls weakened independent incident reconstruction or fleet exit.
• Managed conflicts across operators, technology vendors, class societies, insurers and communications providers.

Non-negotiables

• Able to attend all five Oslo committee meetings and undertake planned control-centre, simulator and vessel observation.
• Will disclose marine, class, insurer, communications and autonomy-supplier relationships before receiving trial evidence.
• Accepts that masters, safety executives, class and authorities retain their statutory and operational decisions.
• Must bring accountable remote marine operations experience; autonomous-vehicle strategy from road applications alone is insufficient.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a remote-vessel command transfer that failed or was refused and the evidence behind the decision.
2. 49 words maximum. Which current operator, class, communications or autonomy-supplier interests require disclosure?
3. 49 words maximum. How would you test shore-operator workload when two vessels enter degraded mode simultaneously?