IN THE sUAS NEWS Maersk makes ship to ship drone cookie delivery BY GARY MORTIMER | 10 MARCH 2016
“We’ll try and get some distance between us and the vessel, as much as we can while keeping visibility through the fog,” says Kuhn, Supply Chain Manager at Maersk Tankers and part of Maersk Group Procurement Marine.
I must admit I am skeptical of drone deliveries on the whole, but moving smaller supplies to vessels at sea does seem sensible on the face of it. Only a bag of biscuits to start with but a drone delivery nonetheless.
The airframe itself is from Xamen, and according to their website:
"Xamen Technologies is an innovative company with headquarters located in Pau, Pyrenees Atlantiques drone-and-briefing(64), Aquitaine Region, French bastion of UAV industry. Our company designs and develops unmanned aircraft in strict compliance with the legislation of the industry (DGAC, Ministry of Transport). As a manufacturer, we sell two types of UAV (D and E, based on French categories), in France and abroad. We train customers on our systems in our certified training center. Finally Xamen Technologies is a member of several representative aeronautical organizations."
Which comes as a surprise because when I saw the name I assumed it was Chinese!
Maersk further states:
"In the tankers business, it can be hard to predict far in advance which port will be called next and even when in port, it can be complicated and expensive to deliver items to vessels as they are not alongside the quay.
Costs for a barge are on average USD 1,000 and can be higher. That means, drone use could with the current payload bring potential savings of USD 3,000-9,000 per vessel per year, Maersk Tankers estimates."
Sounds to me like big Nitro heli’s might have a bright future in the maritime environment. They can carry more further and faster. Its a pretty low risk environment to others.