Claire Pekcan wants the shipping industry to remember the human element.

A director at Southampton-based Safe Marine and a former professor at Warsash Maritime Academy and Southampton's Solent University, Pekcan sees the industry’s technological push as an opportunity not to replace but augment crew members.

“We can develop systems if we involve the seafarers and the shipmanagers and the superintendents in the design of these systems, because they’ve got the expertise working on board and running ships,” she says.