World Maritime Day is the one date the IMO gets to mark its own work. This year the rulebook it was meant to deliver has been pushed beyond the end of a presidential term while owners commit to hulls that will trade into the 2050s.

So the industry is manufacturing its own certainty. The hedge is now written into the specification rather than waited for in a treaty. Optionality has become the product.

Regulation has turned into the least reliable input in the model. Is your fleet plan built to wait for the rules or to work without them?

Two days before World Maritime Day, a shipping regulation was named from the podium of the UN General Assembly. The IMO's Net-Zero Framework has left the technical committees where shipping has always settled its rules and entered national politics, where the argument is about sovereignty and taxation rather than fuel chemistry.

The consequence for owners is a decision made for them. The framework was the mechanism that would have given every ship on the water the same carbon cost regardless of flag or trade. With the US president stating that no global tax will pass while he holds office and that he has two and a half years left, the earliest realistic revival sits beyond the horizon of most current newbuild orders. Ships contracted today for delivery in 2029 or 2030 will arrive without knowing what their fuel will cost to burn.

What the industry loses is not the rule itself but the single reference point. Europe already prices carbon through the ETS and FuelEU Maritime. Other regions are drafting their own measures. An owner trading globally now faces a patchwork in which the same voyage can carry different carbon costs according to which ports it touches. That fragmentation was precisely what the IMO framework was meant to prevent.

The response visible elsewhere in this edition is instructive. Car carriers ordered with ammonia-ready and methanol-ready notations. Ferries built for conversion to full electric once shore power exists. Owners are paying for optionality up front because they cannot price the alternative. That is a rational answer to uncertainty but it is an expensive one and it favours the balance sheets that can afford to wait.

The difficulty is that a hedge is not a strategy. Capital committed to flexibility is capital not committed to the fuel that eventually wins. Every year without a global price is a year in which early adopters carry the risk alone. The IMO's standing as the place where shipping makes its rules now rests on whether it can find a way around a single member state. On the day set aside to mark that role, owners should plan on the assumption that it cannot do so quickly.

Infinity

More bandwidth does not automatically mean better connectivity. 

As vessels depend on more cloud applications, remote support and digital workflows, the challenge for IT teams is deciding what gets priority and keeping usage under control.

Infinity gives fleet and IT managers visibility over how bandwidth is being used onboard, with tools to prioritise business-critical applications and manage crew welfare usage fairly. 

For operators working across mixed fleets and multiple satellite services, it provides a single layer of control designed to support stable performance and more predictable costs.

Backed by Navarino’s global support network, Infinity helps turn connectivity into something operators can manage, rather than simply consume.

» Learn more about Infinity «

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Adora Cruises adds another vessel to Ripple Operations

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NorthStandard gives members 15% PntGuard discount for GNSS resilience

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Stena Line orders two hybrid ferries ready for 100% electric operation

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Höegh Autoliners expands Aurora fleet to 18 vessels with up to 58% lower CO₂ per car

Höegh Autoliners has ordered six more Aurora Class PCTCs, taking the programme to 18 vessels designed to cut carbon emissions per transported car by up to 58%.

VARD and DFO order battery-hybrid CSOV with 700m² work deck

Dong Fang Offshore has ordered a EUR 66m to EUR 75m battery-hybrid CSOV from VARD, combining digital vessel monitoring with offshore wind, subsea and cable capabilities.

How More Extreme Weather is Reshaping Maritime Operations, in partnership with OneOcean | 29th September

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Worldwide AIS Network detected 1,702 physically impossible AIS jumps across 379 vessels, exposing how compromised navigation data can affect shipowner and fleet management decisions.