Op-Ed: Saving shipyards from the “cliff-edge” with AI

The global shipyard sector is facing a skills time bomb. In the U.S. alone the average age of the nation’s 146,500 strong shipyard workforce is 55.

This aging workforce challenge is further compounded by rising shipyard demand which is expected to more than double in the U.S. over the next decade.

In addition, the turnover of younger workers in the industry is high, with shipyards reporting attrition rates of 20%—leading to a growing skills gap and persistently high training costs.

Shipyards are also reporting that older workers can be reluctant to share their valuable knowledge with younger workers who are being paid the same wage.

And that impasse is leading to a “race to the bottom” as those new workers’ skills cannot replace those that are being lost through retirement.

It all adds up to a picture of a sector that is accelerating towards a looming cliff-edge as large numbers of workers retire, taking their valuable expertise with them as they pass through the shipyard gates for a final time.

It is a worrying situation and it has to be addressed. Retaining precious expertise is vital in order to drive efficiency and improve safety. It can also help prevent costly and time-consuming mistakes and equipment damage.

And that is why we believe our development of a new AI software platform to transform shipyard skills training is so vitally important. 

The software will retain the expertise that is presently being lost. It will also tackle the long-standing issue of ‘ownership’ of know-how.

The plain fact is that traditional training manuals cannot support new hires in high-pressure, hands-busy environments. Shipyards have to move from ‘just-in-case’ training to ‘just-in-time’ training.

So where are we in our mission? Currently we are undertaking trials of the prototype Large Language Model (LLM) with the University of South Florida College of Marine Science. And we are on target for an official launch of the platform in February at the Blue Innovation Symposium in Rhode Island.

Once available to shipyard owners and operators, the LLM we are developing will enable workers to share knowledge, allowing companies to scale up skills for both new and existing roles.

Shipyards will be able to create their own private LLM platform that continuously updates with proprietary knowledge from their workforce.

And workers will be able to call each other on the platform to seek advice on engineering problems, with the AI learning on the job. This is live problem-solving.

The AI will also incentivize workers to share their expertise, creating a situation where the engineers are equitably rewarded with bonuses or benefits each time their knowledge is downloaded from the platform.

Experts will retain ownership and receive royalties when their knowledge works to solve future problems. We’re looking to deliver a marketplace for knowledge and expertise.

There are other benefits to this technology for the industry. The platform can be further deployed in new and emerging maritime technologies, such as autonomous vessels, where the highly specialized nature of the work means there is a significant skills shortage in the sector.

Marine autonomy can only move as fast as the workforce within it. The software we are developing can and will supercharge innovation by enabling new workers to enter the industry and upskill at speed while fast-tracking the skill set of existing workers.

Skills will be the driving force for all our futures. We believe the work we are doing will change the industry for the better—and avoid it hurtling over the cliff-edge.

Nithesh Wazenn is the founder of maritime tech start-up Dolgo. Dolgo is a Tampa‑based maritime technology start‑up focused on applying artificial intelligence to workforce training and knowledge retention in shipyards and emerging maritime industries. Founded in 2025, Dolgo is a graduate of NOAA’s Ocean Enterprise Accelerator and Seaworthy Collective’s Continuum program.

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