I think this such an awesome innovation but does anyone understand what incentivizes a ship’s captain to take the warnings seriously? Is this just reliant on people being good people? I haven’t worked with sailors but I did a lot of blue collar work when I was younger and there’s a pessimistic side to me that struggles to see many of those guys caring. I do hope I’m wrong.
You're downvoted, but it's a good question. When I was in nautical school, we were learning the concept of propeller slip: you can estimate distance travelled by the number of propeller revolutions, since the ship moves a fixed distance for each revolution at a particular speed. This is affected somewhat by wind, current and propeller inefficiency (slip).
Anyway, Chief Engineer of a ship had noticed that slip increased slightly but couldn't account for it. It was a tiny amount, so not worth investigating.
Then the ship comes into port and after taking on a harbor pilot, the pilot asks "do you guys know there's a whale caught on your bow?" The ship was riding fairly high and a whale, now long dead, had been stuck crosswise in the curve just above the ship's bulbous bow: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulbous_bow)
So, if it has a negligible impact on performance, ship owner is unlikely to care enough to spend money on it.
