The technology is radical, but the concept of an automated system is not original, for computerised satellite-reliant navigation and propulsion systems emerged in practical maritime applications nearly 50 years ago. The groundbreaking system was retro-fitted to a ship that had been launched in 1958 as the Elizabeth Bowater, for a shipowning subsidiary of the Bowater newspaper empire. They could afford the absolute best, and they got it, with a ship demonstrating state-of-the-art naval architecture and engineering design, built to the high specification of Lloyds 100 A1 ‘strengthened for ice class 3'. A sister of the Gladys Bowater, whom we have already met, she was sold in 1972 at the very time when Wimpey Marine needed a survey vessel, presenting them with an ideal vessel which would then undergo a two-year conversion to transform her, with a drilling derrick on her foredeck, a moon pool – the rather alarming feature to the uninitiated, of an opening in the hull through which the drilling equipment passed on its way to the seabed ‒ and retractable positioning dynamic thrusters under the hull; and a new name, Wimpey Sealab.