Can anyone think of a peace-time disaster at sea that was not as a result of human error? Titanic? Exxon Valdez? Costa Concordia? The 'humans are critical for safety' argument is flawed when we don't know how well robot ships will do.
Sail augmented with solar needs to make a comeback before we run out of oil, it would be cool if ships just found there own way around the globe, safely crew-less.
I don't know anything about the maritime world, but playing Devil's Advocate you're suffering from selection bias: you're naming instances where humans caused the errors but not factoring in the unreported instances of humans saving the cargo, the ship, the personnel or all three.
Sail augmented with solar needs to make a comeback before we run out of oil, it would be cool if ships just found there own way around the globe, safely crew-less.