Over the next 17 years or so, global trade will more than double, China will come to own roughly a quarter of the world's merchant fleet, the number of offshore wind platforms will grow a hundredfold, and the U.S. will still be the dominant naval power. So go the predictions in Global Marine Trends 2030, a collaborative effort by ship classification society Lloyd's Register, UK defense contractor QinetiQ, and the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.

Over the course of the history of maritime transportation, the free market has consistently urged service providers to reduce the cost of transporting freight.

While the frequency of pirate attacks off the Horn of Africa has fallen to its lowest level since 2009, this is no time to celebrate. Somali pirates still hold two vessels for ransom with 60 crew members as hostages. More alarming, however, is the increase in the capabilities of pirate groups in West Africa's Gulf of Guinea, now challenging Somalia as the world's most dangerous place to sail.

Shipping along the Arctic northern sea route is set to grow more than 30-fold over the next eight years and could account for a quarter of the cargo traffic between Europe and Asia by 2030.

Somalia and Gulf of Aden still have pirate-infested waters, but over the last five quarters, a new country's national waters have become the most heavily pirated on earth, according to data from the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Centre.