DATA ACQUISITION APPARATUS AND METHOD

A method of estimating an operational parameter of a subject vessel, including receiving at least one vessel data item of a set of vessel data from a subject vessel; associating the vessel data with a class; generating an estimated equivalent for at least one vessel data item using a machine learning model trained using a database of data from vessels of the class of the subject vessel; and providing the estimated equivalent to a user. The vessel data item may be acquired by a dedicated data acquisition unit on a marine vessel. The data acquisition unit may be part of a system for analysing marine data. In another aspect, a method of detecting an abnormality is provided, including receiving hydrophone data from a subject vessel; detecting an abnormality in the hydrophone data; associating the abnormality with an operational system of the subject vessel; and generating a maintenance alert identifying the operational system for further attention.