Autonomy and autonomous platforms are not just coming; they are here, and Defence isn’t ready. Regulators are beginning to issue rules to certify autonomous vessels against; however, many rules do set empirically defined values that are to be achieved in support of a safe claim of compliance with goal-based certification. The Goal-based regulations for fully crewed platforms have centuries of empirical data demonstrating safe and unsafe practices and engineering. This has led to an inherent level of trust that Naval Vessels are Safe to Operate and can be Operated Safely. This breakdown of the Safe Claim, Argument, and Evidence is well understood within the defence’s safety construct. Safe to Operate is the side of the argument provided and maintained by the Platform Authority (PA). Where Operating Safely is dependent on the Operating Organisation (Royal Navy (RN)), the separation between is unclear when certifying a vessel to operate at IMO Level 3 & 4 Autonomy. This is leading to platform teams being asked to demonstrate Operate Safely arguments on behalf of the operating bodies while the goal-based rules of Safe Operations remain undefined. Whilst there is some experience and commercial regulatory frameworks in place to provide an acceptable means of compliance, naval certification challenges remain. This is in part due to the need to assure a platform is Safe and Legal without limiting capability of the complex service vessels for broad scopes of operations. This paper aims to share the challenges, risks and opportunities identified through the lived experience of NavyX with the Autonomous Pacific 24 (APAC) Autonomy demonstrator.