The bigger the boat, the more spacious and comfortable it is. But at the same time, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep an eye on the boat from the helm. If there is a large crew on board, they can instruct the skipper in the box - but who wants to be dependent on a crew to be able to sail a boat?
With 20 years of experience and over 18,000 systems installed, Yacht Controller is the market leader in the field of remote control systems. A yacht controller makes it possible to control a boat from anywhere on deck at the touch of a button. With the new Optimo model (formerly Nemesis), a new evolutionary stage has now been reached, with more intuitive operation and many new functions. "The system can be installed on any boat with an electrical circuit," explains Reece Hornibrook from Yacht Controller Germany (www.yachtassist.de), who distributes the systems throughout Germany from the Moselle and demonstrates the new model to us. "Installation only takes between two and six hours, depending on the type of boat, as it is carried out directly at the helm and no cables have to be pulled across the ship."
Communication and system start
There must be no malfunctions when controlling a ship by radio remote control. This is because if the yacht controller briefly fails to respond to a steering command due to interference in the radio link, the boat will collide with the jetty. To rule out such a malfunction, the yacht controllers have been transmitting on two frequency ranges instead of just one since the Dual Band model (predecessor of the Nemesis). In order to be able to use it in wet weather, the Optimo is of course also waterproof and even floatable.
"When activating the yacht controller, it is important to start the engines first," explains Hornibrook on board a Nimbus 365 Coupé. "The receiver can then be activated and it takes around 20 seconds for the small computer to boot up." Only then do you activate the remote control, which establishes a Wi-Fi connection to the receiver and indicates the dual connection between the two devices with two flashing green lights. "That was it. Now we can take off."
Functionality
The many red and black buttons on the remote control seem complicated at first, but are very easy to operate once you have understood the system. Both diesel engines, the bow thruster and the stern thruster are controlled. All systems can either be operated individually in manual mode - for example, only the bow thruster or only one engine - or together in automatic mode. In this case, the ship can practically turn on the spot by using the engines and side thrusters simultaneously.
Harbour trips are made in automatic mode, mooring only in manual mode. The red forward and back arrow buttons then engage the two engines at idle speed, but only for as long as the buttons are held. The red right/left arrow buttons activate the bow and stern thrusters simultaneously. The buttons in the four corners between the arrow buttons can be used to operate the engines individually, while the buttons in the outer corners control the bow and stern thrusters individually. For longer harbour trips, there is an acceleration button "S" which increases the speed of the engines. The system can be switched back and forth between automatic and manual mode using the "A" button. Another new feature is that the Optimo is now able to control two anchor winches or a gangway.
Music of the future
If someone at the helm accidentally switches off the receiver's main switch while steering with the remote control, the remote control alerts them with a visual and vibration alarm. "The system has a range of 25 metres, making it easy to stand on the foredeck or bathing platform while mooring and place the lines over the bollard," says Hornibrook. "Development is continuing," he looks to the future, "soon it will no longer be possible to control the boat using buttons alone, but also using tilt sensors in the remote control. We will then simply tilt the remote control in the direction we want to go and the boat will react independently."
The coronavirus pandemic has delayed the market launch of the Optimo a little, but Hornibrook has already equipped 20 boats with it. "All the owners were very satisfied," he says. Depending on the type of boat and requirements, the system costs between 4500 and 9000 euros.
