Tech Compass #4
The Yacht That Starts Telling Its Own Story
A modern yacht doesn’t have to wait for a failure to tell us there is a problem. Its own data may start telling the story much earlier
Some technologies immediately demand our attention. Others work quietly in the background, without changing the appearance of a yacht or requiring an owner to learn yet another screen or interface. I find the latter far more compelling.
A modern yacht already has sensors throughout virtually every major system on board. They monitor temperatures, pressures, RPMs, tank levels, alarms and countless other parameters. We tend to think of those sensors simply as devices that alert us when something has gone outside an acceptable range. But what if the data could tell us that something is starting to change before an alarm is ever triggered?
That, to me, is one of the most promising applications of digital technology in yachting today.
A machine does not always go directly from normal operation to failure. In many cases, its behavior starts changing first. A temperature may gradually increase, vibration may begin to behave differently, or a parameter may slowly move away from its established operating pattern.
Individually, none of these signals may mean much. Tracked over time, however, they can reveal a trend.
The Sanlorenzo SP110 is a good example of how this technology is already making its way into yachts. In 2024, the sixth hull became the first in the world to receive RINA’s Digital Yachting certification, its H-Log system capable of monitoring more than 800 parameters across the vessel. The number is impressive, but what matters more is the idea behind it: the yacht continuously generates information about its own condition and operation.
Feadship is taking a similar approach with PoleStar, now written as standard into the specs for all new builds. The system allows data from major onboard equipment to be monitored remotely by the shipyard’s technical team, enabling specialists to help the crew investigate unusual behavior and plan interventions even when they are not physically on board.
That does not mean the yacht has suddenly become an engineer.
A machine does not understand a problem the way a person does. It measures, compares, identifies deviations and, in more advanced systems, can use models and algorithms to recognize patterns. Human interpretation remains essential.
That distinction matters because there is a tendency to credit artificial intelligence with capabilities it does not necessarily have. A system can identify an anomaly without knowing exactly what caused it. It can recognize that a particular behavior is different from the norm without being able to say that a component will fail tomorrow. Not every failure produces an advance warning, and not every unusual signal indicates a failure.
Even so, an important shift is taking place.
Traditionally, we understand a yacht’s condition through surveys, maintenance, service records and inspections carried out at specific points in time. In a sense, we take photographs.
Continuous monitoring adds something different: a movie. We can begin to see how systems behave over time, when a parameter first started to change and under which operating conditions those changes occur.
For an owner, that may be the most valuable part of all. The upside of this technology does not necessarily lie in adding more screens or complexity to the yacht. It may lie in something far less visible: knowing a little earlier that something deserves our attention.
A yacht that does not necessarily wait for a failure before it starts telling us its story — and, to my mind, one of the most consequential directions marine technology is taking today.
This article was produced by Westhon Media for One Energy News.