Volvo Penta and Mercruiser have systems called "Sky Hook" for their z-drive IO's. It uses a flux gate compass and a GPS receiver integrated to the motor control units to maintain station and heading. I watched a guy dock his 45ft powerboat in windy conditions and a stiff tide. He "parked" his boat by using the IPS joystick to move the boat parallel to the dock, stopping about a foot off the fenders. He turned on the Sky Hook and went into the clubhouse for a haircut, no lines to the dock at all. The boat held position despite wind and waves. It was very impressive. It also used a LOT of power. The two diesels were constantly spooling up, or changing direction, but always running. After 20 minutes, the pilot came out, pushed his way through the gathering crowd, hopped the gap to the swim platform, walked up to the helm, checked out a few things, turned off the Sky Hook, and used the joystick to move the boat laterally out from the dock, and back into SF bay. Very impressive, but also about $100k of investment. You can see a little of it on the CMDMarine.com website. It would be possible to make your own system, since most marine components us CANbus to interconnect, but unless you have years of experience writing code, or a team of engineers to do it for you, the engineering would be a massive undertaking.
Be Well,
Arby Bernt
Advanced Marine Electric Propulsion
From: Galstaf <richard@atlrent.com>
To: electricboats@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tue, November 9, 2010 7:32:42 AM
Subject: [Electric Boats] Station keeping Azipod -- was Re: Multidirectional Docking Electric Motors
To clarify: I am indeed seeking an anchorless solution, and this is going to be a *non sailing craft* with 15-20kW of vertical wind turbines. More turbines may be added later.. they are not nearly as large or heavy as I had originally anticipated.
The Azipod does pretty much what I am looking for; I just wasn't aware of the name. Ideally I would like that to be the principle drive for the boat also.
Can anyone recommend a manufacturer for boats in the 50' (25000 pounds) range?
Is anyone using anything like this?
--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, danbollinger <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> It is possible, but I'm guessing you'd have to do most of the development work yourself. Good station-keeping, as in drilling rigs and research vessels, is done with a thruster on each quarter. Not a very good solution for a sailboat. Another way would be a single azi-pod mounted near the center of the boat. It would turn to face away from the direction of drift, and the thrust until it returns to station.
>
> I like the idea of anchor line strain gages, but the OP seemed to say he wanted an anchor-less solution.
>
> --- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "leemurs72" <jt.yahoo@> wrote:
> >
> > What you are looking for is called "station keeping" in autopilot speak. http://www.yachtingmagazine.com/article/Best-New-Autopilots has some tidbits on various autopilots. The ComNAV autopilots have station keeping abilities, but I think that requires a bow thruster...
> >
> > I am sure you could spoof a stay-put request by feeding a tight circle of waypoints to your autopilot over and over again. Of course, your anchorage neighbours would not be too pleased.
> >
> > How about adding a strain gauge to the anchor line feeding info to
>
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