Even the best audiovisual system technician seems not to be aware that power on a yacht is not the same as power in his house or at the factory. But it is.

Because of the nature of the boat and despite all efforts from shipbuilders, power onboard is less reliable than power ashore. You have three main problems with your energy onboard :
• more frequent loss of power
• unclean peaks of energy
• earth problems and induced current

Loss of power

During the build or refit period, the ship is usually unpowered, unless for tests or measurements. Unexpected shutdowns will  happen very often during this period. You can also loose power when the engineers switch power from the generators to the shore lines, or reverse. More rarely you can have unexpected generator failures onboard, with power shut down for several minutes.

Unexpected shutdowns can have various results on audiovisual and IT systems. Electronics equipment, espacially computer based equipment, are very sensitive to power failure. Sometimes you will need to reboot your system and everything will be back on track, but sometimes you may loose saved settings or have hardware problems (power supply damaged, hard disk crashed…).

I have seen HiFi amplifiers loosing there settings after unexpected power failure, or automation controlers crashing with no other option than unplugging and replugging the power socket to reboot them!

Unclean peaks of energy

A boat is working as a small community, with power loads changing frequently. This induce perturbations over the electrical communications, and “peaks” of energy when demending systems are powered on or off. These peaks of energy are not a problem for strong power supplies, which can easily absorb them. But smaller sensitive power supplies can be disrupted, and induce crashes of the equipment they supply. I have seen this happenned a lot with Set Top Boxes, Automation controlers or Mac Minis: these gears crashed and a hard reboot (I mean by unplugging the power supply) was needed to restart the system. Every time, the technician in charge told me “I don’t understand, it never happened at the factory”. And I trusted him: it never happens at the factory, but it always happens onboard!

Earth problems and induced current

Most ships are now build with steel hull and a lighter aluminium superstructure. When in contact, steel and hull are subject to corrosion and to inducced currents, which can result in potential difference between two zones of the boat. To avoid this, shipbuilders link the two parts with a piece of isolation. Problem is you now have several potential zones onboard that might induce disruption and perturbation to your system.

To avoid, or at least reduce, all these problems, you should always follow these recommandations:
• connect your sensitive equipment to UPS (servers, IP switches, antenna controlers, IPBX…). If possible, connect guests and owner audiovisual equipment to UPS as well.
• connect cat5 or cat6 cables shield only on one end (patch panels but not sockets for instance). This will avoid induced current between the patch panel and distant sockets, especially if cables are pulled through different decks.
• use PoE (Power over Ethernet) devices to connect equipment such as Set Top Boxes, Telephones etc… this will help to clean the peaks on the electrical communication and avoid crashes or “freezing”. It will also give you the possibility to reboot equipment remotely and individually.
• always install a specific circuit breaker for the AV system. And open the breaker when you know there will be power disruption.
• always make sure interior designers will leave good access (front and rear) to the system gears. If not, don’t even install the system, as you will not be able to operate it properly!
• simplify your system: the more gears you have, the less reliable your system will be. Instead, make sure you are using all the features of each component of the system : THIS is your added value!

The interest in environmental-impacts by yachts seems to have grown up these times. A lot of shipyards, such as Kingship, ISA, or  the already famous WHY concept, have shown high interest in building eco-friendly motor yachts by designing yachts that exceed the MARPOL standards.

The MARPOL convention is the main international convention covering prevention of pollution of the marine environment by ships from operational or accidental causes and entered into force on 2 October 1983. Annexe VI of the convention deals with prevention of the air pollution from ships and entered into force on 19 May 2005.

New technologies, such as the diesel-electric hybrid power system designed by Marquip and Siemens, allows strong gaz emission reduction. With this, the Isa 390 Zero design should emit 95% less of carbon-monoxide in “low-emissions mode”, and will have a “zero-emission mode” autonomy of 3 hours at 6 knots.

But cleaner engine is not the only solution for more eco-friendly yachts. Reducing power consumption onboard by using smarter and power-saving systems is also an option, as for Sabdes‘ 50 Axebow. This Scott Blee designed yacht total power consumption will be kept to a minimum by careful consideration of every technical element throughout; for instance, the vessel will have LED lighting, there will be more reliance on natural cooling to support the air conditioning system, and insulation and window materials are carefully selected.

Audiovisuals and IT systems should also be carefully selected to optimize power consumption and reduce heat dissipation. For instance, TV builder Philips has designed a new 42 inch, 1080p flat Eco-TV with a power consumption rating only 75 Watts that would perfectly fit the main guest TV lounge. For your onboard IP network system, check out new Netgear eco-friendly products equipped with new power management modes that helps in reducing power consumption by as much as 52 percent along with considerable savings on network energy costs.

On large motoryachts, choice of such equipment is paramount to reduce power and cooling system needs. No doubt eco-friendly electronics have great future onboard large motor yachts.

This year, the Monaco Yacht Show takes place from the 23rd to the 26th of September. I will be there all day tomorrow. Please feel free to contact me if you want to meet me.