Autonomous Yachts - Sci-Fi or Reality?

Amsterdam was the platform last week for the Global Super Yacht Forum, and presented at this event was a workshop on "Autonomous Yachts".  This session was chaired by Michael Blake, the President of Palladium Technologies, to a diverse group of industry professionals. 

Blake started out the forum by drawing on analogies of our futuristic, but eminent "driverless cars", and to the facts that in the aviation industry, the Boeing 777 is only actually piloted hands-on for 7 minutes of each flight, while the new Airbus is only flown by the captain for 3 ½ minutes of each flight.

Stating that we have been outfitting our yachts for a long-time with much of the base technology needed such as; radar, sonars, autopilots, thermal image cameras, etc., Hence we are already paving the way towards "Autonomous Yacht" operations. 

Hoping not to be driven out of the presentation by the captains in the audience, Michael explained that Autonomous Yacht operation would free the Captain from the tedious and repetitive task of navigating and steering a yacht.  Their skills would be redefined, so that they may concentrate on the other tasks of operating a yacht, which already demands the majority of their time.

For a few brief snippets of the views relating to this presentation, click on the following links,

http://www.globalsuperyachtforum.com/news/750/selfdriving-superyachts-a-reality-quotin-four-to-five-yearsquot

http://www.superyachtnews.com/superyachtfilms/1754/michael-blake-palladium-technologies.html

At the close of this presentation, which included an interactive discussion with the attendees providing the "pros" and "cons" of this controversial topic, it was discovered that the audience put forth over twice as many reasons for rather than against "Autonomous Yachts".