Docking without stress

Docking a boat, especially in wind and current, can be a stressful experience for even the most experienced captains. The impacts of mishaps range from mildly embarrassing to extremely expensive.

Raymarine’s DockSense Control is the recreational marine industry’s first intelligent object-recognition and motion-sensing assisted-docking solution

Raymarine and Emerson partner to provide DockSense control and joystick system to the recreational boating industry, for boat builders and technical installers.

According to Raymarine’s philosophy, boating should be relaxing and fun. That’s why its engineers got to work, nearly four years ago, developing and combining technologies to take the stress out of docking a boat.

Raymarine’s DockSense Control uses an array of Teledyne FLIR stereoscopic cameras to establish, monitor, and render a Virtual Fender zone around the vessel. Visually represented on a Raymarine Axiom® multifunction display, DockSense Control accurately senses pilings, dock edges and other vessels as they begin to encroach on the perimeter.

DockSense Control prevents the vessel from colliding with a detected object and moves the vessel in the direction commanded by the captain via the joystick, simultaneously compensating for the effects of wind and tide. With no commands, the system will hold the vessel’s position taking the stress out of docking, it is no longer necessary to rush to tie up. The stereo vision system gives a clear map of objects around the vessel allowing to see what is in the blind spots when at the helm.

Now available to boat builders for straight-shaft inboard and bow-thruster propulsion-system applications, Raymarine DockSense Control uses a litany of refined technologies. These include global positioning system (GPS) monitoring, attitude heading reference system (AHRS) position-sensing technology to compensate for the effects of wind and currents, multiple Teledyne FLIR machine vision cameras, and a central processing module. DockSense™ Control interfaces with Raymarine Axiom® multifunction displays and the Emerson AVENTICS Marex 3D joystick system. The joystick provides intuitive, one-handed operation of the main and auxiliary drives with great maneuvering precision.

The introduction of DockSense control means boat builders now have two distinct choices of Raymarine assisted docking systems to meet their customers’ needs.

DockSense Alert is compatible with a wide variety of boats and uses many of the same Raymarine assisted docking technologies. It includes audible and visual alerts when objects encroach on the protection zone around the boat.

DockSense Control offers full integration with inboard/bow-thruster propulsion systems and actually overrides the owner’s acceleration and steering inputs to prevent the boat from impacting obstacles.

Info: www.raymarine.com