Absolute Control


Dave Bingham is the proud owner of "Bingo", a 70-foot custom motoryacht
designed by Brian Holland and produced by Oviatt Marine Group. "Bingo" can be
considered one of the more impressive vessels in its class. ("Bingo" was the
Seattle Yacht Club flagship for the 2004 Opening Day Parade.) Dave is
fastidious, to put it mildly, about the condition of his vessel. A speck of
dirt would never find a soul mate on "Bingo", and a scratch would be out of the
question. Dave sets a very high standard for the appearance and condition of
his boat.

"Nobody realizes what this boat is about," said Dave. "It's the result of two
years of Brian and I working closely together. I went to the Fort Lauderdale
Boat Show five years in a row, and I've never seen anything like this. Brian is
a master designer, that's for sure. He'd call me up in the middle of the night
and we'd talk boat design. There isn't another boat that does what this one
does, anywhere."

Dave Bingham is passionate about his gorgeous yacht, and has put nothing but
the finest systems and equipment aboard.

When not cruising throughout the Pacific Northwest, "Bingo" is moored at a
private dock in front of Bingham's waterfront home. Dave backs her down between
two finger piers, in a space just barely wider than her beam, and often with a
strong breeze on the port side. Dave routinely performs this maneuver
single-handed, and as if that weren't impressive in and of itself, he is
typically 25-feet feet or more removed from the shifter and thruster controls
while he is backing into the slip!

Dave's experience defies everything we're supposed to "know" about handling
70-footers. Yachts over 50 or 60-feet are often considered too large to be
handled by couple, and it is not unheard of for boaters to hire a deckhand to
assist. Some boaters would be more comfortable hiring a professional skipper to
run a 70-footer, primarily for the challenges of close quarter operation. It is
certainly uncommon for a recreational yachtsman to single-hand a 70-footer, and
even more uncommon to make it look as easy as docking a 16-foot runabout.

Dave has a secret, of course, and we enthusiastically accepted an invitation to
learn more about the technology that allows Dave Bingham to dock "Bingo" so
very easily.

"Bingo" has both bow and stern thrusters, as well as twin engines with
electronic controls. The shifters and the thrusters are all controlled by a
wireless remote control unit, smaller than a deck of cards, that hangs from a
lanyard around Dave's neck. The system is known as a "Yacht Controller," and is
represented in the Pacific Northwest by John Munroe of Ocean Currents Marine
Electric.

We asked John Munroe about the product.

"We can hook the Yacht Controller to any electronic engine controls. If a
boater wants to upgrade from manual to electronic controls we can do that too,
and it runs about another $5000 for dual engines. The thrusters are really easy
to hook up because there's a joystick station, and that's usually a three-wire
station so we can hook right in. The wireless remote communicates with a
receiver, and we connect the receiver to the control heads either on the
flybridge or at the lower helm. The receiver sends "ahead" and "astern"
commands to the shifters. It takes just about all day to hook one of these up,
and that installation service is free when a boater buys a Yacht Controller."

John removed the thruster control joysticks and showed us a complex circuit
board that allowed the Yacht Controller to operate the thrusters. Professional
installation of the product would seem extremely important.

"We range check every installation," said John Munroe, "and we find the
transmitter is always good for about 200 feet. It would be possible, but not
smart or legal, to operate the boat with nobody aboard. If for any reason the
signal should be interrupted, the controls automatically return to neutral."

We asked, "What happens if the boater next door has a Yacht Controller, and he
or she is trying to send a different set of wireless commands at the same
time?"

"There are about 65,000 possible digital frequencies. It would be virtually
impossible for another unit to be coincidentally set to the same frequency on a
neighboring boat."

We asked about reliability.

"This is the same chip that Boeing uses for remote control cranes, and it is
used in hundreds of other remote control industrial applications as well. This
is a high quality, industrial technology that has been adapted for the yachting
world. I've installed five of these systems in the local area so far, and you
can be sure I'd be the first to know if anybody were having a problem. We
haven't had a failure yet, and I don't expect any.
Even so, it's reassuring to know that the boat will simply go to neutral if
something ever did go wrong."

We asked Dave Bingham about his experience with the system.

"I've had the Yacht Controller since the beginning of summer. We were out
cruising for about two months. It got to the point where I did almost every
docking with the Yacht Controller. I originally bought it because I have to
back into this dock and there's only about a foot and a half on either side.
Visibility aft from either station is restricted.
With the Yacht Controller, I can move back to the aft deck and still maintain
full control."

"I've been extremely pleased with the Yacht Controller," continued Dave. "It
has solved a huge problem. I was originally going to put stern controls on the
boat, and that would have been about $7000 just for the engine controls alone.
I would have needed to bring thruster controls aft as well, and that would have
been a lot of money too. If I had stern controls for backing, I wouldn't be
able to see what was going on up at the front of the boat."

Dave observed that once the boat is in the slip, he can carry the Yacht
Controller onto the dock to assist in securing lines. "If the bow starts to
blow off, I just bring it back in. It can be very difficult to man handle a
boat this size. The Yacht Controller makes it possible for me to take the boat
out by myself, and I often do."

The proof of a pudding is in the eating, so Dave fired up "Bingo" for a brief
demonstration. The wind had set "Bingo" against her starboard fenders, and
snugged up the port mooring lines. Dave touched the thruster controls on the
transmitter, and "Bingo" moved to port in her slip to release the tension on
the lines. Dave tossed the slackened lines from their cleats, and walked back
to the covered aft deck. "Bingo" began moving out into the lake.

"I've freaked a few people out," grinned Dave. "They can't figure out who's
driving the boat!"

Dave watched carefully as "Bingo" eased between the finger piers. When the wind
began pushing her back to starboard again, a deft touch of the transmitter
caused her to sidestep back to the center of the slip. After clearing the slip
by about 50 yards, Dave put "Bingo" in reverse and began approaching his slip
again.

"I'm a slow docker," said Dave. "I'm the guy who wants everything perfect, and
nobody can keep it that way but me." Dave stood on the aft deck, keeping a wary
eye on the approaching dock. After we entered the slip, he glanced forward
several times to be sure that "Bingo" wasn't being blown to one side by the
wind.

We entered and left the slip in perfect, fully controlled form. Once in
position, Dave used the Yacht Controller to shift "Bingo" ever so slightly to
allow us to refasten her mooring lines. The Yacht Controller offered absolute
control, absolutely as represented.

The weekend after we visited with Dave Bingham and John Munroe, we happened to
dock very near "Bingo" at the Port of Poulsbo. Dave had put his boat at the
head of a fairway, in a space just barely large enough to accommodate the
craft. During the weekend, several dock walkers commented on "Bingo's" bristol
appearance and impressive lines. More than a few wondered aloud, "How did he
get that great big boat in here? He must have had to come in sideways!"

There's a very good chance he did just exactly that.