Beyond an ETO?

To illustrate the point, here’s a question to ponder:

Might a superyacht crew one day include an ITO — an information technology officer — in addition to an ETO, electro-technical officer?

It’s a query we posed to David Swallow, an electro-technical consultant with Omega Consulting.

“ETO is a very, very broad skillset,” he says. “And back when I joined the industry — roughly 15 years ago — the ETO was expected to do electrics as well as communication, navigation, IT, and entertainment. Just about the time I joined, there was more of a demand for someone who could do IT and AV very well. And we've seen the role split in the industry. The ETO role remains and has become much more focused on high-voltage electrics. There are now qualifications for it as well, which is great for the industry.”

Swallow recalls one of his earliest experiences in the marine biz: “When I first joined the industry, I rotated with another ETO, and I always thought it was a very good partnership. He was much more electrically focused, and I was much more IT-focused, and we met in the middle on the entertainment solutions.” A two-month rotation between the ETOs made for a yacht whose electronic upkeep was completely covered, including IT.

As Swallow notes, however, for a smaller vessel, space limitations would preclude room for two dedicated specialists to be aboard at once — but remote connectivity is also an answer, especially for an IT pro.

In short, it’s plausible. But digging deeper into the why reveals much more.

Specialization vs Broad Skillsets

Before we add an extra crew member, let’s look at where the industry is right now. “Some people dedicate their whole lives to a career in networking,” says Swallow. “But the ETO's skillset encompasses five high-level categories of systems: electrics, communication, IT, navigation, and entertainment. Your knowledge must be broad.”

Swallow notes that when you’re in the design stage of a marine integration, whether it’s a new yacht or a refit, that’s when the specialists need to be aboard (pardon the pun). “An expert in wireless, an expert in routing and switching, perhaps an expert in voice control — it's very important that when you're in a design stage, you pull in those skills. Because if you don't, and you use a very raw, basic IT skillset to design a network, it's probably going to come back and bite the owner — and therefore, you — later. And it will be very costly to fix.”

Swallow outlines the issue with one of those technologies as a prime example: Wi-Fi® communications. “For every new yacht that's being constructed, we should be creating an accurate simulation of how the wireless will perform based on what we know about the structure of the vessel,” he says. “Now that structure will change. Over the three years it's being designed, people will suddenly decide to put an extra deck on the vessel, for example. The shipyard signs off on the new design, and now you, the integrator, are dealing with a different design and topology.”

The Wireless Signal

“Wireless is so incredibly critical now to the enjoyment of the technology on board,” says Swallow. For entertainment, remote work for owner and guests, and even for the crew, wireless connectivity is now a critical component of a luxury yacht’s systems. “And modeling a yacht is very challenging because you've got lots of steel and aluminum compartments, so the number of wireless access points you need is significantly higher than in an open-plan office.”

Understanding where a wireless signal is needed (in short, everywhere) is critical to a design’s success. “From the day head to the space underneath the main engine, you need connectivity,” he notes.

“A strong signal may be the difference in the vessel moving from point A to B on a given day — or not,” Swallow explains. “If you've got a failed part and you've got the opportunity to either call your main engineering contractor or the manufacturer and do a quick video call on a Saturday night, it allows him to easily advise you. If there’s no connectivity there, that’s out: If you're taking photos, having to get them off the phone onto a computer and then get them in an email over to them, it's just not going to be as responsive.

“I very much view wireless connectivity throughout the boat as paramount.”

On Land and at Sea

That connectivity is part of many yacht owners' aspirations: Duplicating their luxury home experience — with all its entertainment and automation — on the vessel. “We’ve seen many clients who want their domestic experience on the yacht,” says Swallow. “There'll be owners that want to keep control systems identical between properties and the yacht. There will be owners that simply want to walk on board their yacht and carry on working, go straight to the onboard office and do that.”

The challenge, of course, is that domestic systems are becoming ever more complex. “In the past, it used to be much simpler to integrate the property than the yacht,” says Swallow. Making life easier for these integrators is where Crestron comes in, of course: “We’ve already had control systems on these vessels for many years, and Crestron has — and continues to be — extraordinarily helpful in that regard.”

“The networks are much, much more sophisticated on yachts than in domestic properties because we just have a lot more infrastructure on board,” Swallow explains. “There's a lot more technologies that IT now supports on board vessels because navigation is becoming encapsulated inside IT.” Eventually, Swallow envisions a day when every system on a super yacht — even the largest — will be serviced by a single network. “That brings a whole new set of complexities and risks with it, so it's something that I don't say lightly. But having one seamless network that runs the whole vessel, including navigation, has advantages in terms of monitoring, maintenance, and equipment lifecycle management.”

What’s Next?

Past is definitely prologue when it comes to unifying a yacht on a single network. “There's a similar trend that came out of Crestron a while back, especially when DM NVX AV-over-IP was introduced. The advantage you gave us was expressed, ‘Our product is better than the competitors because it doesn't require its own network.’ Cisco, HP, whichever brand you prefer, it’ll work.”

Swallow’s excited about the future, especially as bandwidth increases. “With the lower latency that we have, with the low earth orbit satellite solutions, online gaming is much more plausible on board.” Swallow notes there’s a demand there, as owners who grew up with a love of gaming move into the yacht-buying income bracket.

“I think we will start to see newer technologies develop in the future that will require almost gigabit internet connectivity.” Those solutions range from advanced, AI-driven voice control that’s incredibly responsive to guest-fulfillment systems that can be customized from cabin to cabin in moments. “We're already seeing a lot of cloud services that have very large backend computing to deliver services to shore-based users, and that's going to be a key thing on vessels at some point in the future.”