{"id":60920,"date":"2023-09-11T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-11T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/?p=60920"},"modified":"2023-09-11T13:14:20","modified_gmt":"2023-09-11T17:14:20","slug":"tell-tales-smart-boating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/yachts\/tell-tales-smart-boating\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Automation Making Boating Too Easy?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Steve <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n \u201cArtificial intelligence has already taken to the highway. What happens when it takes to boating\u2014mutiny?\u201d<\/span>\n Steve Haefele<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n\n

“Take a look: This is the future, Coyle,\u201d announced the lead in the email from my pal Al. I tried to make sense of the photo: a highly polished chunk of stainless steel nestled into a fiberglass pocket surrounded by synthetic teak decking. I zoomed in for a closer look and noticed an outboard lower unit. Oh no!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPlease tell me it\u2019s not a stern anchoring system on an outboard center-console,\u201d I pleaded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s got a smartphone app, Coyle,\u201d Al replied. \u201cIt\u2019ll make sandbar Sundays a breeze.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How depressing. It seems we no longer have any interest in doing\u2014or having the ability to do\u2014anything for ourselves. Soon, going boating will be nothing more than sitting on a couch and watching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat are you gonna do if the anchor gets stuck in the sand? Call the Geek Squad?\u201d I grumbled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was an early adopter of semi-sentient silicon devices, as designing boats required left-brain learning that I lacked. For me, math was a foreign language, and a slide rule was as useless as a Rubik\u2019s Cube. The calculator was my lifeline, and computers my savior. Suffering through multiples of the same boring calculations was intolerable, so I wrote computer programs to deal with the tedium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At sea, I came up in the company of pencil-pushing boaters who considered chart work a competitive sport; \u201cpredicted log races\u201d were just not my thing. I confess that with a chart, dividers and a parallel rule, I was never lost, but I never knew exactly where I was until I got there. I was first in line for the first affordable compact LORAN. Chart work became little more than connecting the dots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read More from Jay Coyle:<\/strong> Tell Tales<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GPS chart plotters have turned paper charts into decorative collectibles, and the only paper left in the design office is next to the toilet. New boats are conceived using silicon devices, and silicon devices endure much of the labor in their birth. I admit that silicon chips have made boats and boating better, but there\u2019s more to the pastime than riding aboard a water taxi. You don\u2019t have to be Nostradamus to see what the nerds noodling with the future of transportation technology have planned for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you drive a car that\u2019s smart enough to talk to your phone, you\u2019ve likely experienced how quickly a helpful assist has escalated into an intervention. Artificial intelligence has already taken to the highway. What happens when it takes to boating\u2014mutiny? \u201cAl, what will you do if your boat decides it doesn\u2019t want to go to the sandbar on Sunday, as it prefers Monday, when there\u2019s less of a crowd?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOld-school thinking, Coyle,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I reminded Al that I was writing programs 10 years before he invested in a computer. I\u2019ll admit that given the levels of courtesy and seamanship I\u2019ve witnessed migrating to and from the sandbar, a designated driver would probably be an improvement, but, for me, the greatest pleasure in pleasure boating is driving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If artificial intelligence is so smart, perhaps it could learn to drive the boat to the boatyard and haggle over the bill\u2014I\u2019d be an early adopter.\u2009\u2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The advents of new technologies could be taking away the hands-on thrills of boating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":60921,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Jay Coyle","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"","arc_website_url":"","custom_permalink":"","arc_subtype":"","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":false,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":true,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":"","sponsored_url":"","social_share":true,"ad_targeting":"","ad_settings_ads_on_this_page":true,"ad_settings_automatic_ad_injection_into_the_content":true},"categories":[163],"tags":[2134,569,164],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60920"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}