Just imagine this. As you graze a sandwich at your desk one Friday, you flick open an app on the phone to check what the wind is doing on the mooring. The boat briefly fires up the instruments to give you real-time data, before powering them down again. A balmy 12 knots, just as forecast. It’s the green light for a weekend sail.
As you jump on the train down to the marina, you fire up the app again, checking battery and fuel levels. There’s still a trickle of power coming out of the solar panels, and the wind turbine is doing its job in the breeze, so no need to start the generator yet. You switch the fridge on instead – it’ll be down to temperature by the time you arrive. Checking another app shows that the tender is just where it should be in the dinghy dock, with the outboard also present and correct.
It’s only a few hundred metres upstream to the mooring – an easy ride for the electric outboard. As you round the last bend in the trot, you press a button on the key fob. Lights in the cockpit, rigging and at the transom wink on, and the instruments spring to life. The multimedia unit starts piping the relaxing tones of your favourite song into the cockpit, and the alarm is deactivated. The bathing platform lowers into position for an easy landing.
Well, imagine no longer, because all
