How a real-world failure led Digital Yacht to create the Bilge iQ system

The words “your boat is sinking” are every owner’s worst nightmare. For Digital Yacht managing director Nick Heyes, that call came unexpectedly while he was hundreds of miles from his marina. What followed was not just a close call with disaster, but the beginning of a rethink about how bilge systems are monitored, managed and their environmental impact controlled.

It was the phone call no boat owner ever wants to receive: “I’m sorry, but your boat is sinking.”

For Nick Heyes, managing director of Digital Yacht, those words came from the harbour master while he was hundreds of miles away from the marina. His first questions: Why? What had failed on board?

Identifying the hidden failure in bilge systems

Marine staff were instructed to do whatever was necessary to save the vessel. The cause, discovered later, was a small but persistent leak in shaft seal. Over time, it allowed water into the bilge – water that the pump had been ejecting overboard along with contaminated bilge waste. Eventually the pump overloaded and failed, and the boat nearly sank.

“This got me thinking,” says Heyes, who has spent more than 30 years developing next-generation technology for onboard communication, navigation and entertainment. “Digital Yacht creates clever connected solutions for boaters, and yet my own boat nearly sank and was discharging polluted bilge water, simply because I didn’t know the bilge pump had failed. There had to be a solution.”

Remote visibility and peace of mind

The design team at Digital Yacht set out to solve the problem, resulting in the creation of Bilge iQ, an intelligent bilge monitoring and environmental protection system.

Using NMEA 2000, Bilge iQ connects any bilge pump, old or new and with or without a float switch, and displays the pump’s status on the vessel’s Multi-Function Display (MFD). Owners can control the pump from the MFD or via simple NMEA switching commands.

Bilge iQ also features a wireless interface so users can connect it to a mobile device, such as a phone or tablet. This means they can review pump activity, view real-time current draw, log pump cycles, and set alarms for dry-run events, unusual run time or failure to activate. Bilge iQ also connects with Victron Cerbo systems for remote monitoring and control via Victron’s free VRM cloud platform, enabling complete peace of mind, anywhere in the world.

Rethinking bilge discharge and marine pollution

“We developed a solution that allows boat owners to monitor and control the bilge pump,” Heyes explains.

“A sinking boat obviously poses major environmental risks, but more importantly, on a day to day basis, unmonitored bilge discharge is a problem. The bilge is where all contaminants collect – fuel and oil spillages, paint flakes microfibres and microplastics. To just discharge all of these overboard made no sense, it was just creating mindless pollution of the marine environment. We knew we had to take Bilge iQ one step further.”

Digital Yachts approached Wave International, the UK-based manufacturer of world-leading filter technology products. The company’s bilge filters remove hydrocarbons and contaminants before discharge and can be easily installed into new builds or retrofitted to existing products, making it the ideal environmental companion to Bilge iQ.

“Digital Yacht contacted us about integrating the Wavestream filter into the Bilge iQ to create a really comprehensive solution which would not only protect owners’ boats but also protect the environment,” explains Paul Gullett, MD of Wave International. “Wavestream removes all contaminants to 5ppm (parts per million), which is the highest environmental level often required in Marine Protection Areas, for inland waterways and other areas. It ensures only clean water is pumped overboard.”

Award recognition for safety and environmental design

The Bilge iQ, launched in September 2025 won the NMEA Association’s Best New Product Award, shortly followed by the DAME Design Award for Environmental Design, and also a special mention in the On Board Safety category – a double accolade for this new, affordable and easy to fit safety and environmental protection product.