Sunreef puts own AI at the heart of its yachts
Sunreef Ultima 88
Sunreef Yachts has showcased its Ultima 88 at Cannes Yachting Festival, highlighting its latest electrical innovation – an AI-driven operating system. Wetra’s integration brings navigation, alarms, sensors, lighting, entertainment, security, maintenance and other boat functions together on one platform, accessible via an onboard screen, tablet and smartphone.
The system utilises Sunreef’s AI ecosystem (developed specifically for – and by – the company). It takes data from every Sunreef boat, plus the instruction manuals of all the equipment onboard, gathers it into one place and shares that knowledge back in usable form.
Nicolas Lapp, co-founder and CTO, says the development has been driven by many facets, including cost and capability and, of course, aiding owners and captains with the operation of increasingly technical boats.
Lapp believes that some potential owners are deterred by technical and crew challenges when it comes to ownership.
He says, on larger vessels you have a captain, a first engineer and a crew to sort out challenges, “but on a smaller boat, which is getting more and more complicated, you have to have a captain that knows everything.
“And there is a point that not everyone can know everything, and you have to help them somehow. So that’s the AI assistant of the captain . . . that can help him to follow up and to know what he needs to do, when he needs to do it.”
Lapp predicts that this will help the the owner, the captain, and management companies as well.
Wetra AI boat assistance
Wetra has been in development for a few years. “We started at the same time when we started to build this boat,” Lapp says aboard the Sunreef Ultima 88. The company has more than 70 boats under production in the Ultima range, with an Ultima order book extending to 2029.
The hardware and software is fully developed by Sunreef and is connected across vessels. The AI-enabled Wetra system uses sensors and cameras to detect potential problems, such as a fire or equipment issue, and trigger alerts before they become more serious.
Lapp notes that there is another external similar AI-embedded system for superyachts, but says the price is prohibitive for expansion across serial boats.
“It wasn’t feasible.”
The challenge was to create something “even better” for a smaller boat, that “is pretty reasonable in term of cost,” and that can be integrated on all boats.
Plus he says, Sunreef’s AI offers a “full functionality” that external suppliers can’t match.
“And it’s not finished. We are non-stop adding layers.”
Multi-year development sees recruitment push
The system has been built by a specifically recruited taskforce at the shipyard in Ras al-Khaimah, in the UAE, drawing on a rich seam of competent people, and making the most of the host country’s push on technology.
“That brought a lot of competent people, not only from India – also worldwide. There is really a competence pool in the UAE that allowed us to bring talent within our company.”
Wetra uses AI for monitoring and security
The system will manage the entire boat with sensors, alarms and cameras. This means that, for example, the AI can foresee situations that might cause a fire to start and thus trigger an alarm.
There’s a maintenance module, for preventive detection. For example, if a flow of water is dropping the alarm will sound prior to the genset overheating.
The idea is to solve problems before the alarm of the genset, or the alarm of the water maker or whatever pump triggers.
The system will also provide a cumulative log of maintenance – potentially giving value to the boat for resale.
Sunreef’s control room to monitor yachts remotely
Sunreef’s also offering 24/7 operator monitoring from a shipyard control room. The operator can analyse alarms, check whether it’s dangerous or not, and eventually inform the captain, or the manager of the boat, to be able to react appropriately.
As Lapp says: “There is more and more boat. There is maybe not enough captain following the number of boat that are built worldwide.” Given that it’s described as intuitive, anything that makes the experience seamless for those onboard must be welcome.
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