Welcome to a new chapter in the life of the marine technician and their laments. This time we look at one of the most common complaints or technical support items, electronics. I have written about slow electronics before, this lament however is not about the equipment being slow, its about the users and the designers and engineers behind it all.
Complaint number one: salespeople
Not the people who sell the electronics, the salespeople in the boat dealership, they really need to get more up to date, maybe some places have a salesperson who is a bit more savvy. It ranges from not being really up to date with the latest tech and where all the buttons are, especially with digital switching, right up to not even being able to connect a phone to a stereo via Bluetooth, which is almost standard nowadays.
Marine technicians in boat dealers probably spend as much time supporting the sales team as clients. Technicians are expected to know everything about everything, but that is an impossible task.
Complaint number two: user error
Its perfectly normal to ask questions, make small mistakes, but its not normal to be on the phone or sending emails every day because you cannot understand the most basic of electronics or you somehow are able to misconfigure or reset the electronics on a weekly basis.
This problem is caused by a number of reasons, I have to say for this most part, modern electronics & multi function displays are not difficult to use for their basic and medium level functions. They vary on how they organize those functions or features from brand to brand but by and large, viewing a chart, seeing your depth, position, even engine parameters is not too hard.
It actually takes quite a lot of effort to completely mess up factory settings, time to delve into all of the various menus, turn settings on and off. A lot of user videos are available free to watch, some of them made by expert users are better than the official ones.
This year, one boat owner has a beautiful new 65 footer, it has no less than four 19" screens at the helm, its better than the Starship Enterprise, that's not the end, there are as I write, even more electronics being installed, there are security cameras, this I fully understand, cameras in the engine room, absolutely I get it, now here is where it gets odd, backup camera, even though you can see the stern and bathing platform easily from the helm, I can maybe get this a bit, now a camera in the anchor locker, I kid you not, I simply cannot get my head around that one. I know that mega yachts have cameras in the anchor rooms, both for ease of use and also safety, but not on a boat with a wireless remote with built in chain counter.
The real crux of it, quite apart from the excessive cameras is, I will be expected to support all this when it does not work and, I guarantee it will stop working, not because there is anything wrong with the electronics or the pristine installation, the user will somehow find a way to send it doolally, this year alone, the owners have managed to send the passerelle into some sort of fit (twice), the hydraulic bathing platform, the garage door, all of the lighting (multiple times) and probably more I cannot think of, at first, we thought it was just the usual snagging list, quite normal, especially on a boat with so many systems, and, it wasn't that even slightly, the installations were first class, then when the same things kept going haywire, we though it must be a hardware problem, something not working correctly or even, the very bane of my existence, software updates, read my post about those here, it wasn't that either, how about batteries, new boats with new electronics require massive amounts of battery power, nope, not that either. Somehow the owner had managed to push all manner of menu options and cause chaos.
The worst part about it is, they are really nice people, but get confused by their mobile phone, let alone a tech heavy yacht.
Complaint number three: apps
Almost everything has an app of some sort or another now, some apps are really good and truly useful, especially for software updates, others seem to be another way to extort money out of you and know your every move to try and sell you some more stuff (that you probably do not need), screen mirroring on a 20 foot boat is not necessary.
The main two complaints that get received about apps are actual polar opposites, the first is "tell me how to tell it to stop asking me about the app, or connect to the app (that is not installed)", the user neither wants nor cares to have an app. The second is "I cannot connect", be this a stereo, a multi function display, some other piece of kit, for the user who has seven screens of apps on their phone.
Complaint number four: technicians
Technicians complaining, who would have thought that!? I don´t mean listening them complain about where things are located, how long it takes, why is this like it is etc. The others who moan about technology in general, who stopped advancing years ago and should really not be sent to do work on modern boats.
This could be ongoing education, need to keep pace with newer stuff that will be appearing on board, dealers who have full time repair staff, often do no help, the hapless tech gets sent to a brand new boat that they have never even seen before, and, are expected to wave their magic wand to fix it all, this is usually compounded by having owners, salespeople, captains or the very worst, charter captains breathing down their necks, as I said before, we cannot possibly know everything about everything.
Summary
Electronics have got more and more commonplace, everything is linked to everything else. I do think there are too many automated systems, things that we previously used to do manually can now be automated, such as trim, tabs, even sails. More and more is being crammed into increasingly smaller spaces on smaller boats.
 |
| A lot of electronics, automatic trim tabs, ballast control systems, digital switching, engine controls interface and a data network in one space, for reference, this is a 27 foot boat. |
Technicians are under increasing strain to attend to ever increasingly complicated boats, a lot of the time they can resolve the issue, they could do it a lot faster a lot of the time if they knew were things were.
My closing thoughts, this is for the boat dealers and yacht brokers who employ full time after sales staff, once the deal has been closed, if will be handled by after sales and technicians, please make sure they are as prepared as they can be. Boat builders, when appointing dealers, make it a requirement that technicians make factory visits, get them to know the products, it looks bad on the builders too if the support network is not up to par.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this post. Please feel free to follow me on social media.
Comments
Post a Comment