The beauty of a Feadship consists of more than just what the eyes can see. Hidden behind the panels, floors and ceilings is a remarkable world of cables and wires that connect controls, transmit power, ensure comfort and safety, and enrich the on board experience in countless ways. These cables and wires are like arteries, carefully integrated and interconnected to ensure all the systems at the heart of a Feadship beat to the same rhythm.
Energy efficiency
The power-to-shore cables are very thick and have a multicore structure, reflecting the fact that they transfer a great deal of electricity – a superyacht can consume in a week the same amount of power as a large house in a year. Feadship constantly seeks innovative ways to reduce power requirements without compromising on the facilities enjoyed by owners and their guests.
This quest for energy efficiency spans everything from the overall insulation of the yacht to the equipment installed, plus a wide range of smart solutions to ensure that no power is wasted. For instance, the system automatically switches off power consumers in areas that are not used by guests at a given time.
The control & monitoring includes an energy-saving function whereby senior crew can select specific areas on the GA and program the systems to act in a particular way based on who is on board and where. Timing schedules can be set based on the habits of the owners, and changed for charter groups, say. This is just one small example of the innumerable elements designed to optimise energy consumption.
Domotica
Automated control of lighting, climate and entertainment systems via a central gateway. 121 There are some 121 different systems on a modern Feadship which require power and sophisticated management of some sort. The latest technologies ensure that each Feadship is the ultimate artificial intelligence superyacht.
Cables
The figures below are based on a 100-metre Feadship. The cable systems are given different colours to keep them separate and avoid interference.
170 km Electricity cable
Blue lines are the heavy power consumers – the bowthruster, sternthruster, galley, technical installations, Jacuzzi, swim platform (hinges), side hatches, mooring and anchor.
25 km Alarm & monitoring cabling
The red lines are the control system – everything that is required to make sure the yacht operates safely. A network of input/ output (I/O) panels are connected in a waterproof loop. Two computers run this loop – one on the bridge, the other in the engine room – and serve as a backup to each other. The I/O panels pick up information from the different sensors and alarms about all kinds of installations and systems, ranging from when the doors are open or closed to the temperature in a given area or the contents of a specific tank.
Spread throughout the different decks and each containing a minicomputer of their own, these I/O panels are ingenious pieces of equipment. They allow a virtually unlimited amount of data and functions to be inputted: a four-core wire can process over 1,000 different signals from the generators, for example. Connecting all the panels together creates a network that controls all the alarms and climate systems. A separate entity in its own right, the fire safety system also belongs to this network.
35 km AV cable
The green lines are for ‘experience’. Television, internet, Wi-Fi, lighting that changes colours… The majority of these installations can be changed by the user. Also included is the main audio-visual room on the tank deck with a secondary rack on the bridge deck. The network illustrated here has 35 cables containing 40 glass fibre cores.
30 km Bridge cabling
A yacht’s bridge is home to various complex navigation and communication systems, each of which has its own cabling to vital installations such as the radar systems and propulsion.
Reducing downtime
Generators have to be fully serviced before a new season if they’ve passed a certain amount of consumption hours. If the full season is 6,000 hours and both generators already have 3,500 hours on the clock, both have to be serviced. A solution is to regulate use over the season so that one generator has, say, 5,000 hours and the other much less. This is achieved by using a battery pack and a converter to store energy. When one generator is at maximum capacity and a little extra power is required from the second, the storage system can be deployed instead.
Wi-Fi
Around 60 Wi-Fi access points throughout the vessel receive the signal coming into the central computers from the satellite dishes, ensuring online access even below the waterline. The system picks up whichever connection is closest to your device. Being interconnected with the AV network, the Wi-Fi boxes also identify individuals by their phone/smart watch and take their preferred light settings and musical tastes into account as they move around the vessel. A hierarchical setup can be used to ensure the owners (or anyone else you choose) have priority for these selections as well as over the bandwidth.
Complexity
When all the wiring and cabling is placed onto a single 3D diagram the enormous complexity involved becomes clear to see.
