The build · Entry 02
Designing the Smartest Yacht
Why I am building GlassBridge, what it can do today, and the intelligence I want to bring aboard.
By Peter van Wyk · Published
We have not chosen our yacht yet. Power or sail, one hull or two, flybridge, coupe or explorer style: those questions are still open. Our family brief comes first.
But there is another part of the brief I want to work on now. Whatever yacht we choose, I want to understand it.
Where is the power going? What needs attention? Is that reading current? What changed since the last trip? Can everyone aboard use the things they need without learning the engineering behind them?
Those questions are the starting point for GlassBridge.
For me, designing the smartest yacht means making better decisions aboard it. The screens and software have to earn their place by making ownership clearer, everyday life easier and the yacht more understandable.
A note on perspective: I am GlassBridge's founder and systems architect. This is my account of the product I am building, rather than an independent review.
Why I decided to build GlassBridge
My background is in systems that people depend on to run their businesses. Through OnPoint, that work spans operational software, integration, retail and fuel automation, payments, fleet platforms and cloud applications. It has shaped how I think about information, responsibility and support. About GlassBridge
When something looks wrong, an operator needs more than a number on a screen. They need to understand where it came from, whether it can be trusted and what to check next. When a system changes, someone needs to know what changed. When it fails, there needs to be a way to investigate and recover.
I want to bring that discipline into our yacht journey.
There is already capable marine equipment doing important jobs. I am interested in what happens between those jobs: understanding how the yacht's machinery, electrical systems, information and people fit together.
That is why I am building GlassBridge. I want an owner to be able to move from “something doesn't look right” to a useful, evidence-backed question. I want the everyday experience to make sense to the family as well as the person who understands the wiring.
And I want to document the decisions along the way. The eventual yacht will give us real constraints, equipment and operating habits to work with. The design must respond to those facts.
What GlassBridge actually is
GlassBridge is a local-first yacht platform. A computer aboard the boat—the GlassBridge appliance—brings supported system information, records, alarms and permitted local actions together. Its main workspace presents machinery, power and navigation context alongside history and source condition, across onboard displays, local browsers and the native iPad application. GlassBridge Core
The onboard appliance does the local work. An internet connection is not required for local monitoring and onboard workflows. Where an owner wants off-vessel visibility, GlassBridge can send an approved view of the yacht's information to a separately authenticated Cloud service. GlassBridge architecture
The distinction matters to me. A yacht's local systems should not depend on a public internet connection being available before the people aboard can use them.
What makes this approach different
The difference I care about is the combination: a whole-yacht view, information you can examine, local authority, retained operating history, and an experience that accounts for owners, guests and crew.
Take a simple reading. I want to see its source, when it was observed and its quality alongside the value. If the information is missing, that should be visible. If sources disagree, the disagreement should not disappear behind a reassuring indicator.
GlassBridge's trust model keeps those distinctions explicit. Equipment actions also have their own checks: permission, an approved connection to the equipment, a record of the action and confirmation from the equipment's reported state. Original controls and certified navigation and safety equipment remain independently available. Verified updates, encrypted backups and restore checks are part of the service design. Safety and Trust
These choices are how I intend to earn trust. A useful system should help me ask better questions, including when the honest answer is “we do not have enough information yet.”
What GlassBridge can do today
The functions below are the platform's currently documented capabilities. What is available on a particular yacht depends on its equipment, supported connections and installation work. Our own yacht's commissioning and onboard testing still lie ahead; I will show that evidence separately as the search becomes an installation.
At anchor: where is the power going?
GlassBridge brings supported battery, charging, shore-power, solar, alternator, inverter, generator and electrical-load information together. Configured tanks, temperatures and environmental sensors can add further context. Reviewed sensors can contribute humidity, light, motion and leak observations, as well as their own battery and connection condition. Vessel Systems
For our family brief, the practical question is what life aboard will ask of the boat. What do we want to use at anchor? Which comforts matter? What information would help us understand consumption and charging?
I want those questions to inform the equipment choices, rather than adding technology simply because there is room for another screen.
Work with the equipment aboard
The integration approach includes NMEA 2000 and NMEA 0183 pathways for compatible Garmin, Raymarine and other marine equipment, alongside Victron power systems, reviewed switching and sensors, camera systems, onboard network and storage information, and supported audio.
Compatibility still needs checking against the actual equipment and connection. A brand name is the start of that conversation, not a promise that every model exposes every function. GlassBridge Integrations
That is useful while our search remains open. I want to inspect a boat's equipment and understand what can be retained, connected or improved before deciding what should be replaced.
Keep the voyage in context
GlassBridge's navigation workspace brings together chart and ownship context, course, speed, AIS and local voyage state. It supports draft routes, waypoint estimates and the practical workflow of starting, pausing, resuming, advancing and ending a voyage. It adds context without claiming autonomous navigation. Navigation
For me, the value is being able to relate a journey to the rest of the yacht: what we were doing, what the systems were reporting and what we should look at afterwards.
An evening aboard: make the ordinary things easy
Smart Yacht provides local scenes, automations, countdowns and activity history. It works with known triggers, conditions and reviewed actions, including supported lighting, auxiliary switching and audio. Saving a routine is separate from enabling it, and delayed actions re-check the current permission before proceeding. Smart Yacht
An evening routine is an easy example of what I would want to design: selected lights and supported audio settings brought together for the way we use the boat. That is an example to configure and test on the eventual installation, not a claim that one button should take over the yacht.
The audio workspace also respects the equipment involved. Sonos supports grouping and library functions; Fusion has its own supported sources, balance and zones. Local playback, mute and volume controls are brought into the experience without pretending the two systems are the same. Audio
Give family and guests an experience that makes sense
Someone staying aboard should not need access to engineering settings to enjoy their visit.
GlassBridge's Guest Experience supports time-limited invitations, room assignments, permission templates, language choices and an optional PIN. Hosts can preview the stay experience, and guests can send requests to an onboard crew inbox. Guest and child-guest permissions are distinct. Guest Experience
The principle matters whether a yacht is used privately or has a wider service team: give people access appropriate to their stay and their responsibilities.
Crew Operations adds a manually maintained people-aboard record and operating assignments, with changes attributed to the person making them. It is a working record, not automatic tracking or a person-overboard detector. Crew Operations
We have not decided our own operating arrangement yet. I want that decision to follow our family's needs, without the software forcing a particular model on us.
When something needs attention: keep the history useful
Trips, maintenance, spares, projects, documents, expenses and reporting can sit alongside the vessel's operating context and permissions. Vessel records
That is an important part of “smart” for me. What was serviced? What part did we use? What did the last visit reveal? What still needs doing?
A useful ownership record should make the next conversation easier—with ourselves, a technician or someone helping us care for the yacht. I want the history to remain useful after the immediate problem has passed.
Stay informed when away from the boat
GlassBridge Cloud provides invitation-only, read-only access to approved yacht information, with separate authentication and access scoped to the relevant organisation and vessel. Observation times and source state remain visible. Fresh remote information depends on connectivity; a disconnected yacht cannot supply a current update.
Cloud does not provide a route for remote machinery commands. Monitoring from ashore and authority to act aboard are deliberately separate. GlassBridge Cloud
What I am building next
The next stage is to help explain what the collected information means. This is where it is especially important to distinguish an existing foundation, a feature in development and a research idea.
Propulsion Intelligence: understanding behaviour over time
The current foundation includes supported engine-data intake, twin-engine presentation, telemetry history and alarms. Available readings depend on the engine and interfaces, and can include RPM, hours, fuel rate, temperatures, pressures and status.
The development work goes further: comparing port and starboard behaviour, explainable health findings, learned efficiency, estimated range, trip analysis, changes that deserve attention and advisory departure-readiness information.
I want the system to help answer questions such as: is this behaviour different from comparable trips, and what evidence supports that conclusion? The published intelligence screens are design demonstrations; their figures are not results from our yacht. Propulsion Intelligence
Our boat choice will determine the relevance of each function. A twin-engine motor yacht and a sailing yacht will give us different priorities. The software should follow that choice, not make it for us.
Guardian: connecting observations to a useful response
Guardian starts with the available camera inventory, connection information, snapshots and selected onboard views, alongside sensor context and retained alarm records, including whether someone has acknowledged or silenced an alarm.
In development are supported camera events linked to meaningful areas of the yacht, and reviewed incidents that bring together evidence, checklists and history. Source outages or obstructed views need to remain visible too.
Further research includes possible person-in-water and swim-platform advisories, tender movement, docking and deck assistance, and technical-space visual scenarios. Those are research directions, not promised safety functions. Camera recording remains with the onboard camera system, and AI observations remain advisory and subject to human review. Guardian
The question I want Guardian to help answer is practical: what happened, where should someone look, and what information will help them check it?
Insight: learning from the yacht without hiding the evidence
Insight builds on existing power information, retained history and vessel records. Its development direction includes energy and endurance context, meaningful equipment changes, incomplete-data warnings, maintenance evidence, service suggestions and explainable reports.
Longer-term research includes relationships across systems, degradation patterns, comparisons between operating modes and voyages, and energy or maintenance forecasting.
A finding should show the observations, comparison period and information gaps behind it. This is assistance for a person reviewing the yacht, not a promise to predict every failure or an authority to start, stop or reconfigure machinery. Insight
That is the kind of intelligence I want to build: something I can question and understand well enough to use.
Thinking beyond our own installation
Our family's journey is personal, but GlassBridge is being built for other yachts too. The builder approach connects model-specific templates, equipment, displays and the agreed owner experience, with equipment mapping, source checks and an accepted handover. GlassBridge for Yacht Builders
I want the people who install and support it to understand what they are handing over, and the owner to understand what they have received—even when equipment changes or something needs attention.
What you will see in this Journal
I want to show the build through useful questions and evidence: the equipment we consider, the information it can actually provide, the layouts that make sense, and the changes we make after testing.
When we reach an installation, I want to record what works, what does not, and what still needs proving. That includes ordinary conditions such as losing internet access, an unavailable sensor, a changed configuration and someone using the system for the first time.
I also want to show when a simpler solution is the better one. More connected equipment creates more work to configure, understand and maintain. Every addition needs a reason to be aboard.
For now, the family brief remains open. GlassBridge is one part of working out what we want from yacht ownership, alongside the layout, motion, operating costs and places we hope to go.
My ambition is to build the smartest yacht experience I can for our family—and show the decisions, engineering and evidence behind it.
The test will be everyday use: can we understand what is happening, look after the boat properly, and spend more of our time enjoying being aboard?
That is what I want GlassBridge to earn.
What is the one thing you wish your yacht explained more clearly? Power, machinery, alarms, maintenance or something as ordinary as the music? Send me your experience, explore GlassBridge, or read Entry 01: Before the shortlist.