A control system for a watercraft can provide various modes of joystick propulsion control including cruise control, sub-idle watercraft speed operation, composite lateral propulsion, and shiftless docking maneuvers. The system can be used with peripheral motors having retractable 360-degree rotatable units together with a central motor both of which have mechanism to selectively deploy or retract their propellers in and out of water by a controller by manually or automatically.

A marine propulsion system includes a main propulsion device including a main thruster, an auxiliary propulsion device to be attached to a stern on one side of a centerline of a hull in a right-left direction and including an auxiliary thruster, and a remote control lever to switch between a neutral state, a forward movement state, and a reverse movement state. The auxiliary propulsion device further includes a tilt device to tilt up and tilt down an auxiliary propulsion device body, and is operable to tilt up the auxiliary propulsion device body with the tilt device when the main propulsion device is switched from the neutral state to the forward movement state by the remote control lever while the auxiliary propulsion device body is tilted down.

A marine propulsion system includes a controller configured or programmed to perform an electric drive control to cause an electric motor to drive an auxiliary thruster in an auxiliary propulsion device and having a minimum output smaller than a minimum output of a main thruster without performing an engine drive control to cause an engine to drive the main thruster in a main propulsion device when adjusting a thrust of a marine vessel to less than a troll thrust.

A control apparatus for a plurality of outboard motors 4, 5 spaced apart at predetermined intervals in a width direction of a hull 2, comprises a first steering unit 26 that adjusts a steering angle of the first outboard motor 4, a second steering unit 26 that adjusts a steering angle of the second outboard motor 5, and a control unit 30, 40 that controls the first steering unit and the second steering unit such that the hull moves or turns in a direction in accordance with a steering instruction of an operator by differentiating the control of the steering angle of the first outboard motor from the control of the steering angle of the second outboard motor when propulsion of either the first outboard motor or the second outboard motor cannot be obtained.

A control apparatus for an outboard motor (4, 5) mounted on a hull (2), comprises a control unit (30, 40) that controls an attitude of the outboard motor (4, 5) with respect to the hull (2), and a detection unit (47, 49) that detects a counter electromotive force generated by an attitude change of the outboard motor (4, 5) due to an external force applied on the outboard motor (4, 5). The control unit (30, 40) determines that an object has collided with the outboard motor (4, 5) when the counter electromotive force that exceeds a predetermined threshold is detected.

There is provided a ship maneuvering system including: a turning operation device configured to output a turning operation signal corresponding to a turning operation; a turning control device configured to change a direction of each of ship propulsion machines based on the turning operation signal; an output operation device configured to output an output setting signal indicating an output of a power source of each of the ship propulsion machines set by an output setting operation; and an output control device configured to increase or decrease the output of the power source of each of the ship propulsion machines based on the output setting signal. When the turning control device fails, the output control device turns a ship by making outputs of power sources of the ship propulsion machines different from each other based on the turning operation signal.

A steering system for marine propulsion devices having a steering device and steering actuators configured to change steering angles of the marine propulsion devices. A control system is operatively connected to the steering actuators and operatively connected to the steering device to receive steering requests from the steering device. The control system is configured to receive a request to activate the steering for a first device among the marine propulsion devices. The control system is further configured to change the steering angle of the first device according to a steering request when the steering request is received after receiving the request to activate the steering for the first device and to leave the steering angle for the first device unchanged when the steering request is received before receiving the request to activate the steering for the first device.

The disclosure relates to a method and a control unit to control a marine vessel comprising two or more drive units. The method involving the steps of registering an operating command indicating a requested vessel direction and plotting a course represented by a reference line for the requested vessel direction from an initial position. It is then monitored if the vessel has deviated from the reference line and if a deviation from the reference line is detected, then a value for current vessel speed is detected. The detected vessel speed value is compared to a predetermined reference speed value to determine if the current vessel speed value is within a high speed interval or a low speed interval relative to the reference speed value. Depending on the determined speed interval the vessel is controlled according a low speed control strategy; or a high speed control strategy in order to move the vessel from a current vessel heading to the reference line and the requested vessel direction.

A marine vessel includes propulsion devices, an operator to move the marine vessel in a tilting direction of the operator, and a controller to control a magnitude and a direction of a thrust generated by each of the propulsion devices to move the marine vessel in the tilting direction of the operator. When the operator is tilted toward a lateral direction, the controller executes a first control to move the marine vessel in the lateral direction, and causes each of the propulsion devices to generate a thrust to eliminate a deviation of the marine vessel in a front-rear direction from a position of the marine vessel when the operator was tilted. When the operator is tilted in the front-rear direction of the marine vessel while the marine vessel moves in the lateral direction, the controller interrupts the first control and executes a second control to cause each of the propulsion devices to generate a thrust corresponding to the tilting of the operator.

A method of controlling a plurality of marine drives on a marine vessel includes detecting that at least one of the plurality of marine drives and that at least one of the plurality of marine drives is not running, and then determining, based on the trim position of each of the at least one non-running marine drives, that at least one non-running marine drive is trimmed down. If so, an output limit restriction is effectuated for each of the at least one running marine drive and an alert is generated to advise an operator of the output limit restriction.