Ergnomics in Boat Desing

Hello

I'm a 2nd year boat design student at Coventry University and I am currently working on a project for a 60ft motor cruiser interior. From my experiences I have found that very little ergonomics is used in creating the interiors, specifically the wheelhouse and fly bridge control units and there layouts. My aim is to create a control unit that is intuitive to use, giving a sailing experience that is more pleasurable and less stressful than current designs.

I would like to know what your experiences are of using the controls are, the good and bad points, and what you feel you could be done to improve these. Any replies would be very much appreciated.

Many thanks
Richard

 

My first inclination would be to think "joystick." The drawback being, that if it's spring-loaded to return to neutral (a possible safety factor), it might fatigue the pilot pretty quickly.

Have a look at the controls of power wheelchairs; typically a joystick mounted on the chair arm at hand position, so as to require very little effort to actuate.

 

thank you for the reply!

The joystick is a good idea! I know that the RNLI use a similar system in there larger lifeboats. They have all of the major controls mounted on the captains chair, however i do not think this is used in any other application apart from the bow thrusters on larger vessels.

 

One of the biggest problems I have always encountered is that there is little or no consideration to arranging the instruments based upon priority. Meaning that those instruments that could effect safety such as a chart plotter, radio, or AIS system need to be easily accessable to the captain's chair while the CD player should really be further away. Of course this sets up a problem in that you use the CD player a lot more often than you need a MOB button. I think this duality problem is one of the harder to get right and I know I am not happy with any of my layouts, but I tend to stress safety over convienance.

The other thing I would look at seriously is the use of remote control units. Often there is a need to be able to control the boat from somewhere other than the cockpit and being able to walk around with a remote is a huge advantage. I have a small pod able to control the throttles and bow thruster from anywhere on the boat, and while it doesn't get used all the time, it really makes backing down to a Med mooring MUCH easier than doing it from the flybridge with someone relaying information to you.

 

I can see how the remote control idea would come in very handy. So many of the systems used on modern power cruisers (Zeus/IPS drives, bowthrusters, engine controls, etc.) are already fly-by-wire, so why not take convenience up a notch? The guys who operate concrete pump trucks have been doing it for years....

If you're looking mainly at the helm station, Richard, it pays to give serious thought to which controls and instruments are referenced, in what sequence, and how often. For instance, many twin-engine craft have a bank of gauges to the left of the wheel for the port engine, and a bank on the right for the starboard engine. But you don't generally want to read the sequence "Port RPM, Port EGT, Port oil, Stbd RPM, Stbd EGT, Stbd oil". Generally you'd want to check them in the sequence "RPM port/stbd, EGT port/stbd, oil port/stbd". Group instruments by function and by frequency of use.

The same goes for navigation gear. When you look at a radar, you probably want to match what you see to a chartplotter. And you want both to be visible at a glance, but without obstructing the view of where you're going.

The best way to approach this is to start from the basics- don't think about any solutions or gadgets at first. Start by thinking of the tasks. List out the tasks that need to be performed from a particular station in various circumstances- docking, coastal pilotage, offshore passage, etc. Figure out what information the guy in charge needs to know, in order to do each of these tasks in each of these cases. Then think about how to get that information to him/her, in as clear a manner as possible. At this point, the solutions start to become obvious.

 

Marsh,

All good points, but now that I think of it I would honestly scrap custom instruments for each application. If i really had my druthers I would do something like the following, at least on a 60' poweryacht.

1) A wireless remote control able to handle at least the following: throttle controls, bow thruster, autopilot, anchor windlass, and beer fetcher

2) 2 large computer screens near the wheels that can be custom programed to display exacally the information I want, where I want on the displays. This would normally include the normal stuff like RPM, Temp and Oil preassure on each engine, but could also display historical data of the same, or any combination of this or other information.
I think Raymarine actually makes a system like this, but if I remember correctly it is pretty expensive at the moment. But again on a new 60' yacht it may not add significantly to the bottom line.


3) A small set of analog critical engine gagues. Set under the displays and organized like Marshmat was saying by function.

4) Finally a keyboard/mouse type of thing that would allow controlling all of this without having to reach all over the cockpit to hit buttons.

 

Captains chair

What about windshield display A-LA fighter planes. I had that on my STI hotrod. I enjoyed it day and especially night. Stan
P.S. Quite inexpensive--around $140.00 US

 

I forgot to add earlier, I would want a night vision camera that feeds into one of the displays for running at night. These days that would only add a few hundred bucks, and I for one hate having to look for my handheld one.

 

I thought the original question was about ergonomics, or "human engineering" when I was in school. Most replies are about a wish list of instrumentation, not how those devices interact with the humans driving the boat.

You would do well to obtain the last two issues of Professional BoatBuilder, a free journal published by WoodenBoat magazine. Articles in these issues address problems in helm position ergonomics seen in many high end boats on the market. Placement of instrumentation, glare from surfaces, vision of both interior and outside the boat as well as comfort and safety are covered.

After over 100 years, the steering wheel has been accepted by all automobile designers and drivers as the best all-round steering device. I had the opportunity to drive a boat with both steering wheel and joystick, a Volvo ISP. I found the joystick a better device for close maneuvering and the wheel superior for other times.

 

Thanks for the reply's they have been really helpful and have raised some new points I have not considered.

I like the idea of a head up display, I know they are used the automotive industry now and are becoming fairly common. The data showing being speed, gear and rpm, and I can see how they could be implemented in boat design effectively.

I feel replacing all of the controls with joysticks, especially the wheel, may not advisable due to the change in the way controls will operate. It may be achievable later on when the "PlayStation Generation" come into purchasing boats and can easily grasp that technology and controls, but may not be advisable for current users.

Does anyone have any issues with forward vision from the helm controls, as I have found that due to the rake of the front windows had reduced the vision to a 40cm wide strip on the vessel I took data from (Sunseeker Predator)?
Thanks
Richard

Ergonomics- "Ergonomics is about ensuring a good fit between people, the things they do, the objects they use and the environments in which they work travel and play" Gary Davis, Davis Associates

 

The ergonomics question also needs to take psychology into account; especially where programmable or customizable displays are concerned. When somebody, say the boat owner, says "I've programmed the displays the way I want them- don't mess with them" you're in trouble. The owner may never have sailed at night in his life, and now you're on a round-the-clock delivery and aren't supposed to "mess with" the display options. This crops up any time there is more than one operator using the same station. I reccommend DRASTICALLY limmiting the things that can be customized. It doesn't matter if you're talking about a boat, a piece of construction equipment, or an airplane. Can you imagine where we'd be if pilots and crane operators reprogrammed their cockpits each shift? In the case of radar and chart plotters and the like, I believe there should be a pushbutton set that is dedicated to function (i.e. push button- get radar image) in addition to any set of programmable display control buttons. I think this is going to become more of an issue as the distributed power and data systems become more common on boats. Will the ability to customize something add versatility or detract from it? You can be absolutely certain that any seldom used feature, regardless of its importance, will be "customized" out of existence if you give the operator the ability to do so.

 

Vision from the helm is both a high priority and a much abused item in many boats. High bows, highly sloped windshields, big support columns, glaring white surfaces, poorly located instruments, etc, all limit safe operation of a powerboat.

 

In this thread people suggested several books and ideas to me:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/ergonomics-stairs-boats-11038.html

FYI: The guy building a 100 foot long hovercraft (Atlas) was using full scale foam mock-ups for his control station much the same way I have done in architecture for a memorial design.

 

Ok I think I am done drooling over technology. But to be serious a minute I do think that the first step in designing a cockpit should be deciding what instruments you want there. Only once you know what will be there can you actually make a decision about how to put it all in place. Particularly if you are using, like I would, a small number of large displayes instead of a lot of smaller gages.

That being said my advice is to make some decisions about how you want to use the space. For instance is there going to be a bench? This would require access at least on one side to slide in and out of. To make this easier many designers increase the distance between the bench and the instrument pannel. This works well untill you need to bend forward to hit a button on the display panel to change something.

The answer would be to have a set up like a desk where the operators legs are under an instrument diplay panel. But this has its own draw backs. Like makeing it harder to get up quickly, it is harder to design a marine chair that allowes easy ingress or exit. However the ergonomics while sitting would be better.

A marriage of these may be that the whole instrument panel can slide towards the chair or bench for long distance running, but of course this adds a significant level of complexity and therefore cost.

 

Skenes,, Elements of Yacht Design will give the sitting and standing sizes for humans.

I would be concerned with comfortable operation when heeled, and plenty of grab bars ,seat backs , table fiddles and things to hang on to while droping off waves.

Flying about inside a vessel is quite uncomfortable , as some distances are far to fly , with that sudden hard stop at the end.

FF