Inside Angle: Our Video Game Reality

I’ve been to both a boat show and an auto show in the last two weeks and it hit me. The art of helm design is almost lost, having fallen victim to the tyrannical tsunami of touchscreen tech. Just as the rich experience of driving a 1960s analog sports car has largely been supplanted by driver “assist” and Apple CarPlay, the best real-life boating adventures, costly pleasures denied to most, are similarly being replaced by yet another video game diversion.

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I’ve been in the yacht design business long enough to remember when helm design was a highlight, a centerpiece, of yacht detailing. My BlackBerry holstered, I occasionally designed analog instruments for custom boats with no thought to plopping a digital screen anywhere within sight of a steering wheel. Satisfied with my work, I would then slide down a dinosaur tail and shuffle away in my Flintmobile. Yabba dabba doo!

This was the late ’90s, and the ultra-custom Van Dam Alpha Z had a helm which was quite literally sculpted from mahogany. Sculpted, I tell you. Today, modern powerboat helm design at many builders begins and ends with the following brief chat: “Do we want the Garmin 12-inch, 17-inch or 24-inch displays? Two, or three? How many wireless charging pads do we need? Four? The compass is too close to the electronics but we’re going to ignore that again.” Perfect.

Even the best modern yacht builders are turning over their helm real estate to the tech gods, because that’s what we want. Valhalla maintains a vestigial postage stamp of varnished mahogany beneath the wheel. A Boston Whaler used to be something we splashed from a davit and pull-started. The new Whaler 365 Conquest is a 1,200-horsepower multi-tool that can’t be started without three computers running first. The helm console rises all the way to a grown man’s shoulders. There’s even a screen in the passenger-side dash. Congratulations to all involved, I guess. Italian builder Riva is still trying, their 56 Rivale artfully sculpting stainless steel and glass around … three screens.

The speed queen of the Miami boat show indoor display this year was probably the Regal 50 SAV. The Regal regales indeed with boat show-friendly features like terrace doors, a “refreshment island” to salve one’s thirst and what they call “Garmrests,” helm seat arm rests with Garmin displays embedded therein. From said Garmrests (gag) passengers can change the color of the lights throbbing in the bow speakers 25 feet away. I lost count at seven screens on deck totaling, mmm, 187 inches diagonally. Fifteen and a half feet, diagonally.

And then I went to the auto show, to the source of all this “screeniness.” From the $24,000 Kia Seltos to the $170,000 BMW 7-series, seemingly every 2024 car and SUV has the same 5-inch by 25-inch rectangular screen with Apple CarPlay. Helm-wise, the only differentiation between $24k to $170k is whether or not the right half of the screen is angled subtly towards the distracted driver. The few exceptions include my beloved Mercedes S-Class, which copied Tesla with a square screen centered below the air vents. I can report that said screen holds more fingerprints than an FBI evidence locker. With the further exception of Porsche 911s, Bentleys and Rollers, virtually the full spectrum of automotive instrument panel design has socialized into one ubiquitous digital box. No more individualism to see here.

Call me old (at 50 I’m admittedly new to this “old” thing) but none of this kowtowing to K-pop culture can hold a candle to the helm of an appropriately named Chris-Craft Commander from the 1970s. Or to a Panish-controlled sportfish helm sculpted in mahogany by a talented redneck named Buddy or Ricky as recently as 15 years ago.

The benefits of tech at the helm are many, of course. But is command over speaker lighting hue a legit benefit, or just cartoonery? Do I need Garmrests in my life? I don’t know if Fred Flintstone ever went fishing, but one look at Wilma suggests they found plenty of ways to entertain themselves on their boat without seven screens in the cockpit.

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This article originally appeared in the June/July 2024 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.

Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/column/inside-angle-our-video-game-reality