How They Did It: The Catamaran

This stunning yacht integration — which the CEDIA judges simply call “a beautiful project” when they awarded it the 2018 CEDIA trophy for Best Auto, Marine, or Aircraft (Asia Pacific) — is a retrofit of the world’s largest catamaran by Liquid Automation. In addition to the usual challenges presented by marine retrofits, such as working in existing (and usually incredibly tight) rack spaces and ensuring that the gear was weathertight, Liquid Automation had a total of 11 weeks to complete the job. The first five were spent planning the project, then a mere six to wrap up the integration. Additionally, the boat was moored in Malta — no less than 18,000 kilometers away from Liquid Automation HQ.

Nine zones of AV and four audio-only zones are featured in the ship’s entertainment upgrades, with room for later expandability and upgrades. Additionally, Liquid Automation notes that “as this vessel is capable of worldwide travel, the satellite TV decoders are designed to be swapped out as the vessel moves to new locations.” The client also needed remote monitoring for the vessel, a complete overhaul of the lighting systems, a robust wired and wireless network with five separate VLANs, and climate controls that can handle drawing humidity away from the racks.

Lastly, a big component of a yacht such as this security: “We installed custom Panasonic PTZ Cameras to the exterior of the yacht and fixed wide-angled cameras in the engineering spaces. The cameras have full control from the crew touch panels only,” says the integration team.