Patent ID: 8229609
Filing Date: 2012-07-24
Classification: B63H,F02B,F02D,F02N

Abstract:
1. A marine vessel control apparatus arranged to start and stop engines respectively provided in a plurality of propulsion devices, the marine vessel control apparatus comprising: a plurality of individual start/stop switches arranged to respectively correspond to the plurality of propulsion devices and arranged to be operated by an operator to individually start and stop the engines in the plurality of propulsion devices; an all-device start/stop switch arranged to be operated by the operator to collectively start and stop the engines in the plurality of propulsion devices; an operating state acquiring unit arranged to acquire operating states of the engines in the plurality of propulsion devices; and a control unit including a plurality of input ports respectively corresponding to the plurality of individual start/stop switches, each of the input ports being connected with the corresponding individual start/stop switch and all of the input ports being connected commonly with the all-device start/stop switch; wherein the control unit is arranged and programmed to interpret an input signal input to each of the plurality of input ports as a start command to start the engines in the plurality of propulsion devices corresponding to the input port or as a stop command to stop the engines in the plurality of propulsion devices corresponding to the input port according to an input pattern to the plurality of input ports and the operating states acquired by the operating state acquiring unit, and to control the start and stop of the engines in the plurality of propulsion devices according to the interpretation of the input signal.