Patent ID: 7559812
Filing Date: 2009-07-14
Classification: B63H,F02D

Abstract:
1. A boat comprising: a plurality of boat propulsion units; a plurality of control units for controlling the plurality of boat propulsion units; and a plurality of gauge sections for displaying operation information of the boat propulsion units, the plurality of control units and the plurality of gauge sections connected to each other via a communication network, the control units configured to assign different device instance (DI) numbers to operation information of the corresponding boat propulsion units and configured to transmit the operation information with the assigned device instance number, each gauge section configured to identify the device instance numbers to receive and display the operation information of the corresponding boat propulsion unit, the plurality of control units connected to each other via one or more communication lines, each control unit including a DI-number setting section capable of setting the device instance number, and a determining section capable of determining a position of the boat propulsion unit corresponding to the control unit, the DI-number setting section configured to set the device instance number based on the number of the control units recognized with the one or more communication lines and the position of the boat propulsion unit determined by the determining section wherein the DI-number setting section of each control unit sets the device instance number so that the device instance number accords with the ordinal placement order of the corresponding propulsion unit even when the plurality of boat propulsion units are activated in an order different from the order of their placement on the boat.