A Vodnjan company called Sentinel Marine Solution has signed a contract with the Hanse Group, which entered into the OEM segment and thus opened the door to mass production for shipbuilders.
As Novac/Jozo Vrdoljak/Privredni.hr writes on the 14th of January, 2020, the Vodnjan company Sentinel Marine Solution, with the exception of Vodnjan, has offices in Zagreb and Ljubljana (Slovenia), along with its manufacturing facility. The sixteen employees who work there are focused on development, aided by the 1 million euro venture capital fund of South Central Ventures and the capital of several other partners.
”After five years of development, we’ve been recognised by the world’s largest players such as the Hanse Group, the second largest yacht and motorboat manufacturer in the world. Each of their ships will have a Sentinel system and will be on the Sentinel platform. In addition to them, we collaborate with the brands Fjord, Sealine, Privilege, Dehler, Moody… Our system is also used by Beneteau First and many well-known shipbuilders from Australia to America.
Sentinel also successfully integrates partner technologies such as Torqeedo’s electric motors or CZone’s most famous digital switching and monitoring provider. Even the great Garmin Marine has chosen Sentinel for its own product range as a telematics solution for business clients, shipbuilders. What we do with shipyards involves a lengthy process, and the results of collaborating with big names are now visible. We’ve developed into an independent company that operates well,” explained Draško Andrić, sales and development manager of the Vodnjan company.
Sentinel Marine Solution was launched as a Slovenian-Croatian startup, initially as a basic monitoring model for all ship’s devices and a provider of marine internet for private users and charter fleets. In just a few years, Sentinel has become the market leader in developing technologies for smart ships. One of Sentinel’s first clients was Jack Shuri, a pioneer of the charter industry in the Croatian part of the Adriatic sea, which he supported at an early stage of development.
”In addition to Surija, the first users were the pioneers of the charter industry in Croatia, such as Ivica Buble, the owner of Dalmatia charter from Trogir. The Sentinel Boat Monitor is actually a gateway that collects all the data on all instruments on board that are connected to the NMEA 2000 network. The read condition communicates with our main gateway, after which any warnings are sent to the shipowner or someone who maintains it.
It’s a standard that sets itself as the future of all nautics. Shipbuilders are now our focus. It’s a platform that enables the communication of all of the ship’s devices and the ship, that is, its users for the purpose of a better navigation experience and easier and cheaper maintenance of the vessel. Due to complete control of our own system, we have our own production of hardware and software, which is a great advantage for us, but it’s also necessary if you want to work with the Tier 1 sector,” stated Andrić.
According to Draško Andrić, today, the Sentinel Marine Solution (in-house solution) is a leader in the market for connected vessel technology, a huge title for this Vodnjan company.
”The service is completely in-house, which means that every aspect of it has been developed in Sentinel. This gives us stability and a system independent of external partnership development. Sentinel’s advantage and strength lies in the fact that it can connect to all ship systems and interact with almost all instruments on board, read them and understand what happens on board when no one is aboard,” he explained.
In the last four to five years, Sentinel has, according to this Vodnjan company’s managers, become a leading provider of monitoring services in the Adriatic and worldwide.
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