Are Superyachts Steering Back To An Analog Age?

Anyone standing on the bridge of a superyacht in the middle of the ocean receives information about their location from the constellation of satellites known as GPS. Each satellite carries an atomic clock and a transmitter, and the ship’s receiver measures how long it takes for each signal to arrive, converts that time into a distance, and triangulates a position. It’s all very ingenious. But there’s a drawback: when the signals arrive, they’re weak and easy to jam. Anyone with a modest transmitter and malicious intent can shout over these whispers.

Interference vs. Impersonation

That signal comes in two versions. Jamming disrupts the signal and causes the position to be lost. Spoofing uses fake signals to create a false position. The latter is by far the most dangerous, as a team from the University of Texas at Austin demonstrated in 2013. With the owner’s permission and using a device no larger than a briefcase, they managed to make the 213-foot (65-meter) yacht White Rose of Drachs change course while the chart display showed a perfectly straight line.

Unlike interference, spoofing does not trigger any alarms on the ship’s navigation equipment. To the ship, the fake signals are indistinguishable from the real ones. On board the White Rose, as soon as the navigation system detected a position discrepancy, the crew corrected the course. But this only caused the vessel to follow a new course (parallel to the one originally planned). The spoofing occurred again, triggering further course corrections until the yacht ended up hundreds of meters off its previous course—enough to send it crashing into the rocks in the middle of the night.

That was a controlled demonstration. This year, it’s the real world. Following the attacks on Iran earlier this year, hundreds of ships experienced interference with their GPS positions, and some were shown to be on land. About a thousand ships in the Persian Gulf were temporarily or continuously unable to determine their position. And even earlier, in May 2025, the container ship MSC Antonia ran aground near Eliza Shoals, south of Jeddah, in the Red Sea. Maritime intelligence firms found evidence of GPS interference, such as sudden jumps in position and course deviations. To date, this is the most significant documented case of spoofing that has directly caused an accident. It is inevitable that more will occur.

The Coast Guard to the Rescue

On October 1, 2026, the United Kingdom Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) published its guidance document titled “Operating in GNSS Denied and Degraded Environments.” GNSS stands for Global Navigation Satellite System, which includes the U.S.-owned GPS and other similar systems. The technology and risks are the same.

Strictly speaking, the rule applies only to yachts flying the British flag. But given that many superyachts—if not most (including those whose actual owners are U.S. citizens)—fly the Red Ensign (the flag of the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, and the Isle of Man, to name just a few), the MCA’s warnings will set the tone for the entire industry.

How Not to Lose Your Way

The tone of the note is more like a discreet warning from the school principal than a thunderclap. It warns of the growing risk of GPS degradation or denial and calls on stakeholders to review their contingency plans and maintain resilient navigation practices. It notes interference in the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, the Persian Gulf, and parts of East Asia.

It offers guidance; it does not set mandatory requirements. No one will be detained at the Saint-Tropez pier for not having a sextant. But anyone who thinks that this means the guide can be ignored has never had to deal with an insurance adjuster after an incident.

The memo’s request is quite specific. The MCA wants operators to review their risk assessments, establish procedures for detecting and responding to interference, and ensure that bridge crews understand the limitations of GPS. It recommends that mariners practice their ability to navigate safely using alternative sources of information: radar positioning, celestial navigation, and dead reckoning. It also lists some of the equipment that may be affected (which includes most bridge equipment), such as electronic chart systems, integrated bridge systems, radars with GPS inputs, autopilots, dynamic positioning systems, and even gyrocompasses.

What Needs to Change

First, safety management systems should include a new section. The memo calls for risk assessments, interference detection procedures, contingency plans, and training for bridge crews. These are the steps an insurer will want to see following a collision caused by GPS degradation or denial. Second, deck officers must be able to navigate without anyone telling them where they are. And they may need a place to spread out a paper nautical chart (remember those?). Third, in new construction and retrofits, redundancy becomes a fundamental design principle, not a last-minute afterthought.

There are already alternatives to GPS. Inertial navigation systems, for example, use accelerometers and gyroscopes to measure speed and direction relative to a known starting point. This is the technology the Apollo spacecraft used to reach the Moon, and it has improved significantly since then.

A bridge that’s too far away?

In recent years, a trend has emerged in superyacht design: reducing work areas and expanding recreational ones. The bridge is a privileged space, offering the best vantage point, the best lighting, and the best views. The idea of transferring some of its functions ashore to a “remote bridge” is not just a fantasy. In 2018, Rosetti Superyachts unveiled a remote control system that allows an officer on shore to maneuver a yacht using the same controls found on the bridge, with video and night-vision cameras for monitoring. The shipyard suggested that this could reduce operating costs, with fewer crew members, more cabins (and a smaller bridge).

But these concepts may have to wait, for now. The 2013 test maneuver caused the ship to turn so sharply that those on board could feel it. A remote operator, hundreds of miles (hundreds of kilometers) away, would not have felt a thing. All they have are cameras, data links, and instrument readings—and it is precisely those readings that a spoofing device corrupts.

Where does all this leave us?

Before we know it, the conversation will shift from “How much can we automate?” to “How much can we lose without losing track of where we are?” What we need are more independent sources of location data, rather than a single source replicated many times.

As for the remote bridge, it may survive as an aid rather than a replacement: an extra pair of eyes for the officer on watch during a long night voyage.

GPS is a miracle and deserves our gratitude. But it’s also a whisper from orbit—one that’s easily drowned out by shouting. The MCA’s note, polite and nonbinding as it is, amounts to a clear request: please keep someone on board who knows what to do when the whisper stops. After all, people have been crossing the oceans for millennia without satellites.

Benjamin Maltby is an attorney who helps people buy and own superyachts. This article does not constitute or replace legal advice.