Metstrade 2026

SailADV represents operational and technological excellence in support of the yachting sector.
The company’s services comprehensively cover the entire technical and operational lifecycle of a yacht  — from design to functional validation, from testing to commissioning, all the way through to post-delivery tuning.
Complementing this offering are the brand’s high-tech divisions, which serve as the digital and predictive extension of its core services.

SailADV Srl

D.gree AI-first Platform

SailADV is a company specialized in the yachting sector, offering high-tech services and products to support shipyards, fleet management agencies, yacht owners, and stakeholders in addressing the diverse operational and management needs of vessels.
Thanks to its experience working with leading Italian and international shipyards, the company has conceived and developed D.gree: a powerful distributed intelligence platform that unifies the more than 100 systems on board a yacht into a single digital infrastructure.

Marine-grade technology
With D.gree, SailADV brings on board a complete and integrated view of the yacht’s condition. This means real-time technical awareness, predictive diagnostics, and immediate decision support: from routing to maintenance, from fuel consumption to safety—no aspect is overlooked. All data is coordinated in a continuous, coherent flow, with regulated access for the shipyard, captain, owner, or fleet manager.

“A modern yacht is made up of over 100 heterogeneous subsystems,” explains Giovanni Palamà, CEO & Founder of SailADV. He adds: “Without a system that truly connects them, every innovation risks remaining isolated. D.gree was created precisely to overcome this fragmentation.”

At its core lies proprietary technology: the Intelligent Node Technology, a network of software, hardware, and artificial intelligence interlinking every part of the yacht. Within this network, each system is integrated: data travels in real time, is analyzed locally, and is returned in a synthetic, actionable form.

A continuous evolution
D.gree acts as a technical and operational assistant, supporting supervision through predictive insights, contextual notifications, adaptive dashboards, and dynamic recommendations. For each yacht, it creates a personalized, secure, continuously updated digital profile.
Management is simple, even for fleets, with full respect for privacy, thanks to a distributed, encrypted, GDPR-compliant architecture. D.gree evolves every day at sea, learning from real-world usage and constant dialogue with designers and navigators.

The platform’s deterministic intelligence eliminates ambiguity, delivering contextualized and relevant information. Large Language Models (LLMs) are not the source of the information but rather the natural interface that enables users to access it quickly. AI here is not only LLMs, but the combination of these foundational technologies with expert systems and reliable data. The result is improved usability, a stronger relationship between human and machine, and operational precision on every journey.

Monitoring beyond the ‘black box’ concept
One of D.gree’s onboard functionalities is the ability to collect data through continuous, real-time monitoring.
In practice, the platform creates a dynamic, detailed archive of both vessel movements and conditions, functioning as the equivalent of an aircraft flight recorder—commonly known as the “black box.”

However, D.gree’s capabilities extend far beyond this, as the data is also analyzed through comparison.

For instance, consider an increase in engine temperature. This information carries different meanings depending on the yacht’s context: if crossing strong currents, a certain rise is normal; if sailing in calm waters, the same increase may indicate a potential anomaly.

D.gree can interpret such navigational details and issue an alert only when necessary, thereby reducing notifications to what truly matters. Not every anomaly requires immediate action: some can simply be monitored, postponing maintenance to a more suitable time.

Finally, users can manage all anomaly notifications by selecting which alerts to receive.

RINA certifies D.gree ‘Type Approval’ for Digital Yacht
In 2024, D.gree obtained its first Type Approval certification, confirming that the distributed intelligence platform enables any RINA-classed yacht (Registro Italiano Navale) to qualify for the additional notation of Digital Yacht.

To validate D.gree’s effectiveness and achieve certification, SailADV and RINA engineers carried out a year-long process of project reviews and functional testing.

The entire validation procedure was conducted directly on board the Sanlorenzo SP110 yacht, which was subsequently awarded the first-ever Digital Yacht class notation by RINA.

With D.gree on board, the Sanlorenzo SP110 became the first yacht in the world to obtain this certification.

If it’s measurable, it’s improvable – with SailADV
SailADV began as a start-up and evolved into an innovative SME, specializing in sea trials, testing, measurements, and analysis. It has built multidisciplinary engineering and technology divisions while maintaining its guiding philosophy: a system can only be improved by knowing its data.

The company operates three offices and several facilities in Italy, a design thinking team in Palo Alto, three service centers abroad, and an extended team of more than 100 technicians, engineers, and specialists.

The future of the segment is yet to be built
Over the past two decades, the average age of yacht owners has dropped by 10–15 years. Habits are changing, with a younger, more tech-savvy generation emerging—bringing new expectations.

While aesthetics still play a key role in yacht selection, sustainability and functionality now matter as well. This generational and cultural shift coincides with the acceleration brought by AI, which is redefining the boundary between sectors already digitally transformed and those yet to fully embrace innovation.

For shipyards, this means facing two parallel challenges: meeting owners’ expectations for a seamless, transparent, traceable onboard experience, while avoiding further complexity in yachts already made of hundreds of subsystems.

D.gree offers a solution: without directly controlling yacht operations, it understands usage patterns and owner behaviors, delivering services aligned with expectations.

Made in Italy and Designed in Palo Alto, CA, D.gree brings autonomy and control on board the world’s most beautiful and innovative yachts.

Nvidia integrated in the D.gree Platform

The Perfect Storm

The yachting industry is entering a perfect storm — three converging forces that no longer arrive one after another, but all at once. What was once tradition and incremental refinement is now being reshaped by systemic pressure.

The first force is Generational. A new wave of owners who made their wealth scaling fintech unicorns or blockchain platforms. They’re fluent in tech, intelligent systems, and expect the same at sea. Owners who can’t accept that their 60-meter yachts won’t show energy use and route data on an iPad with the precision he applies to track fintech investments, or that he can’t access cabins as seamlessly as he unlocks his car or manages his smart home. Crude interfaces and opaque systems are no longer tolerated. And dressing up a vessel with a Christmas tree of gadgets won’t fix it.

The second is technical. Shipyards have become orchestrators of a growing network of subcontractors, suppliers, and technology providers — but the system is reaching a breaking point. This is no longer about choosing a sofa or wiring a slightly more complex electrical plant. It’s about hybrid propulsion, distributed energy systems, intelligent stabilizers, advanced navigation layers. Relying only on the captain’s experience and hoping for the best is no longer sustainable. Captains must be empowered with new superpowers, not crushed under a heavier load of tasks. A shipyard that weakens its captains risks undermining its own market power. One that strengthens them gains loyalty and long-term leadership.

The third force, the most disruptive of all, is artificial intelligence. Other industries were reshaped by external shocks — electrification flipped the automotive sector, turning Tesla into a myth while legacy brands stumbled. In yachting, the external shock is even bigger: AI redefines everything. But here lies both the challenge and the opportunity. The AI industry has no real maritime experience, and scraping YouTube or AIS feeds won’t solve that gap. Shipyards, instead, hold a unique asset: decades of tacit, non-digitized knowledge and a growing mountain of data gathered at sea. That combination can turn disruption into dominance.

Yachting is a powerful niche: market surpassed USD 10.7 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow at 6% CAGR through 2032, driven by rising ultra-high-net-worth individuals (Global Market Insights, 2024), demanding even larger superyachts (100meters, four decks, or more)

Consider the scale: Italy alone accounts for nearly 50% of the global superyacht market, with 11 of the world’s top 20 builders headquartered there. This isn’t just craftsmanship — it’s global leadership.

And this is exactly why it makes sense that the AI of the seas is born in Italy. It isn’t about chasing foundation models or building another GenAI from scratch. It’s about translating the unmatched expertise of Italian shipyards into digital form — and combining it with years of real-world data collected at sea, refined into a deterministic, maritime-grade intelligence.

This is the perfect storm: three waves colliding at once. It’s no longer a matter of whether to innovate. It’s a matter of survival — and the greatest opportunity this industry has ever had.

Intelligent Nodes and the AI of the Sea
From this systemic pressure, the question becomes: where do we start? The answer is already on board. Years of data collected at sea, distilled into deterministic intelligence, now embodied in D.gree and its Intelligent Nodes.

For years, on dozens of yachts, it has been collecting and processing thousands of datapoints every five seconds — navigation, performance, onboard systems. This is a deterministic AI, built on machine learning, that learns from the sea.
Unlike generic AI prone to hallucinations, this is deterministic — designed for reliability at sea: This is the AI born and emerged by the Sea.

How does it work? Think Star Trek: Kirk at the helm, Scotty with engines and reactors. D.gree lives in the engine room, talks to every system on board, and emerges on the bridge — at the captain’s side.

Now add Intelligent Nodes: compact, rugged units bringing real-time edge computing to the ocean. They don’t just log data. They analyze anchor behavior, hull vibrations, propulsion anomalies — turning raw signals into actionable insight on the spot. They run offline, filter noise, reduce cloud traffic, and integrate cyber-resilience.

At the core: Nvidia Jetson Orin, the most advanced edge AI platform available today: born for next-gen robotics and edge solutions. Each node embeds an Ampere GPU with up to 2,048 CUDA cores, delivering 275 TOPS (delivering up to 275 trillion operations per second) with unprecedented energy efficiency. That means running complex neural networks — vibration analysis, pattern recognition, predictive diagnostics — directly on board, in real time, without relying on satellite links.

Through Nvidia’s CUDA-X and DeepStream ecosystems, D.gree integrates computer vision models for drone or camera feeds, and inference pipelines optimized for multiple sensors in parallel. With TensorRT, neural networks are compressed and accelerated, cutting latency and power consumption.

Bringing Nvidia onboard isn’t about adding a chip. It’s about connecting yachting to a global ecosystem already powering autonomous cars, industrial robots, and defense systems. Technologies validated in the toughest environments, now tuned for the sea. And with years of D.gree data as foundation, this is not speculative — it’s maritime-grade, and it’s ready today.

Near Future — The Star Trek Scenario
What’s next? A horizon where technologies stop being passive tools and become proactive allies of the captain.

Think of it this way: a refrigerator just sits there and does its job. It doesn’t know it’s a fridge, it doesn’t know what it contains, it doesn’t know if humans are opening it or what they need.

That’s a passive technology. On a yacht, thousands of passive technologies create the illusion of control — an illusion that collapses when complexity scales.

Reactive technologies are better: they respond to a command, an action, a need. But managing a thousand reactive subsystems on a 100-meter vessel still means endless workload.

The real leap is proactive intelligence: systems that anticipate, detect, and act before the human even asks. That’s where Intelligent Nodes and maritime-grade AI redefine life on board.

Emerging marine connectivity — from mesh Wi-Fi buoys to microcells embedded in ports — opens continuous communication between yachts and coastal infrastructure. From there, applications that once sounded like sci-fi become operational:

• Anchoring medusas: floating sensor structures linked to Intelligent Nodes, monitoring seabed, currents, and anchor safety.

• Docking drones: mapping quays and obstacles with Lidar and cameras, delivering predictive guidance for maneuvers.

• Smart cabins: adjusting comfort and energy consumption based on external conditions, guest presence, and preferences.

• Dynamic digital twins: real-time replicas of the vessel for predictive maintenance, simulation, and crew training.

The building blocks are already here: edge computing, resilient networks, advanced sensors. The next leap isn’t technical — it’s design. Creating an onboard experience intuitive for humans, intelligent for machines.

Conclusions
The yachting industry has never faced systemic pressure of this magnitude. Mastery of complexity doesn’t come from simplification or isolating systems — it comes from data.

Shipyards and owners already hold years of real-world data, collected at sea. Italy is uniquely positioned to anchor this shift. Not by waving a flag, but because Italian shipyards lead the global market, concentrate the world’s most advanced craftsmanship, and hold direct access to the owners and investors shaping tomorrow’s demand.
When shipyards digitize their expertise and connect it with maritime data, they create a foundation rooted in the (Italian) genius loci — context, tacit knowledge, and craftsmanship that technology giants can enable but never originate.

People of the sea, always respectful of its power, can look cautious with technology. That caution isn’t a weakness — it’s wisdom. Transformation is demanding, but it can be built one retrofit at a time, one proactive function at a time, one new capability for each stakeholder.

At sea, every wave leaves a trace. Every trace builds intelligence. That’s how the sea forges its own robots — and only those who design with it will keep command.

For the kid I was, that’s not just technology — it’s design at starship scale, shaped for the sea.

D.gree obtains the Type Approval Certification from RINA

SailADV with its brand D.gree —has obtained the RINA “Type Approval” certification. This is the first certification of its kind.

The Platform is based on edge computing technologies that integrate deterministic artificial intelligence and machine learning to acquire functional parameters and enable remote monitoring of yacht conditions, in full compliance with the complex GDPR regulatory framework.

For monitoring to be effective, there are essential conditions—above all, the quality of the data. This is where D.gree reveals its most important feature. Through this innovative methodology, the system acquires high-quality, selected data while simultaneously reducing energy consumption during data management (transmission, storage, and processing).

In addition, in the event of a loss of connectivity on board, the system still guarantees access to the data. This ensures that Captains and Directors can maintain full control in any operational situation.

To validate the effectiveness of D.gree, the certification process required extensive collaboration between SailADV and RINA engineers, involving project verification and functional testing conducted directly on board the Sanlorenzo SP110 yacht. This yacht was awarded the first “Digital Yacht” class notation by RINA.

On this vessel, D.gree underwent more than a year of operational trials, testing its stability and compliance with regulatory requirements. Having successfully passed all tests and achieved certification, D.gree is now a system capable of making any RINA-classed yacht eligible for the additional Digital Yacht class notation.

D.gree technologies work together to support shipyards throughout the entire lifecycle of a yacht—from production to operation—enhancing safety and long-term performance.

The D.gree platform, for example, provides a complete overview of the yacht’s condition. It collects data sending immediate alerts in case of anomalies through innovative evaluation logics.

The next phase of anomaly assessment and analysis is carried out through advanced interpretation, based on cross-referencing of data and supported by the fundamental contribution of SailADV and D.gree’s twenty years of technical expertise.

Innovation, experience, and a performance-driven vision have led SailADV and D.gree to develop technologies that actively contribute to the digital transformation of the yachting industry. The RINA “Type Approval” certification confirms this commitment.

“We are extremely proud of this achievement, which represents not only recognition for SailADV and D.gree, but also a step forward for the entire yachting sector.”
— Giovanni Palamà, CEO & Founder, SailADV and D.gree

“The path we began with SailADV and later with D.gree is an ongoing one. As a company, we have embraced digital transformation from the start, and we are always ready to look ahead, refining every detail of our yachts.”
— Paolo Bertetti, Chief Innovation Officer, Sanlorenzo

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D.gree is a deterministic, AI-first platform for yachts and industrial applications, developed by SailADV. It integrates data from all onboard systems into a unified digital infrastructure, providing real-time monitoring, predictive diagnostics, contextual notifications, and decision support. Designed as both a technical and operational assistant, D.gree empowers yacht owners, captains, fleet managers, and industrial operators.

D.gree

D.gree is a deterministic, AI-first platform. It unifies all onboard systems into a digital infrastructure transforming data into predictive signals.

Engineering and technology for the maritime sector

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D.gree is a deterministic, AI-first platform. It unifies all onboard systems into a digital infrastructure transforming data into predictive signals.

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SailADV: managing the yacht with the distributed intelligence of D.gree

Running on Nvidia at the ocean’s edge

RINA grants SailADV’s D.gree the first-ever Type Approval certification

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