Your crew takes the first line.
First Mate is a guided first line for your Milestone system, running as a service on the server you already have. It recognises the problem, explains it in plain language, proposes the safe fix, and does nothing at all until someone on board says yes.
No cloud account. No shore link required. No standing access for anyone, including us.
Overview Recording normal
Live viewing on Bridge-01 may not be working
The viewing application stopped responding. Recording is not affected. I can restart it and then check whether live viewing comes back. This normally takes less than one minute.
Restart viewing stationThe Overview screen. Illustration with demonstration data.
At two in the morning, three days from shore, there are two options. Neither is good.
The recorder stopped. Someone has to do something. What happens next is the same on most vessels, and nobody is happy with it.
Log in and hope
You open a remote session to a Windows server you did not build, with administrator rights, at two in the morning. You are not a Milestone specialist, and nobody on board should have to be. Afterwards, no one can say exactly what changed.
Wait for the shore
You call the supplier, explain the situation over a link that may not be there, and wait. A fix that would have taken ninety seconds takes half a day. And in return for that help, a remote tool sits permanently open on a system that matters.
The problem is not the fault. The problem is a system that will not explain itself, that nobody may safely touch, and that keeps no honest record of who did what.
A first line that lives on board
First Mate runs on the recording server itself. Everything below happens locally, with or without a link to shore.
It notices
Continuous checks on the recording servers, the cameras, the viewing stations, the storage and the retention you actually agreed on. Honest numbers, so 27 of 28 cameras, never a green tick.
It explains
Not "Recording Server stopped". What is wrong, what is probably causing it, what the safe fix is, how long it takes, and what it will not affect. Written for a competent officer, not for an engineer.
You decide
Every action asks for confirmation and a reason from a fixed list. Until someone chooses, nothing runs. There is no setting that turns this off in version one.
It acts
Only from a closed list of runbooks that we wrote and tested. Restarting a service is a scripted procedure with a known blast radius, not a command line into your server.
It checks its own work
After every action it verifies whether the fix actually worked, inside a set time window, and says so. A restart that did not solve anything is reported as such and escalated.
It writes it down
Who did what, when, and why. People by name, system actions under the name of the software. Append only, on your server, and not erasable by us either.
The screen the captain values most
Ask most vessels who has been inside the camera system in the last six months and the answer is a reconstruction. First Mate makes it a page you can open.
The log is append only and protected by a hash chain, enforced in the database itself. A verification function walks the chain and reports gaps, so tampering shows up instead of hiding. Built and tested, including a deliberate tamper test.
The Log screen. Illustration with demonstration data.
You are letting software onto a system that matters. These are the terms.
No standing access
Nobody at DZ Technologies can reach your system unless you grant it. A session has a named reason, a time limit and a recording, and it ends by itself.
Nothing happens without a person
No action is executed without confirmation from someone on board, with a logged reason. The software may propose. It does not decide.
A closed list of actions
Only procedures we wrote and tested. There is no free command channel into your server, not for your crew and not for us.
Your logbook is yours
It lives locally on your server, it is readable in plain language, and we cannot delete or edit it. You can export it and hand it to an owner, a flag state or an auditor.
It works without shore and without us
Offline is the design assumption, not an edge case. When the link is gone, the panel keeps working and escalations queue until a link returns.
Three levels, one panel
Every vessel starts by seeing. Most want to act. Some want to close the door on standing remote access for good.
View
Read only. Status and guided diagnosis.
- Live status of recording, cameras, stations, storage and retention
- Plain language explanation of what is wrong
- Guided diagnostic scan, collected into one bundle
- The logbook, with verification
Act
Everything in View, plus a safe set of actions.
- Restart a recording server or a single Milestone service
- Restart a camera or a viewing station
- Automatic validation after every action
- Escalation to us with the diagnosis already attached
Connect
Everything in Act, plus governed support sessions.
- Support sessions with a reason, an approver and a time limit
- Every session recorded and in your logbook
- Replaces the permanent remote tool
- In development. Version one shows access, it does not yet grant it
We would rather be early than dishonest
Plenty of products in this corner of the market claim more than they run. So here is the state of ours, in plain terms.
We are selecting the first vessels now. If your Milestone environment is one where this problem is real, that is a conversation worth having early, because the first installations shape the action catalogue.
Built and tested
The full control loop from detection to confirmation to execution to validation. The append only logbook with its hash chain and verification. Roles, sessions and a signed protocol between the panel and the agent that performs the work.
In progress
The Milestone integration itself, the action catalogue on real systems, validation on Windows in our lab, and the governed session broker that turns Connect into a live product.
What we will not tell you
How many vessels run it, what it does to your downtime, or what percentage of calls it removes. We have no honest figures for any of that yet, and one invented number costs more than ten good sentences earn.
DZ Technologies
We specialise in Milestone XProtect. We design, build and maintain complete surveillance environments, on superyachts and ashore, including the hardware, the network and the refit work that comes with them.
We also build our own software on top of Milestone: NERYX for privacy governance and access control, our own diagnostic engine for system health, and now First Mate. It exists because we have taken enough night calls to know that the hard part is rarely the fault itself. It is not knowing.
"We have hardly had to call them. Everything just ran. And when we did need them, they were there."
That is the outcome the product is designed for, written down before it was built, so we can be held to it.
Start with a survey of your Milestone system
Half a day of reading your environment: what runs, what keeps breaking, and what your crew should be able to fix without calling anyone. You get the findings whether or not you ever install First Mate.