"Docking Master" Yacht Controller

It looks like Docking Master is at least still nominally in business. Their website is live and appears to have been updated recently (copyright through 2025, pages crawled within the last week to few months), with active contact info including:

• 305-467-7614
• info@dockingmaster.com
• North Miami Beach, Florida address

The company still lists Jose Luis Rodriguez as owner/operator and references ongoing manufacturing and certified installers.

More interestingly for your service question: the original FCC filings and manuals show that the transmitter was actually developed under/through Marine Automation Systems back in 2005. The manuals specifically say:

“This product may be serviced only by the manufacturer or its authorized service agents.”

The FCC documentation ties the transmitter model RC-5660 directly to Marine Automation Systems Corp. in Hollywood, FL.

From the current Docking Master pages, it also looks like the operational/business side may now overlap heavily with Yacht Energy US — same phone number, same Jose Rodriguez contact, same support emails.

So my read is:

• Docking Master itself probably never outsourced the core transmitter design overseas.
• The hardware appears to have been designed/manufactured internally through Marine Automation Systems / Yacht Energy US.
• If anyone can still repair or clone a transmitter, it’s probably Jose Rodriguez or whoever remains connected to Yacht Energy US.

A few practical ideas if you’re trying to revive an older unit:

1. Call rather than email.
   The company feels very small-owner-operated.
2. Ask specifically about:
   • RC-5660 transmitter repair
   • receiver/transmitter re-pairing
   • replacement encoder boards
   • whether they still support “Buddy Shifter” systems
3. If they’re unresponsive, a competent marine electronics shop could probably reverse-engineer the transmitter:
   • FCC ID: TD9-RC-5660
   • custom coded RF remote
   • likely simple relay/encoder architecture from the mid-2000s
4. The FCC docs/manuals could help an independent technician identify the radio hardware and frequencies.

I didn’t find obvious recent forum chatter saying they’ve disappeared entirely, which is usually a good sign for niche marine electronics companies. The BBB entry also still lists them as an active LLC with a 2005 founding date.

The above answer from ChatGPT

You’re definitely on the right trail. I found the original Florida corporate filing for what appears to be the exact company you’re tracking:

• Marine Automation Systems Corp.
  Filed in Florida on December 5, 2002 as a domestic for-profit corporation. Status became inactive after a voluntary dissolution in July 2010. The listed address was 6341 Scott St, Hollywood, Florida. Officers were Claudio Cassina and Cristina Cassina.

A few things stand out:

1. It really does look like a very small operation
   The filings only show essentially family/officer names and a residential-style address, which matches your “3 man operation” description.
2. There’s almost no surviving web footprint
   No archived product catalogs, press releases, LinkedIn presence, trade-show references, or maritime publications surfaced under that exact company name. That usually means:
   • custom integration work,
   • subcontracting,
   • yacht retrofit/electrical controls,
   • or consulting rather than a manufactured product line.
3. South Florida location is significant
   Hollywood / Fort Lauderdale is deeply tied to yacht electrical and automation work. Many tiny marine-control shops operated there in the early 2000s supporting:
   • Broward yacht yards,
   • cruise refits,
   • PLC retrofits,
   • alarm/monitoring systems,
   • and bridge integration.

The next places I’d dig:

• Florida Sunbiz document PDFs
  The annual reports sometimes contain signatures, alternate mailing addresses, or FEI clues.
  Florida Sunbiz filing page
• USCG vendor / ABS / DNV subcontract references
  Tiny marine automation firms often appear only as subcontractors in:
  • shipyard bid docs,
  • class society records,
  • or cruise refit paperwork.
• Archived domains
  If they ever had a website, it may have been something simple like:
  • marineautomationsystems.com
  • masystems.com
  • marine-auto.com
    The Wayback Machine could still have captures.
• Claudio Cassina specifically
  That name is uncommon enough that searching it alongside:
  • “PLC”
  • “yacht”
  • “automation”
  • “Fort Lauderdale”
  • “marine controls”
• may expose later companies or successor operations.

You may also want to look sideways instead of directly at the company. Many of these small automation outfits got absorbed into larger integrators or simply dissolved while the engineers continued independently. Modern South Florida firms doing similar work include:

• Technical Marine Service
• Fine Line Marine Electric

Those companies reflect the exact niche Marine Automation Systems Corp. likely occupied.