Electronic control apparatus for driving a boat

An electronic control apparatus for driving a boat, comprising:

• a steering mechanism having one steering lever operated by an operator to control both driving the boat forward or backward, and an engine output;
• a shift actuator for switching a transmission of an engine of a boat among neutral, forward, and backward;
• a shift position sensor for detecting neutral, forward, and backward positions and intermediate ranges thereof of the shift actuator:
• a throttle actuator for driving a throttle valve to regulate an engine output;
• an electronic control unit connected to each of the steering mechanism, the shift actuator, and the throttle actuator, for calculating a movement command value for controlling shift position of the shift actuator and an output command value for controlling a throttle aperture of the throttle actuator, respectively, based on a steering position signal from the steering mechanism, and for controlling the shift actuator and the throttle actuator respectively according to the movement command value, the output command value, and a feedback signal indicating a control state of the shift actuator, and the output command value and a feedback signal indicating a control state of the throttle actuator, respectively, and
• the electronic control unit configured to restrain the output command value until a shift operation of the shift actuator is completed, in a case where the movement command value has been generated for shifting the shift actuator to one of forward and backward, and
• after a completion of the shift operation, the output command value is controlled so as to substantially reach an originally targeted output command value,
• wherein, in an instance where the movement command value being generated for shifting the shift actuator to one of forward and backward, wherein an actual shift position obtained from the shift position sensor does not coincide with the movement command value, the electronic control unit restrains the output command value, until the shift actuator completes a shift operation thereof, to a value which corresponds to a value capable of controlling driving of the throttle actuator to a throttle position close to total close or to a throttle position for an idling state, and
• wherein the actual shift position coincides with the movement command value, in order to coincide an increase rate of the output command value with an intended increase rate of an operator at the output command value generation in a short amount of time, the short amount of time being that the electronic control unit increases the increase rate of the output command value once at an initial stage after the coincidence of the actual shift position and the movement command value and then decreases the increase rate gradually to coincide with the indented increase rate.