US Patent 12024272 Ship propulsion system

A ship propulsion system includes authentication devices that respectively stores different authentication codes. Each of the authentication devices corresponds to one or more ship propulsion devices. Two or more authentication devices among the plurality of authentication devices do not simultaneously correspond to one ship propulsion device. Each of the authentication devices operates as a master authentication device when an authentication code transmitted from a communication device matches an authentication code stored in the authentication devices. The master authentication device recognizes whether a malfunction occurs in the authentication devices; and to select a ship propulsion device disposed in a manner of being bilaterally symmetrical about the center of the ship in the left-right direction from ship propulsion devices corresponding to an authentication device in which no malfunction occurs. A control device brings the ship propulsion device selected by the master authentication device into an operable state.