In an outboard motor control system, an electronic control unit executes
ordinary navigation in which the operation of at least one among a
steering motor, throttle motor and shift motor is controlled in
accordance with an operator command inputted from the steering wheel or
shift/throttle lever (steering command, shift position change command or
engine speed regulation command of the outboard motor) and executes
autopilot navigation in which the boat is automatically navigated by
controlling the operation of the individual electric motors based on boat
position information inputted from a GPS plotter and the desired position
of the boat. This simplifies the configuration for conducting both manual
navigation and automatic navigation and avoids making the system larger
or more complicated to install, while including boat speed regulation and
stopping capability among the autopilot features.