The paper is devoted to the area of visual feedback control and the problem of visual dynamic positioning of a ship is considered. It is assumed that the ship is equipped with a camera, through which the necessary information about the objects in 3D world is extracted. The control objective is to provide a given projection of some observable 3D object onto the image plane of the camera. The important feature of the system is that the mathematical model describing its dynamics is essentially nonlinear. The proposed approach to the control system design is based on the nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) and multi-objective structure of the control law. NMPC is used to calculate the optimal nominal motion on the prediction horizon and the multi-objective structure is applied to design a stabilizing control law in the vicinity of this motion. The obtained results are illustrated by practical example.