Remote surveillance systems / black box

[Nils Gruttner]

Question to all:

In aircraft we use flight data recorders, falsely known as black boxes. They record everything on a plane, including pilots inappropriate jokes on the flight deck [emoji16] . But you need to download the data after the flight / accident.

There are other system that monitor the aircraft's systems and performance realtime. Engine manufacturer use this to track any possible issues that might cause trouble .

Is there such a thing for yachts?
Not just GPS tracking, but engine RPM, acceleration / deceleration (ie hitting the ground), wind speed etc....

[transmitterdan]

OpenCPN has such a feature. It's called the Voyage Data Recorder plugin. It records all available NMEA streams to a text file. The file can be replayed or there are other off line tools that can read these NMEA data files.

There are also other software programs that can do similar things such as NAVMONPC.

[Nils Gruttner]

Thank you. Any live data options?

[denverd0n]

Not sure what you mean by "live data options." The whole idea of a flight recorder is to capture data and save it for review later, if necessary. The OpenCPN plug-in does exactly that. OpenCPN also has options that allow you to view all of this data real-time, if you want. Is that what you're looking for?


A little more explanation of exactly what you want might be helpful.

[philtrick]

Originally Posted by Nils Gruttner

Thank you. Any live data options?

You could try this:


Sailing with free hardware | Sailoog


Based around a raspberry pi, it can tweet and email data if you have an internet connection.


They sell hardware items for interfacing the Raspberry pi as well, to NMEA and NMEA2k.


It also runs OpenCPN so can be used as a backup chartplotter.

[Jdeuel]

Privacy issues aside, there are lots of cellular-enabled trackers for cars that will give you basic speed and location data, assuming the boat is within cell range.

You could also rig one of the many, many vehicle dashcams to run when a particular circuit is powered on, whether that's the main panel or whatever. Those can be configured to record a continuous loop, so assuming the boat will be back in your hands within that time, you'd be able to review footage before it's overwritten. They have audio, so you'd be able to hear the motor over-revving, etc. Most also have an accelerometer that is designed to auto-save footage in case of an impact, although I don't know if they're sensitive enough for sailing impacts.

Just curious-what do you suspect is happening with your boat? My guess would be either the kids are using it, or there's a partnership that's not on good terms...

[Nils Gruttner]

Originally Posted by Jdeuel

Privacy issues aside, there are lots of cellular-enabled trackers for cars that will give you basic speed and location data, assuming the boat is within cell range.

You could also rig one of the many, many vehicle dashcams to run when a particular circuit is powered on, whether that's the main panel or whatever. Those can be configured to record a continuous loop, so assuming the boat will be back in your hands within that time, you'd be able to review footage before it's overwritten. They have audio, so you'd be able to hear the motor over-revving, etc. Most also have an accelerometer that is designed to auto-save footage in case of an impact, although I don't know if they're sensitive enough for sailing impacts.

Just curious-what do you suspect is happening with your boat? My guess would be either the kids are using it, or there's a partnership that's not on good terms...

My project is to document what a charter yacht goes through during its life cycle. So privacy is an issue. No voice, no video. Its not to snoop of an issue of mistrust.... It's from a technical perspective only.

And because I don't want anecdotal information, for it to be no-bias, I was thinking of other ways to capture at least part of the data that presents itself. Taking this approach purely from my industry in the airlines.

So I am looking for weekly, automatic data dumps via cell.

[smith8273]

There is a new product called Barnacle. It monitors boat systems like the bilge pump, shore power, etc — and is connected live by the cell networks.

[Nils Gruttner]

Originally Posted by denverd0n

Not sure what you mean by "live data options." The whole idea of a flight recorder is to capture data and save it for review later, if necessary. The OpenCPN plug-in does exactly that. OpenCPN also has options that allow you to view all of this data real-time, if you want. Is that what you're looking for?


A little more explanation of exactly what you want might be helpful.

Yep. That seems to come close. Thank you

[deblen]

Big Brother has been watching Canadian fishing vessels for nearly 15 yrs./ Len



The National Vessel Monitoring System - DFO - Newfoundland - VMS

[svfinlandia]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

There are also other software programs that can do similar things such as NAVMONPC.

I just tried to download NAVMONPC and as soon as the program downloaded my Norton antivirus program said that it wasn't safe and immediately deleted it.
I am running windows 7 on a laptop. Anyone else have this problem or have any ideas?

Al, S/V Finlandia

[transmitterdan]

Norton is often wrong.

[svfinlandia]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Norton is often wrong.

I don't doubt that at all, but the problem is: How do I know if they are wrong or not? Have no need whatsoever for computer viruses on my navigational laptop!

Al, S/V Finlandia

[FionaJC]

We have implemented a system on our boat. Its our own design. It takes all the engine data and sends it to a dispolay at the nav station and to the cockipit. It looks at 2 biges, oil alarm, temp alarm, oil reading, engine temp reading, exhaust temperature, cooling water flow, RPM, charging state (over charge& no charge), Fuel level, fuel consumption, time total and time trip. It logs this on a ten minute basis onto a SD card as an NMEA sentence. we can then interface it with a computer to provide logs. Is that the sort of thing you want? The problem is in interprting the data afterwards.

[Nils Gruttner]

Originally Posted by FionaJC

We have implemented a system on our boat. Its our own design. It takes all the engine data and sends it to a dispolay at the nav station and to the cockipit. It looks at 2 biges, oil alarm, temp alarm, oil reading, engine temp reading, exhaust temperature, cooling water flow, RPM, charging state (over charge& no charge), Fuel level, fuel consumption, time total and time trip. It logs this on a ten minute basis onto a SD card as an NMEA sentence. we can then interface it with a computer to provide logs. Is that the sort of thing you want? The problem is in interprting the data afterwards.

Thanks Fiona.. the data is good but problem is that I don't have access to the yacht to retrieve the data unless I can store it for looooong periods. Like 6months