The Yacht Instrumentation Project

Introduction

It all started around the 2002 when a group of sailors were sitting in the bar at the Royal Cape Yacht Club discussing just how to most effectively use our rather measly budgets to best prepare our vessels for the up and coming 2003 Cape to Rio Yacht Race. Coming from a software development background, I started thinking about just what could be done on the cheap.

A group of us noticed that we could easily use a laptop linked to an external screen to display any telemetric data we wanted if we could link it to the yachts main instruments. After doing a little investigation, I took on the task of providing the base system around which this would work. And so the The Yacht Instrumentation Project was borne.

What it is

In reality, what there is, is a java based framework for displaying any information derived from NMEA inputs to any of the computers serial ports. The system provides a desktop on which virtual instruments are displayed. Each instrument is a class that consumes high level events. These events include elements such as a PositionEvent, a TimeEvent, a WaterCourseEvent and a GroundCourseEvent. New events can easily be created by a developer and new instruments formed. Its really all up to your imagination and what information you can get from your NMEA instruments as to what can be displayed.

Most of my instruments have either one or more resizable text panels or are graphs of various inputs. There are however exceptions such as a HeadingInstrument that allows the user to enter a desired heading then puts this up as two traingles on a line. The one is set and represents the desired heading and the other moves depending on the boats heading. The line also has degree markers to show the helmsman just how far off course he is. We found this particularly useful in the middle of the night where a tired racing helmsman can drift off course fairly easily. Its much simpler than looking at a compass constantly.

Project Status

Currently the project is pre-Alpha and still needs some work (though I am updating it whenever I have free time). If you are intersted in using the software (or helping develop it), please contact me on gavin.heale@dial.pipex.com



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