A Raspberry Pi Makes a Perfect Sailing Computer for Your Boat
You have many sailing computer options, but you may want to consider building your own using a Raspberry Pi.
If you’re lucky enough to own a boat, then congratulations; you’re better than the rest of us. While we’re stuck self-isolating in our distressingly land-based apartments, you’re out sailing the seas with a smile on your face. If you’re serious about sailing and do more than just stick to the coast fishing, then you’ll probably want a sailing computer. A sailing computer can serve a variety of purposes, but the most important are navigation and communication. You have many sailing computer options, but you may want to consider building your own using a Raspberry Pi.
The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B is a small single-board computer (SBC) that fits in the palm of your hand. Unlike microcontroller development boards, the Raspberry Pi is a full-fledged computer capable of running a real desktop operating system — specifically the Debian-based Raspbian OS. The small size makes it perfect for the constrained confines of a boat. But, with the right software and hardware components, it can be a powerful sailing computer. The Bareboat Necessities Project is a collection of hardware and software guides that can help you accomplish that. The resulting sailing computer is capable of providing essentially any function you can imagine, up to and including autopilot integration.
The specifics of your build will depend on the capabilities you require, but the basics include a Raspberry Pi 4, a customizable enclosure, heat sinks and cooling fan, an SSD flash drive, an SD card, an RTL-SDR, a BNC adapter, BerryGPS module that includes a handful of additional sensors, and a real time clock. With the proper software, which includes OpenPlotter 2.0 and Signal K, you’ll be able to chart a course and navigate along it. This is only brushing the surface of the features that you can add if you like. You can even monitor your boat’s various systems, such as the engine, power distribution, and more. Setting up a Bareboat Necessities sailing computer will require quite a bit a technical prowess, but the results should be worth the effort.