Mike Slinn



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• marnav.info
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• Open Source Navigation Software Tease : Recreational Marine Navigation on Towards Customizable Open Source Navigation Software
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Recent Posts

• Luxury Yacht Company Offers Pirate-Hunting Cruises
• Gift for ‘Real Sailors’
• Live Piracy Map
• Replacement Spectra Watermaker Filters
• Whale Sightings

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Practical Sailor

MarNav - Open Source Software

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Passengers on a new cruise along the coast of Somalia are paying to catch more than just salmonella.

A Russian luxury yacht company is now offering pirate-hunting trips that promise the chance to be attacked by real sea bandits. The yachts cruise from Djibouti to Mombasa in Kenya at deliberately low speeds in the hopes of attracting pirates.

Passengers pay $5,000 for the trip, and an extra $17.50 a day for an AK-47 and 100 rounds of ammo. The price includes free origami towels in the rooms. Former Special Forces troops are on board to make sure none of the cruise passengers are injured.

This map shows all the piracy and armed robbery incidents reported to the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre during 2008. If exact coordinates are not provided, estimated positions are shown based on information provided. Zoom-in and click on the pointers to view more information of an individual attack. Pointers may be superimposed on each other.

Here is the web site.

I love my Spectra watermaker, but the filters are really expensive. Today I found a replacement activated charcoal filter. Spectra resells the KX Matrikx Industries brand for $30.50. The filters are nominal 3 micron extruded carbon, 10″ x 2.75″. Filtersfast.com has the same filter (KX Matrikx +10 /2 10-250-190-975) for $8.50.

I just concluded a passage from British Columbia to California. Between Bodega Bay, CA and the Farallon Islands we encountered dozens of large whales: humpback, grey, and many individuals of a much larger species. Here is a video I took of two of these unknown whales. Any idea what they are?

I’ve had problems with timed transmit mode on my Raymarine C70 for years. The v4.29 software update seems to have finally solved the problem. Updated documentation is here.

NOAA has a useful service called Dial A Buoy. Unfortunately, the only phone number listed is 888-701-8992; if anyone knows of a non-800 number, please let me know.

Please, no bad puns about San Francisco and “Dial a Boy”. This is a high class blog.

The Microtransat Challenge will feature seven robotic craft, without crew, competing in a race across the Atlantic Ocean.

This historic transatlantic race will run between September 29 and October 5, 2008 and start at Viana do Castelo, Portugal. The finishing line lies between the Northern tip of St. Lucia and the Southern tip of Martinique in the Caribbean. The USA is fielding up to two teams, and France, Canada and Portugal will each field a team.

The Pinta was designed at Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK. Pinta is expected to sail for three months at a maximum speed of four knots. Its designers hope the Pinta will become the first robot to cross an ocean using only wind power.

According to Pinta designer Mark Neal, “This is the first time anybody has attempted to sail across any ocean with an automated boat. The big issue in robotics at the moment is longevity and flexibility in a complicated environment. Something that can survive for two to three months completely unassisted while doing something interesting is a major challenge. If it does get there I will be seriously cheerful. It will open up all the oceans to environmental monitoring by robots.”

For more information:

• http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=919
• http://www.aber.ac.uk/compsci/public/research/research-groups/intelligent-robotics.php
• http://www.gamesfather.com/video/Search-Microtransat-updated-1.htm

In a recent blog, I mentioned that I was developing Linux-based open source navigation software for Willow Garage. In the course of doing this, I discovered that CodeWeavers’ CrossOver Linux product allowed Coastal Explorer / Chart Navigator Pro to run in a win2k bottle. That doesn’t mean that NMEA devices work with programs running under Crossover Office - that would require some extra magic. The Willow Garage autonomous vessel project was canceled before I had time to get GPSes working with CE/CNP under Linux. If anyone is interested in adding NMEA 0183 and/or NMEA2000 support to a Windows navigation program running under Linux, contact me to discuss costs.

On another note, I discovered that the OpenEV package that I had been interested in extending into a nautical navigation program was based on older graphics technology, so I started programming a prototype that ran on Linux. Here is a screen shot:

I wrote the software in Python v2.5.2 using PyGTK v2.10, PyCairo v1.4.12 and Glade v3.4.1 for graphics support, running on Ubuntu Linux v7.10. I used GDAL 1.4.2 to read S-57 vector charts, and imported Google Earth KML data and GPX data using LXML. I used an Internet Communication Engine (ICE) bus to access remote instrumentation data.

Having played with the prototype for a while, were I to undertake a similar project in the future, I think I would design a GUI patterned after that of The Gimp (floating toolbox and multiple viewports), and employ a more sophisticated architecture. I’d write code using a mixture of Jython, Java, C and C++ instead of Python. It would be very cool to have a power efficient navigation computer running on Linux … it would be more stable than running on Windows.

Update July 19/08: Some people have responded to this blog posting, and as a result I have created an open source software project and a dedicated discussion group.

marnav-discuss

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I’m working on a NMEA2000 network. Because this system is highly customized, it is set up on a bench for software development and system debugging. In the following picture you can see that an Agilent E3610A DC power supply is providing 11.75 volts DC to the bus, via a yellow cable that ends in a T junction. On one side is a Maretron M000002 NMEA 2000/ USB Gateway, and on the other side is a Maretron WSO1000 weather receiver.

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