In this post, I’m going to explain how I developed and deployed a telemetry system on the narrowboat, in order to track a number of useful things all in a simple to use, unified and remotely accessible inferface. Do note that this is going to be a very technical post - not the usual boat stuff. Also, while this setup works for us, and some components might work for you, I probably wouldn’t recommend going out and buying all this stuff to achieve the same thing; a lot of the stuff in this setup is there simply because that’s what we had (for example, I wouldn’t suggest shelling out for a Teltonik RUTX50 router just because it has a GPS module in it). However, you’d almost definitely be able to cobble together a solution based on what you already have available, as well as a few extra components if you so chose.

I’ll start this post with the obligatory ‘sorry I don’t post more’ standard blog post. I intended to make posts every week or two, but a combination of laziness and falling out of the habit meant I didn’t do that. What tends to suit my posting style more is sporadic posts about something that interests me or I think will interest other people, and only when I can be bothered. Anyway, on to CONTENT!

Rather than make posts summarising every day in excruciating detail, in this post I’m going to tell you about out first week or so we spent aboard Carla. I’ll be honest, I can’t remember dates exactly, and I’m mostly having to go on photo timestamps since I didn’t make many notes while cruising. Maybe I’ll get better at that…

This is the beginning of our next adventure. On Saturday the 2nd of July 2022, my wife Erin and I got the keys to our newly-purchased narrowboat ‘Carla’. This ~15-ton steel box will be our home for the next few months, until the British winter starts looming, forcing us to flee to warmer (and drier!) pastures.