Ready to hit the water? This Raspberry Pi boating project was created by a developer known on Reddit as bearthesailor. Bareboat Necessities is a DIY Pi-powered computer designed with all of your boating needs in mind.
This project houses a Raspberry Pi 4 below deck, so waterproofing your Pi isn’t necessary. The Bareboat Necessities has a panel of interfaces on the front and back with a wide selection of features. You’ll find USB ports, voltage meters and power switches for different components. There are even RF connectors to use with antennas.
The maker has the Pi running the Pi’s Raspbian operating system, along with OpenPlotter 2.0, an open-source sailing platform. Because the project uses a Raspberry Pi 4, you can use Wi-Fi to set up the software remotely and even access the boat computer using a smartphone or tablet.
Bearthesailor provided a big list of recommended software on the project Github page. You can find applications to display weather predictions, a compass, plus temperature and barometric readings. There are even marine-specific applications, like SailGuage to help monitor things such as speed over ground, course over ground and depth below transducer.
Tuktuk Chart Plotter and KIP Dashboard interface with Signal K—an open-source self-described universal marine data exchange. And, of course, you can add a music player because boats absolutely need kicking tunes.
Visit the official Bareboat Necessities Github page for an intricate breakdown of the project and how to create one yourself.