Saillogger is a cloud based solution that is built by boaters for boaters. It automatically logs the details of your boat's trips. These include track, speed, distance, wind speed, etc. Each trip is automatically detected and logged without requiring you take any action like starting or stopping a trip.
At the end of each trip, a new log entry is automatically created, marking start and destination moorages. The time you spent at moorages will also be logged under Stays (e.g. Stayed 3 days in Eagle Harbor at anchor). You may need to manually categorize your stay as at anchor, mooring buoy or dock. If you choose to do so, that is the only manual thing to do, it is completely optional. And if you classify a stay, Saillogger will remember it the next time you visit the same moorage.
Saillogger aggregates information about your trips and provides you statistics including the number of trips, moorages you have been to, countries you have visited, longest passages, time you spent at anchor, mooring buoys etc. The easiest may be to look at the statistics of one of our founders as an example.
Saillogger also creates an automatic timelapse for all of your trips, animating the movements of your boat on a map. See a timelapse example here for a multi-week sail along the California coast between San Francisco and Ensenada.
Your information stays private unless you explicitly decide to make it available publicly. If you choose to do so, your friends and others can access your statistics and timelapse.
In a nutshell, you need a computer that is connected to your GPS or AIS via a USB cable. You can get more sophisticated and use something like an Actisense NMEA to USB gateway or a PiCAN-M board but those are optional.
Easiest option is to do this on a Raspberry Pi, which is a pretty cheap credit card sized computer. You can get a Raspberry Pi kit on Amazon.com for less than $100.
Whichever computer you choose to you use, the next step is to install an Open Source and free software called Signal K. You can find numerous instructions on how to install Signal K. Once you install it, all you need to do is to go to Signal K's admin interface and install Saillogger plugin (http://signalk-server-ip:3000/admin/#/appstore/apps). After installing the plugin, you will need to restart the server and plugin configuration will be available at (http://signalk-server-ip:3000/admin/#/serverConfiguration/plugins/signalk-saillogger). You will need to create a free account on Saillogger.com and enter the collector ID you get from there to the plugin. That's all, the rest is automatically taken care of for you!
If you try this and don't succeed, please contact us, we will be happy to help you.
Saillogger is free to use for beta testers. At some point in the future, there may be a nominal subscription fee to cover server and computing costs. If and when subscription fees are introduced, beta users will be grandfathered with some free subscription period. And you can always download all your information from Saillogger, if you decide not to continue to use the service. We don't use or sell your data, if you decide to cancel your subscription, all your data will be deleted.
You do not need constant Internet connection from your boat for logging. Saillogger caches data locally on your boat computer. So if that computer connects to the Internet occasionally (every few weeks is more than enough) when you are at a marina or dock, that is sufficient.
We have users who use Saillogger from remote destinations, where there is no Internet. Their trips gets processed whenever they get to a place where the onboard computer can connect to the Internet for a few hours.
Remote monitoring is near-realtime and you need an Internet connection to use it. Trip logging will continue to work even if you do not have an Internet connection but you will not be able to monitor your boat remotely.
Yes, Timelapse takes several parameters that allow customization:
color
: Specifies the path color. Default: dodgerblue
start_date
and end_date
: Specified in YYYY-MM-DD format. Default: None
map_type
: 0 for OpenStreetMap, 1 for Satellite, 2 for NOAA (for US only). Default: OpenStreetMapspeed
: Measured in milliseconds, controls the speed of animation. Lower values mean faster movement. Default: 75
delay
: Measured in seconds, allows pausing before starting the animation for screen captures. Default: 0
zoom
: Specifies default zoom. Default: 10
https://saillogger.com/timelapse/2/?color=yellow&start_date=2020-06-01&end_date=2020-07-31&map_type=1&speed=90&delay=1&zoom=11
Saillogger takes information from your boat network and only supports the readings that are available, specifically:
Make sure you have readings for your battery available in SignalK. To confirm this, go to the admin page of your Signal K server and choose Data Browser. Choose self
as context and entry batteries
in the search field. You should see several readings like electrical.batteries.XXXX.voltage
, electrical.batteries.XXXX.capacity.stateOfCharge
.
Enter the value you see in XXXX
to your Saillogger plugin, in Main Battery key for monitoring
field. For example, if you see electrical.batteries.1234.voltage
in the browser, you should only enter 1234
in the plugin configuration.