Stuck on the Fens

From a Customer, by email - edited by Martyn:

Our boat, like many, rests for much of the year on a pretty secure mooring.  We got the Nautilarm partly as we couldn't be bothered taking everything off the boat when leaving her for extended periods and also partly because we'd heard lots of horror stories of automatic bilge pumps failing and slowly, but surely flooding the boat, so the Nautilarm, with bilge sensor, provided an answer to two potential worries.

We bought the GPS version, although we didn't really think we'd need it, for the extra couple of pounds thought it may come in handy one day.  We did turn it off with a text message thought [Editors note: send secret, gps, off to disable gps mode].  This meant the alarm and bilge sensor was still fully functional, and the alarm would only draw a tiny amount of power from our aged batteries. 

A small solar panel provides far more charge than we need to keep the alarm going, and also keeps the batteries topped up.

We lent our boat to our Daughter and a few of her chums for a long weekend off exploring the Fens.  She's a reasonably experienced boater and we thought she'd have few problems, especially given the lack of locks.

At around 3pm on the Saturday I got a frantic phone call; "Mum, WE'RE STUCK - HELP!!!".  It transpired that she'd inadvertently turned down a small, shallow drainage ditch and had well and truly run aground, with our beloved boat, listing gently to portside.  In a state of panic, she didn't know where she was, or how she was going to get unstuck.  It was one of those horrible moments, I didn't know what to say, or suggest - her state of panic was getting worse.

At this point 'Hubby', bless his little cotton socks, went to hunt for the Nautilarm Manual.  My protestations that he was a blithering idiot for doing so, as nobody was likely to steal anything, and by the way, didn't he realise how serious the situation is??? was met with "I'm going to find out where they are".

A few minutes of rummaging around in that box of 'probably important stuff we may need one day', Hubby found the Nautilarm Manual and sent a text to turn the GPS on [Editors note: send secret, gps, on to enable gps mode].  A couple of seconds later we got a message back confirming it was on.  Calling the Nautilarm, and hanging up after two rings initiated another text, telling us exactly where they were. 

Typing the location into our TomTom SatNav told us that they were only about 10 minutes drive (and another 10 minutes walk) away!  We duly wen't out and after a little bit of shouting and swearing, got them unstuck and on their way to safer, deeper waters.

When we got back home we put the co-ordinates into Google Earth and printed out the aerial photograph of their 'stuck' position to present to them when they arrived back on the Monday evening.

Even though they (and our boat) were not at risk of any serious harm, the Nautilarm saved a lot of time, and panic that day  I'm so glad we decided to get the GPS version.  We now use it to plot our overnight stops while away cruising and have a nice collection of Google Earth printouts!

Our thanks to Martyn and Sheffield Narrowboats for introducing us to (and selling us) the Nautilarm.  Martyn has asked for Case Studies, I hope this little story is helpful for you.

Martyn says:  Thank you!  This is exactly the sort of thing we're after

 

Our Allotment Shed

From a Customer, by email - edited by Martyn:

Me and 7 others share a large lockup shed on our allotment patch.

Over the past 3 years it has been broken into over 40 times, no matter how big a padlock we put on the door. 

We once found someone kipping in there, on another occasion we found used needles and syringes, another time used condoms, empty lager cans and their consequent 'product' - you can probably guess the rest, it wasn't pretty and didn't smell nice.

Inside the shed is a large lockable metal cabinet which usually survives and keeps our tools safe.  We never left anything of great value in there though, which meant a couple of people had to take tools and anything nickable home in the back of the car after working the ground.  Course, then they'd have to clean the back of the car out!  Although this didn't affect me, I live quite close, the overall hassle was getting to be a PITA.

Basically we'd had enough.  We were always paying to replace the padlock, mend the door and 'clean' the mess.  We all chipped in 50 quid and got a boat alarm from Martyn [Editors note, Nautilarm Basic GSM Kit - £349.99] much to the amusement of others on the allotments.  We also got a small solar panel charging an old car battery which powers the alarm.

We hid the control unit inside the lockable metal cabinet along with the battery.  Drilled a hole in the top of the cabinet for the aerial and hid the wire from the solar panel.  Set the unit to send messages to me and two others who live nearby.

Less than a week later while I was sat in front of the telly my phone beeps with a message that the alarm's going off.  I leg it to the allotment (which backs on to my back garden) to find the door ripped open and a couple of likely looking lads running off toward the estate.

We fixed the door, again, and decided we weren't going to bother with a big padlock any more, as ripping it off causes too much damage.  We put a small one on instead.  Over the next couple of months we had several more breakins, we got there quickly every time.  Word soon got around and as I write this [January 2009], we've not had one breakin over the Winter, that's 5 months now - result!

These days we're alright with leaving our tools etc in there, along with a few bottles of winter-warmer!

Cheers Martyn, top bloke, top alarm, top service!

Martyn says:  Thanks for that!  The way the weather's going, can I sell you a flood sensor?  :-)