Publish BoatKit weather to Windy

Connect BoatKit to Windy to publish current weather from the instruments already aboard your vessel. BoatKit sends observations directly to the Windy Stations API over the Internet. Wind speed, gust, and direction always come from BoatKit's calculated true wind, not apparent wind.

What you need

• Administrator access to the vessel in BoatKit.
• Completed BoatKit vessel setup and registration.
• A Windy account and personal weather station.
• The station ID and station password from My Stations.
• An API key created under API Keys. BoatKit uses it to move the station metadata with the vessel.
• Recent trusted GPS, true heading, speed-over-ground, and apparent-wind data so BoatKit can calculate true wind.
• An outbound Internet connection when each observation is sent.

Windy's Stations documentation describes its account, station, and API-key setup. Windy warns that a newly created station can take up to 15 minutes to appear and that observations sent during that period can be lost.

Create and connect the station

1. Sign in to Windy Stations.
2. Open My Stations, add a station, and complete Windy's required station details. Use the vessel's current location as the initial station position.
3. Open the new station and copy its station ID and station password.
4. Open API Keys and create a key for BoatKit's station-management requests.
5. In BoatKit, open Settings > Integrations.
6. Select Add Integration, then Cloud Logging > Windy.
7. Enter the station ID, station password, and API key.
8. Optionally choose one enabled outside air temperature sensor and one enabled atmospheric pressure sensor.
9. Enable Windy integration.

BoatKit checks and, when needed, updates the station location before sending its first observation. A bad or missing API key therefore blocks weather publishing instead of placing a vessel observation at an old station location.

Confirm it is working

The BoatKit Windy panel should say Windy is receiving BoatKit weather observations and show a recent Last upload time. If the boat has moved far enough, it also shows when the station position was last updated.

Open the station detail under Windy My Stations and follow its link to Windy.com. Allow for Windy's processing and display delay, especially during the station's first 15 minutes.

What BoatKit sends

BoatKit sends one current observation a little more than every five minutes, matching Windy's upload limit. Each observation contains:

• Calculated true-wind speed in meters per second
• The highest calculated true-wind speed sampled during the interval as gust
• True-wind direction referenced to true north, in degrees
• Observation time
• BoatKit software and vessel-station identifiers
• The selected outside-air temperature in degrees Celsius, when configured and reporting
• The selected atmospheric pressure in Pascals, when configured and reporting

BoatKit does not substitute apparent wind. The true-wind calculation combines the prioritized apparent-wind source with current true heading and GPS speed over ground. If any required wind, heading, speed, or trusted GPS-position input is more than 90 seconds old, BoatKit pauses instead of publishing stale data.

A moving Windy station

Windy's observation upload does not carry a position. Position belongs to the station record, so BoatKit uses the station-management API to keep that record near the vessel. After the vessel moves about 300 meters from the last confirmed station position, BoatKit reads the complete Windy station record, preserves its station and operator details, updates latitude and longitude, and then sends the observation.

This integration is weather publishing, not track sharing. Windy has one current location per station; it does not receive a BoatKit position trail or a separate position for every observation. Use BoatKit track history or a supported journey-sharing integration when you need a vessel track.

Offline operation

BoatKit does not queue historical Windy observations. While the Internet is unavailable, local vessel instruments and BoatKit continue operating, but Windy remains at its last accepted reading. Publishing resumes with current data after connectivity returns.

A dedicated BoatKit device can publish whenever its vessel runtime and Internet connection are active. An app-hosted vessel can publish only while the BoatKit app and its vessel runtime remain active; mobile operating-system suspension is not an always-on weather-station path.

Credentials and backups

The Windy station password and API key are write-only device secrets. BoatKit never returns them to Viewer clients and excludes them from portable backups. The non-secret station ID and optional sensor selections are included in portable backups.

After restoring a backup, enter both Windy secrets again before enabling the integration. Removing the Windy integration clears its station ID, station password, and API key from the device.

Current limitations

The integration currently publishes true wind plus optional outside temperature and atmospheric pressure. It does not publish humidity, rain, UV, solar radiation, or a vessel track, and it does not import Windy forecasts or station observations into BoatKit.

Windy is a third-party service. BoatKit does not supply the Windy account, privacy policy, data retention, or service availability. See Windy's current Stations API reference for provider-owned authentication, field, and rate limits.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	What to check
Windy is not available under Add Integration	Confirm that you have administrator access and that BoatKit is up to date. If Windy is marked Added, open the existing integration instead.
Set the Windy station ID/password/API key	Copy the station ID and password from the correct entry under My Stations, and create an API key under API Keys. The Windy account password is not the station password.
Waiting for a recent trusted GPS position	Confirm that BoatKit shows a current valid position from a trusted GPS source. Quarantined or stale positions are not published.
Waiting for recent true wind data	Confirm that apparent wind, true heading, and GPS speed over ground are current. BoatKit calculates true wind from those inputs and does not fall back to apparent wind.
Windy did not recognize the API key	Replace the API key from the signed-in Windy Stations site. BoatKit needs station-management access even when the station initially appears to be in the right place.
Windy did not recognize the station password or weather data	Copy the per-station password again, confirm the station ID matches it, and check that the selected optional sensors are valid.
Windy is temporarily rate limiting uploads	Leave the integration enabled. BoatKit honors Windy's retry time and resumes with a current observation. Do not configure another publisher for the same station.
The upload succeeds but no station appears	A new Windy station can take up to 15 minutes to appear, and Windy says observations sent during that initial period may be lost. Wait for station creation to finish before judging the data path.
Temperature or pressure is missing	Select an enabled outside-air or atmospheric-pressure sensor in the Windy panel and confirm that the sensor is currently reporting. Other sensor types are intentionally excluded.
Historical points do not trace the voyage	Windy models location on the station, not on each observation. The integration moves the current station; it is not a track-history export.