Hi folks
I look at my windex an awful lot when I'm racing, but my neck is pretty knackered (C3-C7 quite deteriorated), so it's time to go electronic.
Any experience with the above mentioned or the cheapy alternative: NASA Marine Clipper Wind System
Okay, now don't take this the wrong way, but my question is why?
I have never owned boats with wind gear or a masthead wind indicator. I would like an electronic set at night when I can't see the sails but otherwise, what can a wind indicator tell you that the boat won't?
I have two sets of telltales on the boat I must have. Steering tufts about 1/3 of the way up the luff of the genoa to steer by and a leech telltale 1/4 of the way down the leech of the main.
For steering upwind and trimming, I use the genoa telltales. 1st gear - getting moving, sheets cracked a bit, leeward telltale almost flicking. 2nd gear - speed gear, sheets on, both telltales streaming, 3rd gear - pointing - at full speed upwind and lifting windward telltale and pointing to get it up about 30 degrees. 4th gear (the I should have reefed or changed down gear - depowering) windward telltale going round in circles and luff, well luffing. On my fractional rig the main is tightened until the leech telltale starts playing hide and seek with me. If I can't see it, ease main, if it streams all the time, the sheet is too loose and I trim on. Sweet spot half out and half hidden, playing on every gust/lull. Well almost all the time upwind on a fractional mono or dinghy.
In the end, you don't need the telltales. When it rains you can do almost as well using the other methods you see when the telltales are happy.
What I don't get is what use a wind indicator is in letting you know what the sails want. I am not trying to be a smart arse, I just have never needed to look at a dial when the sails are a big canvas telling me what they want all of the time.
Downwind- genoa starts flagging to leeward and sheet tension drops, head up. Kite starts fluttering from the head in a strange manner on a square, like little fingers playing on the head, head up. Windward luff starts to curl, bear away.
So in daylight I would argue that sailing a boat by the angles is not best practice, we should be sailing to what we are told by the sails. And they shout at me all the time. For longer distance stuff it might be nice to have a display in the cabin or under the dodger so you can easily check trim.
No offence meant in any of this, my own two cents worth, and it could save a grand or so. I have looked into wind gear but I would only use it to brag about the wind speed, to get the autopilot to carry an assy kite, or to sail better at night (which I am not that good at). I can't get across the cost and effort of install. But the world is a diverse place and if it makes someone happy, then great, but for those who are wavering, try telltale sailing first.
Go well Phil
Okay, I will finish soon but when I race I actually don't need the wind direction at my boat, I want to know how it changes at other places around the course. So I spend my time tracking the wind gusts and working out their direction. Now if there was a wind indicator that would tell me the wind direction everywhere APART from where I am, then I would buy that in a hearbeat.
I like wool tuffs on the shrouds at eye level when seated and a longer piece of wool on the backstay just above my head. These are only used crossing the bar in a North Easter when the wind is directly up my clacker and I don't want to look up!
Select to expand quoteKankama said..
Okay, now don't take this the wrong way, but my question is why?
I have never owned boats with wind gear or a masthead wind indicator. I would like an electronic set at night when I can't see the sails but otherwise, what can a wind indicator tell you that the boat won't?
I have two sets of telltales on the boat I must have. Steering tufts about 1/3 of the way up the luff of the genoa to steer by and a leech telltale 1/4 of the way down the leech of the main.
For steering upwind and trimming, I use the genoa telltales. 1st gear - getting moving, sheets cracked a bit, leeward telltale almost flicking. 2nd gear - speed gear, sheets on, both telltales streaming, 3rd gear - pointing - at full speed upwind and lifting windward telltale and pointing to get it up about 30 degrees. 4th gear (the I should have reefed or changed down gear - depowering) windward telltale going round in circles and luff, well luffing. On my fractional rig the main is tightened until the leech telltale starts playing hide and seek with me. If I can't see it, ease main, if it streams all the time, the sheet is too loose and I trim on. Sweet spot half out and half hidden, playing on every gust/lull. Well almost all the time upwind on a fractional mono or dinghy.
In the end, you don't need the telltales. When it rains you can do almost as well using the other methods you see when the telltales are happy.
What I don't get is what use a wind indicator is in letting you know what the sails want. I am not trying to be a smart arse, I just have never needed to look at a dial when the sails are a big canvas telling me what they want all of the time.
Downwind- genoa starts flagging to leeward and sheet tension drops, head up. Kite starts fluttering from the head in a strange manner on a square, like little fingers playing on the head, head up. Windward luff starts to curl, bear away.
So in daylight I would argue that sailing a boat by the angles is not best practice, we should be sailing to what we are told by the sails. And they shout at me all the time. For longer distance stuff it might be nice to have a display in the cabin or under the dodger so you can easily check trim.
No offence meant in any of this, my own two cents worth, and it could save a grand or so. I have looked into wind gear but I would only use it to brag about the wind speed, to get the autopilot to carry an assy kite, or to sail better at night (which I am not that good at). I can't get across the cost and effort of install. But the world is a diverse place and if it makes someone happy, then great, but for those who are wavering, try telltale sailing first.
Go well Phil
Great post, like the 4 gears description - in the past I've attempted to explain the first 3 to newbies but overlooked the 4th, thanks. But sorry I'd be at times lost without a Windex at the top of the mast, expect I am not Robinson Crusoe. On several occasions (late in the watch scheduled window when tired but that's no excuse) have been caught out sailing too low upwind offshore in a sloppy sea off Sydney when the leeward telltales are not as visible as they normally are - shadows, rain as you say. So sailing 5-10deg too low the windward telltales (unless stuck) will stream fine but obviously VMG goes out the window and the boat goes sideways. We also have shroud and backstay wools. In the worst occasion off North Head coming back from Pittwater in a sagging southerly and lumpy sea a quick glance at the Windex would have immediately shown that the course was 10deg off where it should have been. All 3 and the windex should be used as relevant. Sorry about your neck Zailor.
I get the tired part. For me I can sail well for about 3-8 hours until I get sloppier, and that is when some sort of aid might be nice. By dusk I get quite sloppy indeed. The longer the trip, the more likely some sort of help would be useful. Each to their own and viva la difference!
No experience with the Garmin, but I have had the B&G wireless module, which has been rock solid. There was some mucking about getting it paired to begin with (they had some instructions that were wrong), but it's been one of the bits of electronic I've never had to worry about. It's also NMEA2000, which means it just slots in easy.
One of the other guys in the club does have the Garmin, and had a bit of problems with it disconnecting, even on a small mast. Can't speak to it's setup though.
The downside to the Clipper could be that it's NMEA0183. Of course, that might be good for you, depending on your existing electronics setup - what do you have?
ergh (rolls eyes in exasperation).
I only mentioned my neck problem because I was hoping to avoid the inevitable replies "Oh, why do you need that, you only need a windex and knowledge of sail trim".
So of course I get a reply from Kankama who doesn't need a windex either.
Kankama, you didn't tell me anything about sail trim that I didn't already know and practice. I would only come to a forum for sail trim advice if it was very specific to a particular boat and not the slightly above basic stuff you've mentioned that's in a plethora of articles on the web from sailmakers and champion sailors.
I'm also not interested in my topic being hijacked by lots of answers to Kankama, whether they're agreeing with him or whether they're pointing out examples where a windex is, indeed, needed.
I just want answers that are on-topic. Anyone who hasn't had experience with electronic wind instruments .... please don't reply.
Planeray, thanks for your information. I don't have any else to plug into it yet, and for the moment I can make do with just apparent wind. TWA and TWS are luxuries that I might spend some money on later. What did your B&G cost and did you buy it from Australia?
Hello - gee sorry for wasting your valuable time and causing exasperation and eye rolling which hopefully didn't exacerbate the neck. What was I thinking including offering condolences on the neck issue for sure won't try that again. To clarify I sail with electronic wind instruments as well as windex. Thanks very much.
sorry r13, you didn't cause exasperation. Sorry my post came across that way. Which wind instruments, and are you happy with them?
Ok no problem.
We (me and co-owner) have Tack-Tick wind instruments (masthead apparent wind wand and wind speed thing) which wireless transmits to 2 displays on the aft side of the port rear cabin bulkhead - depth and hull speed transducers also hook into them. 1985 Ross930 racer cruiser. The instruments are obviously not as old as the boat - don't know how old they are we bought the boat 5yrs ago. The wind insts and displays have been been fine, very happy. Raymarine have taken over Tack-Tick so assume the latest equivalent system for wind is this;
www.whitworths.com.au/raymarine-wireless-multi-wind-system
You didn't ask about gps tracking etc but thought to include that we also have a Navman system and it is becoming a reliability issue and needs to be updated / replaced. I am not the spark on board but the below is an abridged plan from who is the spark to get all the insts into an ipad which could be of interest; if you have a not used much ipad lying around it could be a plan with the GNX or Raymarine wind system and the extra stuff as below, now or down the track.
"
have since found iNavX (inavx.com/) which loads onto an ipad, using the ipad's GPS to plot position on its own charts. The app costs $7 to download, but then you pay a subscription ($139) to get the appropriate local charts - that's supposed to be an annual subscription, but once you've got the chart, you can cancel the sub and will just miss out on annual upgrades. So that's a cheap substitute for the Navman, with the bonus that it has a bigger screen so you can see it from the cockpit. You can set up waypoints and routes just as for the Navman. The additional bonus is the app also can display instrument readings from onboard instrumentation (all of ours - depth, heading, speed, wind sp and direction etc). The trick is getting the wireless signal from the Raymarine system (proprietary, secret-squirrel business) into the iNavX. I've spoken to a few groups, including these guys (2dogsmarine.com.au/) who confirmed it is do-able, they were doing something similar on a client's boat.
So to get the Tack-Ticks signal to the ipad, we need:
www.whitworths.com.au/micro-talk-wireless-performance-sailing-gateway $419 plus
www.whitworths.com.au/raymarine-cable-kit-for-nmea2000-gateway $179 at WW plus
2dogsmarine.com.au/products/nmea-2000-wi-fi-gateway-ydwg-02r?_pos=1&_sid=8e4f98b30&_ss=r $379
"
As per Planeray NMEA2000 would be the target for any system you install, seems 0183 is now virtually obsolete and way down on functionality compared to 2000.
For night and autopilot sailing I am looking at a whole Raspberry Pi setup. I have just lost my old GPS which had a nice road driving screen. I have Open CPN and Navionics but miss having a big speedo like before. I am looking at going to the Pi with Open plotter and a nice big dashboard so I can have my nice big dashboard featuring heading and speed made large.
The Pi opens up to lots of extras. One is the use of a cheap Davis Mk 2 wind instrument led to a PyPilot module that leads to the Pi. So for about $200 US you can get inputs into the NMEA network.
pypilot.org/store/index.php?rt=product/product&path=73&product_id=126
www.ebay.com.au/itm/353614909204?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=705-139619-5960-0&mkcid=2&itemid=353614909204&targetid=1281016438476&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9072202&poi=&campaignid=9767741261&mkgroupid=124341098602&rlsatarget=pla-1281016438476&abcId=578876&merchantid=7364522&gclid=CjwKCAjwgviIBhBkEiwA10D2j7r5Ji5_4yEI4yHoZwHttJem0yM8Sq-2kBcuMIR9_BitasyrvY7ctxoCp2EQAvD_BwE
I want to put mine out back of the solar panels and pull it in when moored. But it is part of a whole Pi system which I am yet to install, with integrated autopilot from Pypilot.
cheers
Phil
Select to expand quoteKankama said..
I am looking at a whole Raspberry Pi setup.
cheers
Phil
This forum is very helpful re setting up your Pi:
forum.openmarine.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=1
I have been running a Pi4 for a number of years & couldn't do with out it now!!
Wind inst is not turned on so no info!
Looks great. Maybe you could do a run down on the setup in another thread sometime soon. I would be very interested.
Hey Zailor,
Bought mine from Whitworths, normal price about $900 ish, but I got it on a boat show special, which is something like 15-20% of by memory. The Vulcan 7 it's plugged into I bought prior to that full price, but pretty reasonable for what it is at around $900 as well. (Another Whitworths buy).
Hi. I'm a big Windex guy too.
My old Navman wind died and I replaced with B&G wireless.
No problems so far
Cheers
Bruce
Thanks everyone for the detailed info.
B&G have gotten a couple of thumbs up. It seems Whitworths don't stock them anymore, though.
Planeray, I'm thinking NMEA0813 will be better if I can link it to a handheld Garmin GPS later to get true wind. Am I right in thinking I can do this? My ETrex 10 won't do, but the Garmin 73 for $179 (working to a tight budget) is compatible with NMEA0813.
I'm not really interested in reinstalling a log to get true wind.
Kankama, is the Davis instrument you linked to suited to the rigors of a sailboat? It seems to be intended to be used on static wind stations.
... and on further reading, the manual says that the arm on the anemometer has to be set at true north in order to get correct wind direction
I don't know about the Davis apart from that is the one recommended by the guy who makes the analogue to NMEA converter. I was going to have mine up only when needed as we have some pretty cranky cockatoos that sometimes like nibbling mastheads. So any wind instrument will be hanging out the back of the solar panel arch only when long distance autopilot, or night sailing. I am going to have my tech savvy son build me a Raspberry Pi system that the Davis can feed into.
Select to expand quoteKankama said..
I am going to have my tech savvy son build me a Raspberry Pi system that the Davis can feed into.
Kankama have a good look through these OpenPlotter docs - openplotter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/description/what_is_openplotter.html
These explain what you can do with a Pi. Still a work in progress because Ver2 is a whole new system & there are still some beta apps & still waiting on a couple to be finished being developed.
This is the beauty of being open sourced!! You get all the smart people developing stuff for free but it takes time because they do it their spare time.
There is also a forum which helps a lot: forum.openmarine.net/index.php
You'll see questions from me in there trying to solve problems that are way over my head!!
Using VNC I am able to "connect" to my Pi4 with my home PC or phone & check on stuff or I do Pi4 computer stuff from home which I used to have to do on the boat!!
For a boat IMO you can't go past OpenPlotter for a Raspberry Pi4 instead of the generic installation for a Pi4
Features
Chart plotter: Chart a course and track your position using OpenCPN, a concise and robust Chart Plotter Navigation software designed to be used at the helm station of your boat while underway.
Dashboards: Build instrument panels to visualize data.
Weather: Download and visualization of GRIB files using XyGrib.
NMEA 0183: Connect to your NMEA 0183 devices to receive and send data.
NMEA 2000: Connect to your NMEA 2000 network to receive and send data.
Signal K: The free and open source universal marine data exchange format.
Access point: Share NMEA and Signal K data with laptops, tablets and phones.
Headless: Access to OpenPlotter desktop from the cockpit through your mobile devices.
Compass: Heading and heel from an IMU sensor. Tilt compensated. Self-calibration.
Autopilot: Build a cheap, accurate and complete autopilot with pypilot.
Sensors: Connect multiple sensors for temperature (air, sea, motor, exhaust, fridge.), pressure, humidity, light, gas, smoke, batteries charge, tanks level, wind, opening doors, motion, switches.
IoT: Receive or send data to your boat while you are away through Telegram, Mastodon, e-mail, MQTT.SDR:Receive voice or decode AIS using cheap Software Defined Radio receptors.
Hardware: Dedicated hardware specially designed for OpenPlotter like the Moitessier HAT.
AND ........................................ It's fun learning all about & doing this stuff!!! 
Kankama, I'm on Lake Mac like you & would be happy to give you a "run through" when we are "free"
Select to expand quoteKankama said..
Okay, I will finish soon but when I race I actually don't need the wind direction at my boat, I want to know how it changes at other places around the course. So I spend my time tracking the wind gusts and working out their direction. Now if there was a wind indicator that would tell me the wind direction everywhere APART from where I am, then I would buy that in a hearbeat.
/\/\ this.
The amount of sleepless nights I have wasted thinking about how to do that.
From fleets of Saildrones to blimps to drones to .....arrgh!
Sigh.
Select to expand quoteBundeenabuoy said..
Does anyone prefer any system above BandG Wind Speed and Depth?
I went for NKE over B&G. But that was equally because of the pilot as well as the instruments.The B&G displays are sexier, but I still prefer the NKE multigraphic display, it's regatta page is awesome.
Select to expand quoter13 said..
Ok no problem.
We (me and co-owner) have Tack-Tick wind instruments (masthead apparent wind wand and wind speed thing) which wireless transmits to 2 displays on the aft side of the port rear cabin bulkhead - depth and hull speed transducers also hook into them. 1985 Ross930 racer cruiser. The instruments are obviously not as old as the boat - don't know how old they are we bought the boat 5yrs ago. The wind insts and displays have been been fine, very happy. Raymarine have taken over Tack-Tick so assume the latest equivalent system for wind is this;
I had Tacktick and also found it to be very good for reliability ie: had no issues. Wireless displays and masthead. You are only sampling at 1 hz from memory with the TT/Raymarine, so the speed/latency of the wireless isn't such a big deal. Unsure about the Garmin.
If you get up to B&G/ NKE as a comparison, your sample rate jumps to 10-25hz. This is a lot harder over wireless as your receiver sensitivity has to improve a lot to read, reliably, the faster sample rate.
Ergo: the lower sample rate the better suited for wireless.
Select to expand quoteLazzz said..Kankama said..
I am going to have my tech savvy son build me a Raspberry Pi system that the Davis can feed into.
Kankama have a good look through these OpenPlotter docs - openplotter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/description/what_is_openplotter.html
These explain what you can do with a Pi. Still a work in progress because Ver2 is a whole new system & there are still some beta apps & still waiting on a couple to be finished being developed.
This is the beauty of being open sourced!! You get all the smart people developing stuff for free but it takes time because they do it their spare time.
There is also a forum which helps a lot: forum.openmarine.net/index.php
You'll see questions from me in there trying to solve problems that are way over my head!!
Using VNC I am able to "connect" to my Pi4 with my home PC or phone & check on stuff or I do Pi4 computer stuff from home which I used to have to do on the boat!!
For a boat IMO you can't go past OpenPlotter for a Raspberry Pi4 instead of the generic installation for a Pi4
Features
Chart plotter: Chart a course and track your position using OpenCPN, a concise and robust Chart Plotter Navigation software designed to be used at the helm station of your boat while underway.
Dashboards: Build instrument panels to visualize data.
Weather: Download and visualization of GRIB files using XyGrib.
NMEA 0183: Connect to your NMEA 0183 devices to receive and send data.
NMEA 2000: Connect to your NMEA 2000 network to receive and send data.
Signal K: The free and open source universal marine data exchange format.
Access point: Share NMEA and Signal K data with laptops, tablets and phones.
Headless: Access to OpenPlotter desktop from the cockpit through your mobile devices.
Compass: Heading and heel from an IMU sensor. Tilt compensated. Self-calibration.
Autopilot: Build a cheap, accurate and complete autopilot with pypilot.
Sensors: Connect multiple sensors for temperature (air, sea, motor, exhaust, fridge.), pressure, humidity, light, gas, smoke, batteries charge, tanks level, wind, opening doors, motion, switches.
IoT: Receive or send data to your boat while you are away through Telegram, Mastodon, e-mail, MQTT.SDR:Receive voice or decode AIS using cheap Software Defined Radio receptors.
Hardware: Dedicated hardware specially designed for OpenPlotter like the Moitessier HAT.
AND ........................................ It's fun learning all about & doing this stuff!!!
Kankama, I'm on Lake Mac like you & would be happy to give you a "run through" when we are "free"
Thank you Laz. That would be really great. I was very impressed with your pic of your setup on the AIS thread.
I am not much of an instrument guy and miss my old 4 inch screen, GPS. I don't usually need a plotter and most of the time just want a big screen of heading and speed, but going the down the Pi route looks interesting. My son and I already have talked about the Pi and he has parts for the PyPilot already. (I have a reasonable autopilot but I would like to have a bulletproof below decks one that uses only stock or cheap parts). But going full Openplotter seems like a fab idea.
I look forward to seeing your setup soon
cheers
Phil
Select to expand quoteKankama said..
Thank you Laz. That would be really great. I was very impressed with your pic of your setup on the AIS thread.
I am not much of an instrument guy and miss my old 4 inch screen, GPS. I don't usually need a plotter and most of the time just want a big screen of heading and speed, but going the down the Pi route looks interesting. My son and I already have talked about the Pi and he has parts for the PyPilot already. (I have a reasonable autopilot but I would like to have a bulletproof below decks one that uses only stock or cheap parts). But going full Openplotter seems like a fab idea.
I look forward to seeing your setup soon
cheers
Phil
Don't skimp on the power supply, especially with the Pi4 - I had troubles when I was starting & learned that you need a very good power supply. I cannot remember where I got mine but it works great (it is bigger than the Pi4 - it's the thing, in the pic, with the mesh screen & keys hanging in front of it).
This is a great place to get any parts from: core-electronics.com.au/raspberry-pi.html
Again no affiliation but a great ozzy company with heaps of info who look after you.
