Wind instruments

[fred1diver]

Hello everyone, what are you thoughts on wind instruments for a 30ft sailboat on the Ottawa river? Overkill or useful?
What brand/model do you recommend, I was looking at the raymarine i40, good price, but it turns out it’s not meant for sailboats

 

[dlochner]

I sailed for 30 years without wind instruments. While they are handy and can provide good information, you will become a better sailor if you spend more time sailing without them and developing your senses. You can probably find better places to spend your money.

When sailing on open water with an autopilot that can steer to the wind, wind instruments are great! I prefer B&G.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Just about everything on your boat is overkill if you really examine everything that you don't really need. But what's the point? Buy what you want and can afford. I always recommend the newest models, say B&G Triton S/D/W package with 2 displays & wireless wind sensor and pair it with a Vulcan Chartplotter. You can't go wrong with this set-up and it is an economical package if you look in Defender.

 

[Dalliance]

Real time wind readings from the masthead are nice to have, but not critical. I sailed my boat for over 20 years with just the windex at the top of the mast, telltales and my sense of what I was feeling.
That said, I added the RayMarine i70 wind wind instrument and tri-data through hull in combination with the EV-100 auto helm two years ago and I’m quite happy with both. Single handing most of the time, I wondered why I didn’t add the auto helm years ago. The wind instrument alleviates my frustration with true wind info from bouys and weather stations miles always that was sometimes markedly different from conditions at my location, but it really just validates and puts numbers on my intuitive reading of conditions.
It’s interesting how quickly I came to feel dependent on the wind instrument and found myself looking up at the windex less often. I was surprised by my insecurity when it went out for a few days last summer. It was just a loose ground wire in the mast base connector. An easy fix once I found the problem, but until then, I had to take some deep breaths and remind myself that I had sailed for decades without it.

 

[Siamese]

Silly me. I saw the title and was thinking trombones and such.

 

[thinwater]

Only useful if linked to autopilot. Otherwise, if you can't tell which direction and how strong, you should take up an indoor sport. Wind vanes and telltales are useful.

 

[BarryL]

Well that's a little strong. It's definitely helpful to know that you're sailing 33 degrees apparent, with an apparent wind speed of 15 kts. When you turn and head back, the wind will be on the rear quarter, at 8 apparent. So you better get the spinnaker ready for the downwind run. It's also nice to be able to see the wind increasing from 8, to 10, to 12, etc. You should start preparing for the first reef....

A wind instrument isn't vital, but I do like having that data. It also allows me to see true wind direction and speed. If you're new to the sport, knowing what 5 kts feels like, and then 10, and then 15, and then 20 it also a good skill. Without a wind instrument all you have is too little wind, good wind, too strong, and CRAP, get me out of here strong.

Barry

Only useful if linked to autopilot. Otherwise, if you can't tell which direction and how strong, you should take up an indoor sport. Wind vanes and telltales are useful.

 

[dlochner]

The Beaufort Scale is a remarkably useful and accurate indication of wind speed.

Beaufort Wind Scale

 

[Joe]

Start building a network on your boat. A wind transducer hooked up to a N2k network that also has speed and location (gps) will give you the data needed to make smart navigational decisions and guide your boat's auto pilot accurately. So it's not really worth investing in wind instrument that doesn't fit in such an ensemble.

My system is relatively inexpensive and is perfect for a small sailboat under 30 ft. I have B&G Vulcan mult function dispay (chartplotter). The wind sensor, tiller pilot, vhf/ais, depth sensor, media player all plug into the N2K network and displayed on the Vulcan's display. At some point I can add radar info to overlay the chart display, plus other things like engine data, security, sonar, fish finder, etc.

The Vulcan has built in controller programs for the tiller pilot, wind features, ais targets on the chart with connection info, It goes on and on. The tiller pilot can be programmed to steer to a compass course, a series of route segments, apparent wind direction (for reaching and beating) and true wind direction(for downwind steering). For making navigational decisions, such as where to turn, you'll be using True wind direction. So much hinges on the wind data...If it were me I'd start building my budget network with these two B&G components (oh, I already did) The Vulcan 7" or 9" and B&G 608 (old version)willget you started nicely.

 

[Caboteur]

On the Ottawa river… you see both sides of the river at all times! You NEED a paper chart. All navigation can be done by triangulation. Since the navigable channel is rather narrow and the water levels variable you might want a depth sounder. All else is unneeded.
It is fun to look at all the electronic gizmos and figure how to integrate them but reading the gusts from the water surface changes and adjusting the sails with the aid of telltales is not only more efficient but more gratifying.
Whatever you do, do not regret and have fun… that should be the only consideration!

 

[JBP-PA]

They are fun and handy sometimes but definitely not required. I wouldn't go out and buy one by itself maybe, but I'd definitely include one if you are upgrading your entire system. The starter kits that include multiple devices can save a bunch of money.
Add people said, it adds the ability to steer to wind for your autopilot. This is useful but not the cats meow. With the damping on the sensor and the delay of the autopilot it can take up to 20 seconds for the autopilot to respond, which isn't fast enough if you are close hauled in changing conditions but it's fine on a beam reach. I find the delay exceptionally annoying in variable winds.
When the wind drops below 2 knots the sensor is mostly useless because the mast rolling back and forth creates more apparent wind than the real wind.
Having your VMG constantly updated can be fun when you want to sail as fast as possible, but can also distract you from simply enjoying sailing.
It's also fun when you are hunkered down in a storm and you can say "ooh, that gust was over 40 knots! "

 

[Ward H]

I was looking at the raymarine i40, good price, but it turns out it’s not meant for sailboats

Not sure about that statement. It does come with 65' of cable for mounting the wind transducer on the mast. It's appears to just be a low cost alternative to the i50, i60 and i70s packages. The display is more basic and it only works with the Rotavecta wind transducer. Being $800 less than i50/i60 and i70s packages if all you want to know is wind speed and direction AND you never plan to build an instrument network, it is an option.

The other instrument/wind packages on Defender start around $1250 for Raymarine and $1600 for B&G. That's a hunk of change to put out but they do get you started with a NMEA 2000 (or SeaTalkng which is Raymarine's version) network. From there you can add on future instruments and transducers to share on all displays.

Are wind instruments necessary? In my opinion not really, for the same reasons others have stated.
My priority for instruments would be depth, autopilot, chart plotter, then wind. When I was building my system I planned ahead for installing a SeaTalkng system as I had already decided to go with Raymarine instruments.

If you decide to go with a wind package, a very nice package I'd suggest is the RM i70S display with depth and wind package for $1250. The i70s can display wind, depth, GPS speed, speed from a knot meter, heading/bearing and more. It has multiple screens you easily set up to show what you them to show.
The iTC5 converts transducer signals and puts them on the SeaTalkng network making them available to any connected display. No need for dedicated displays. You probably don't need to install the new depth transducer if you already have one as it may be compatible with the iTC5.

I do agree with @Scott T-Bird s comments in post #3.

Personally, I mostly day sail and frequently solo. I love being able to set the AP to "Steer to the Wind" on days when I just want to relax on the water.

 

[kappykaplan]

I love being able to set the AP to "Steer to the Wind"