wireless wind instruments

[Riggerman]

Has any one used wireless wind instruments and if so is it worth the money. Any brand better than others ??? Recommendations ???

[Bill O]

We have a TackticK (now sold by Raymarine) and like it. Been up a few years and no problem except when in warmer waters need to clean the speed paddle wheel often. Has been dependable and interfaces well w/opencpn. Another feature I like is the gauges can be moved out of the weather/sun when not in use. IMO not leaving them outside (even covered), extends the life of all electronics.

Got ours used from a racer (who didn't like it and wanted better wind info) so it was an extremely good value for the money. New ones are fairly expensive, but then again so are wired.

If you are looking for wireless wind speed/direction could add a weather station to your boat. We have one for a backup wind instrument and is accurate. It also provides an extremely useful settable barometer alarm to help detect major storms.

Bill O.

[smac999]

Have seen 2 Garmin ones. Neither worked and had no signal over 50% of time they were on. . Maybe if your mast is only 25’.

I would never have any wireless stuff on a boat.

[GILow]

I looked at the Raymarine wireless system for my boat but was talked out of it by their own tech guy who said my boat was too big (42 feet) for it to work reliably. I was surprised.

[Bill O]

Originally Posted by GILow

I looked at the Raymarine wireless system for my boat but was talked out of it by their own tech guy who said my boat was too big (42 feet) for it to work reliably. I was surprised.

Never found the Ray tech guys to be that great.

When we first got the used unit it was not communicating well w/the wind sensor. The fix suggested by RM was to purchase a repeater to be placed at the base of the mast ($$). After looking around on line, we decided to do a factory reset then recalibrate the instruments. That fixed it and been working fine/reliable for years.
I looked up your boat and your rig is shorter than ours, so it should work on your boat. We also have an aluminum framing for the windshield/dodger/hard bimini. Would think that may weaken/deteriorate our signal, but we get good signal strength under the dodger and when we move them below to the nav. station.

We have other wireless devices such as the pypilot that communicates wirlessly w/our computer in the nav. station as well as to a tablet in the cockpit (or anywhere else in the boat). No interference (so far) between any of the wireless devices onboard.



Bill O.

[maxingout]

I decided against wireless when I got my new Raymarine Chirp Radar. The main reason is that I do offshore sailing a significant part of the time, and if the wireless went down offshore, it would be a problem for me.

I had hard wired radar during our circumnavigation, and it worked flawlessly.

If I was a coastal or Bahamas cruiser, I might consider wireless, because if I lost the wireless radar, I would not be far from help.

[Al Walker]

Have used a NASA wireless wind instrument for 2 years now. Doesn't look the most attractive bit of gear, but has worked well for us. Only issue we found was positioning the base station so it could receive the signal from the masthead unit - not a range issue, rather we have a steel boat.....

[Neptune's Gear]

The B&G ones work pretty well. Mast height limit is about 25m...

[Davo1404]

Just installed a B&G wireless wind on a 13 m mast. Can't fault it.