Davis Instruments Vantage Vue

[dakno]

Hello everyone

Has anyone used a Vantage Vue weather station on there boat? It seems to me a very useful instrument on a boat but I have been unable to find any info on this site.?????

[Jerry Woodward]

I just saw this system while exploring wireless wind speed/direction for my new boat. My new (to me) boat does not have wind direction/speed and the marine wireless systems are north of 1K. Even the basic Raymarine wired system is around $500 and I would have to run a cable down the inside of the mast. The Davis Instruments wireless systems look pretty good and would give me more than just wind direction and speed. For $300 on Amazon, this seems like a pretty good deal. They are built to withstand the outdoor environment and even if they don't last as long as a Raymarine unit, I could buy 4 of them for the cost of one Raymarine.
https://www.amazon.com/Davis-Instrum...ct_top?ie=UTF8

[toddster8]

I've had a wireless Vantage Pro for many years, though not on the boat. It does a pretty good job and has some expandability. However:
Davis has never been much for software updates. My version is stuck with 1990s software running on an old computer saved just for that purpose, or nothing. It doesn't need a computer, unless you want to save the data. It will store a year or so of data on-board.
You do need access to the instrument head, to clean bugs out of the rain bucket, replace the battery, etc.
The wind always seems to peak out at 46 mph. I don't know if that's a limitation of the system or maybe it has something to do with the trees that have grown up down wind over the last 20 years. Seems odd that it's always 46 though. I thought 42 was the answer?
The solar cell plus battery just won't last through the night in the dead of winter at 45° latitude. Not always a problem, unless gaps in data bother you.


Recently, I bought into this new wireless weather station, from the folks who bring us SailFlow and iKitesurf. No moving parts. Includes lightning detector and networking capabilities. Apparent and true wind. Supposed to have been designed with sailors in mind. I thought it would be easy to move it on to the boat.

Well, recently, as in a year ago. Through an IndieGoGo campaign. It's a few months over-due now. But they're going to deliver any week now, for sure.

[toddster8]

I wouldn't consider any of these weather stations to be a direct replacement for a dedicated sailing wind instrument.

- There is a considerable delay between a gust and an associated report on the weather station. The instrument collects data for X seconds or minutes, then transmits a packet to the base station.

- The wind instrument is located at the top of the mast in clean air. You probably wouldn't put the whole weather station up there.

- The Davis system would give you apparent, but not true wind speed.

- The Raymarine system, though awfully overpriced, feeds wind data back to an autopilot (if so equipped) in "wind trim" mode.

- There are other wireless wind instruments for sailboats. TackTick, SailTimer, etc... Wired will probably always work better though.