What's the Best Wind Sensor?

[ronstory]

Tane--

Noelex is correct, some chartplotters have the capability to make adjustments to the CV7 heading indicator. Please be aware some those adjustments can be proprietary and tweaks can be only made to certain brands of devices.

The easiest thing is to just mount the sensor pointing toward the bow as best you can and as high as you can. Ours seems accurate to about a degree when looking at the starboard/port tack angles, even though I just eyeballed it.

... and welcome to the forum.

[Sailorman97]

As far as I am concerned they are all garbage. Every mast head unit I have put up has failed and that is going back 32 yr to the boats I learned to sail on before I decide to buy.

Every single on of them.

In the process of putting up a new Raymarine unit because Ray does not play nice with anyone else. Every one of the instrument companies puts out a crappy product with a very limited life time.


It does not even seem to matter if they are selling to the navy and the marines. Even with N2K, Ray will sporadic not talk to other N2k devices through it's seatalk adaptors.

How many people have had the thermister on their Airmar depth or speed sensors burn out. Every on I have bought has been the same problem for the last 20 yrs

[noelex 77]

Capteurs the makers of the CV-7 have their own free software. With this you can correct the orientation, alter averaging times, and units. It requires a PC and some extra wiring so it is a bit clunky to use, but this is a one off process.

[George_SD]

I heard good things about NASA marine, but don't have one personally. https://www.nasamarine.com/product-c...d-instruments/

[sailingharry]

The Airnar WX series (on my last boat I had the pb200, predecessor to the wx200). Awesome piece of highly reliable gear. Rock solid output, lots of additional data streams (heel, pitch, yaw, temp, baro pressure, compass, GPS), and 100% bird proof. Plays well with any N2K OR 0183 network/instruments. I do miss it, now that I have a bird-susceptible Ray wind sensor!

Of special note, the magnetic compass was amazing (being at the masthead did NOT bother it) and the GPS, if I used it, would have had horrendous SOG/COG variations.

[RocketScott]

We're still using an Ockam system

Switched to the LCJ CV7 several years ago and it's worked well. It's connected to the Ockam system through their STBG box that emulates a B&G 213. Coarse adjustment is done in the STBG box and then fine adjustment on the Ockam interface

[Puzamoya]

I have an Airmar LB150 its Excellent, I also Have a brand new Spare to sell.

[outboundsailor]

Has anyone tried the new Maretron WSO200 unit that seems to be out now? Have they addressed the water ingress issues I wonder...

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by sailingharry

The Airnar WX series (on my last boat I had the pb200, predecessor to the wx200). Awesome piece of highly reliable gear. Rock solid output, lots of additional data streams (heel, pitch, yaw, temp, baro pressure, compass, GPS), and 100% bird proof. Plays well with any N2K OR 0183 network/instruments. I do miss it, now that I have a bird-susceptible Ray wind sensor!

Of special note, the magnetic compass was amazing (being at the masthead did NOT bother it) and the GPS, if I used it, would have had horrendous SOG/COG variations.

Check the specifications, however. This unit is much less accurate than what you want for this application -- +/- 5% wind speed, +/- 11 degrees (!) at ideal wind speed of 20 knots, and at low wind speeds even much worse.

This compares really unfavorably to specs for the B&G 700 series which is better than +/- 0.5 degrees for wind angle and 0.2 knots for speed.


The LCJ Capteurs sensor is a much better choice among ultrasonic ones, and the B&G ones among mechanical ones. LCJ Capteurs CV7 specs are +/- 1 degree for wind angle and 0.25 knots for speed.

Best wind sensor I ever used, by far, was the tall 700 series B&G with motion and heel correction through B&G H5000 computer. It was amazing, in a different class from anything else I've used. Unfortunately that's north of $10,000 worth of kit.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by outboundsailor

Has anyone tried the new Maretron WSO200 unit that seems to be out now? Have they addressed the water ingress issues I wonder...

I used a WSO100 for years before water ingress got it.


Very stable but not very accurate. Look at the specs before you consider buying a WSO200.


Also, note you have to run N2K cable up the mast for these -- a royal PITA and not a good place to have your backbone cable running in my opinion.

[sailingharry]

I just looked up the specs for the WX200.
https://www.airmar.com/Product/200WX

5% wind, or one not at 20 knots, seems plenty accurate.

Direction is a bit interesting. The specs say ±3° (not sure where you found ±11°) which is probably closer than I can steer and may well disappear into the noise of varying wind direction. But more interesting is the resolution of ±0.1°. I wonder if that is a reflection of the difference between accuracy and precision. While I am certainly interested in knowing the difference between 45 and 48°, I might be more interested in seeing that the wind has shifted 0.5° -- in other words, a consistent but slightly wrong reading that can show very small changes might be good enough.

I would definitely agree that if it was plus or minus 11°, it might not have much value at all!

My new boat came with the classic Ray sensor. In addition to locking me out of N2K (without a $200 conversion unit!), it is a favorite toy of the osprey, who like to take it apart. The wx200 is invincible to osprey while including several outputs that while not critical are nice to have and not worth what they would individually cost (heal, pitch, air temperature, barometric pressure, phenomenal magnetic compass, etc). You could almost justify mounting it on your arch for everything else it gives and not use the wind outputs! LOL

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by sailingharry

I just looked up the specs for the WX200.
https://www.airmar.com/Product/200WX

5% wind, or one not at 20 knots, seems plenty accurate.

Direction is a bit interesting. The specs say ±3° (not sure where you found ±11°) which is probably closer than I can steer and may well disappear into the noise of varying wind direction. But more interesting is the resolution of ±0.1°. I wonder if that is a reflection of the difference between accuracy and precision. While I am certainly interested in knowing the difference between 45 and 48°, I might be more interested in seeing that the wind has shifted 0.5° -- in other words, a consistent but slightly wrong reading that can show very small changes might be good enough.

I would definitely agree that if it was plus or minus 11°, it might not have much value at all!

My new boat came with the classic Ray sensor. In addition to locking me out of N2K (without a $200 conversion unit!), it is a favorite toy of the osprey, who like to take it apart. The wx200 is invincible to osprey while including several outputs that while not critical are nice to have and not worth what they would individually cost (heal, pitch, air temperature, barometric pressure, phenomenal magnetic compass, etc). You could almost justify mounting it on your arch for everything else it gives and not use the wind outputs! LOL

3% , not 3 degrees. 3% is 11 degrees. Not nearly accurate enough for me, and far worse than other wind instruments.

The heading accuracy, at 2 degrees dynamic, is not "phenomenal". At the bottom of the range. And you don't want your compass at the masthead.

[FlyingScot]

Looks like 3 degrees to me.

https://www.airmar.com/Catalog/Weath...truments/220WX

https://www.airmar.com/Catalog/Weath...truments/200WX

Both the same +\-3 degrees.

[sailingharry]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

3% , not 3 degrees. 3% is 11 degrees. Not nearly accurate enough for me, and far worse than other wind instruments.

The heading accuracy, at 2 degrees dynamic, is not "phenomenal". At the bottom of the range. And you don't want your compass at the masthead.

From personal experience, a flux gate magnetic compass at the masthead was exceptionally steady. Certainly no more dynamic than my card based compass at the binnacle. I had some trepidation, but was much more interested in the bird proof wind sensor than the compass. But once installed and seeing the results, having it at the masthead had no negative impact.

I think two things are in play here. First, as a flux gate compass with no moving parts, inertia plays no role. The compass flinging about at the masthead sees the same lines of magnetic flux regardless of how fast it is moving. Rotation around the vertical axis is identical at the masthead as it is on the deck, and rotation (and the associated linear acceleration) around the x and y (heel and pitch) axis have no impact. The second positive is that with no iron or significant electromagnetic fields around, it has no deviation corrections required.

Specifications and theoretical downsides aside, in actual use I was a very happy user, and I'm much less happy with my current Raymarine analog system. Of course, my analog Raymarine wind display is very hard to read to less than 5° (realistically, you get the nearest 10°), so it would be hard to tell a 3° error!

[sailingharry]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

3% , not 3 degrees. 3% is 11 degrees. Not nearly accurate enough for me, and far worse than other wind instruments.

The heading accuracy, at 2 degrees dynamic, is not "phenomenal". At the bottom of the range. And you don't want your compass at the masthead.

2° accuracy in the compass is identical to the 2° of accuracy in this $700 b&g dedicated compass.
https://defender.com/en_us/b-g-preci...-000-12607-001

It may still be at the low end, but it has good company there.