A more durable masthead wind indicator?

[thinwater]

In the past two weeks I've lost two wind indicator and an instrument wind vane to bald eagles. One I saw. The other's are evidenced by the mouse-sized pellets on the deck including fish, mice, and small birds. A lot of poop, suggesting they are roosting there frequently. Big poop. The vanes were not just broken but mangled and chewed up.


I doubt a snake on deck or an owl would make a lick of difference to them. They eat snakes and they are big.


I wonder if there is something more durable than the typical Windex. I've been thinking of attaching yarn to the vane mast.



I also have bowrail mounted indicators. They never bother those. For most purposes, down to wind-on-the-beam they are actually better, since you don't draw your eye away from the jib and lee ama. But the masthead indicator has it's uses, sailing very deep and judging apparent wind twist.


In any case, I'm not planning to do anything until the beast relocates to another marina. It feels like buying expensive dog crew toys at this point.

[Chotu]

not sure if this is helpful to you, but


i’ve had several osprey land on my raymarine:

https://www.raymarine.com/en-us/our-...ind-transducer

[SailingHarmonie]

There are a couple brands of ultrasonic mast head wind instruments that are quite bird proof. They will certainly tolerate even an eagle landing on them, but it he starts chewing on it, all bets are off...

From Airmar and Maretron, and others.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Chotu

not sure if this is helpful to you, but


i’ve had several osprey land on my raymarine:

https://www.raymarine.com/en-us/our-...ind-transducer

Yup, they ate the cups off it. I think it is the spinning that attracts them. He was playing with it, like a cat. Then he decided to kill it.


Ultrasonic makes good sense, but I'm actually interested in something visual too. I don't like staring at displays. Too much like being at home on the computer .

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by thinwater

Yup, they ate the cups off it. I think it is the spinning that attracts them. He was playing with it, like a cat. Then he decided to kill it.


Ultrasonic makes good sense, but I'm actually interested in something visual too. I don't like staring at displays. Too much like being at home on the computer .

wow! I have a name for those.

JerkBirds!

[Calif.Ted]

I rebuilt the mast in November and the new windex has a bird spike attached, which seems formidable. However as I was leaving yesterday a freakin crow still found room to land. Last week I found a couple fish skeletons on deck that I suspect the local Osprey had lunch on my mast. Haven't had any Raymarine wind transducer damage from birds but during rebuild a cup broke off from UV damage.

[wrwakefield]

That is a common occurrence around here as well. So far I have not seen a Windex nor dynamic anemometer that can hold up to eagles. Or stated another way, there are few Windexes that survive a winter in local harbors due to eagles.

Ultrasonic units [as well as Starlink antennas…] seem unaffected- at least when inspected from afar. [Our Maretron WSO100 installed in 2016 included. NOTE: WSO200 is current model.]

Following is one of several photos I have taken of other boats over the past few years. It is difficult to tell which perch they found most comfortable,…



And for perspective…



I don’t have an answer, nor a Windex…

Cheers, Bill

PS: Has anyone experimented with a smaller version of an aviation Windsock? [I suspect one wouldn’t be sensitive enough in light air; leave that to yarns…?]

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by thinwater

Yup, they ate the cups off it. I think it is the spinning that attracts them. He was playing with it, like a cat. Then he decided to kill it.

Ultrasonic makes good sense, but I'm actually interested in something visual too. I don't like staring at displays. Too much like being at home on the computer .

No electronic wind instrument, ultrasonic or whatever, is a substitute for a proper windex.

Any more than the heading sensor -- be it even a sub-one degree accurate one like my Furuno -- is a substitute for the helm compass.

This is a serious problem. Sorry I can't offer anything better than what the others here have.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

No electronic wind instrument, ultrasonic or whatever, is a substitute for a proper windex.

Any more than the heading sensor -- be it even a sub-one degree accurate one like my Furuno -- is a substitute for the helm compass.

This is a serious problem. Sorry I can't offer anything better than what the others here have.

I agree. But let me share some thoughts, starting with four boats I have owned:

• Beach cat, back in the 80s. It had a masthead indicator, but it was broken trailering and I replaced it with a bridle-mounted vane, as was common at the time. Nice because you could see the vane, jib, and watch the lee bow for burying at the same time. Things (pitchpole) happened fast on these boats. Also crossing race traffic suggested keeping your eyes on the water, not up in the air. Surprisingly durable.

• Stiletto 27. Basically, a really big beach cat. It too came with a masthead vane, I think a bird destroyed it, but I had already mounted a flys on the tips of the bows and didn't really need it. The chute rode relatively high and we jibed inside (very fast boat off the wind--over 20 knots at times), so it was never damamged. I never replace the masthead fly.
• PDQ 34. Eagles and ospreys got them twice, once the instrument vane and anemometer cups (after survey, 5 days before selling the boat--I had to climb and replace in a hurry--I could have shot the birds).
• F-24. Came with masthead vane, and in 7 years I have replaced it twice, this will be three. I also have twin vanes on the pulpit, which are handier for most sailing. The image below shows two I was testing for PS ~ five years ago. Both are now the style on the left (Mini Hawk), as it proved easiest to read from the cockpit and most durable. I since added angle indicating arms, like a masthead flys.

Note that they don't point exactly the same direction; the wind is turned by the sail. But it does not actually matter, because you watch the windward one, and your trim and practice relate to known settings, not absolute values. This, for example, is a good setting for a deep reach with the jib hauled well out (trimaran) and clew hauled slightly down.



I'm wondering if I just won't replace the fly. I didn't have it on three high performance boats. Perhaps I'll just put a piece of yarn on the remaining stub.



Yes, it is helpful for evaluating wind twist aloft, but I can gauge that with leach telltales.


Just as anchor lights up there are a paint to service, do we really need vanes up there? Even if I were running an AW course on autopilot, the relative reading from the pulpit would work fine. In fact, because there is less pitching at the bow than at the masthead, the pulpit vane has always been steadier.



Just food for thought. And I don't feel like fighting or feeding raptors just now.



----


I applaud an accurate compass. I have always compensated mine. But I've also learned that extreme accuracy is not that helpful for a coastal sailor, because you never know the current with the same fine accuracy and there is always some leeway, which you also cannot know with fine accuracy (because you can't know the current). You cannot know speed through the water with fine accuracy, other than perhaps a calibrated towed log, because the flow near the boat is affected by the boat (like my pulpit vanes)--it is only a relative measure. You can approximate current using COG, but you can never completely know the effect of drift through the water. AC boats use tide gauges around the course, because there is no perfect means of knowing tide on the boat.


The best means of measuring leeway, to my knowledge, is not electronic, but to tow a weighted line well aft; it physically measures the angle. But expect to have to average the number, because the boat probably yaws as much in waves as the leeway angle.



A boggle.

[marcjsmith]

could you bolt something on the mast head that they would find more attractive to land on, downside is you're encouraging them to land and defecate on board, but you are protecting the expensive bits.

or maybe a few extra old 36" antenna's to make the landing space unpalatable.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by marcjsmith

could you bolt something on the mast head that they would find more attractive to land on, downside is you're encouraging them to land and defecate on board, but you are protecting the expensive bits.

or maybe a few extra old 36" antenna's to make the landing space unpalatable.

[mikereed100]

I have riveted several nasty 6 inch aluminum spikes to the masthead and replaced the nut on the top of my B&G wind sensor with a 4 inch plastic spike. I have not had any issues since doing this but I still take the wind sensor down when buttoning up the boat for any length of time.

[walkabout08]

Originally Posted by thinwater

In the past two weeks I've lost two wind indicator and an instrument wind vane to bald eagles. One I saw. The other's are evidenced by the mouse-sized pellets on the deck including fish, mice, and small birds. A lot of poop, suggesting they are roosting there frequently. Big poop. The vanes were not just broken but mangled and chewed up.


I doubt a snake on deck or an owl would make a lick of difference to them. They eat snakes and they are big.


I wonder if there is something more durable than the typical Windex. I've been thinking of attaching yarn to the vane mast.



I also have bowrail mounted indicators. They never bother those. For most purposes, down to wind-on-the-beam they are actually better, since you don't draw your eye away from the jib and lee ama. But the masthead indicator has it's uses, sailing very deep and judging apparent wind twist.


In any case, I'm not planning to do anything until the beast relocates to another marina. It feels like buying expensive dog crew toys at this point.

I’d tie a series of zip ti s along the shaft of your wind instrument with 6” ends pointing up. Or purchase one of the vertically oriented wind instruments from Garmin or B&G which don’t have horizontally oriented sections for sea birds to perch on.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by walkabout08

I’d tie a series of zip ti s along the shaft of your wind instrument with 6” ends pointing up. Or purchase one of the vertically oriented wind instruments from Garmin or B&G which don’t have horizontally oriented sections for sea birds to perch on.

Option a is not going to work. The wind bears on the zip ties, which have more area than the vane. The balance is thrown off. It won't read right.


Option b is not a visual indicator. I know you can have a digital repeater on the display. I've had that and didn't like it. Give the number of boats that have both, I think this view is common.


---


Another option is additional indicators down low. Show tells are one common choice. But on a trimaran ...

• The cap shrouds are at a 15 degree angle and ribbon and yarn tells just hang up or wrap.
• The reacher wraps around the cap shrouds. Damage is likely to anything other than yarn or ribbon.
• It's a good twist of the neck to look at them, since they are behind you when you are facing to leeward.

Still, I should probably experiment with this again. At least they are much, much farther from the sails than mono shrouds.

[abarrow]

That's why I went with an ultrasonic sensor