severe storm

I have a complete set of Raymarine ST60 instruments and Autohelm 5000 autopilot on Tangleberry. They have been very reliable, and the few small problems I did have were all due to poorly crimped connectors, a problem of the installer not Raymarine.

However, the speed log and wind direction do seem to need recalibrating at least once per season. I'm not sure why. It is pretty easy to do.

My previous boat had a swiss brand.  High quality, very good steering autopilot, and very good support, but I think they are now gone. A very small company. In North America, Raymarine parts are very available and support is good.  I have no experience with Simrad.

I like the look of the new Raymarine ST70 and the new Garmin series. I have a Garmin chartplotter which works well and links to the Raymarine autopilot.  It seems there is a lot of good gear out there, but the weak spot is often the installation.

TackTick wireless seems like a great answer, but I am not impressed by the quality and appearance of their displays. Maybe some others will folloow suit. The wireless masthead unit interests me the most.

Hi David,

You are bloody right, Peter Blake. It's nice to have instruments but usually I trust my senses. That's why I always have telltails on my shrouds and I always tell my crew not to look down on the instrumentes when they steer but to watch the telltails (an old and good customs from the dinghy times when we were racing) and to look forward to see the windshifts and the waves. By the way: I also had these erratic wind indications but in happened only twice in 6 six years and I didn't pay too much attention to it as it disappeared after about half an hour. It must have been static electricity as it always happened close to a thunderstorm area.


Edited by tobo - 20 June 2013 at 10:42