No LL
Every sailboat we have ever owned had one thing in common (in addition to hull and sails) -- they all had Windex devices. What is a Windex? Not the glass cleaner, but the wind direction indicator.
Windex was originally a Swedish invention. Now they are owned by Davis Instruments. A Windex is a plastic arrow, that sits on a jeweled pivot point in the middle. You mount it at the top of the mast. The point of the arrow points at where the wind is coming from. It is a wind vane, except that it is exquisitely sensitive and superbly visible to the helmsman looking up at it from the cockpit. All sailors I know love their Windexes. Very few sailboats don't have one.
One problem is that Windexes are delicate and easily broken. Back in the days when I trailered my boats and lowered the mast each trip, I broke at least one Windex per year. With Tarwathie, we don't take the mast down often so they last longer. But if you don't break them, they are absolutely positively dependable. Nothing can possibly go wrong with such a simple and well designed device.Two years ago, in Sorel Quebec, Libby and I lowered the mast and broke the Windex. She went shopping for a replacement, and scored a jumbo sized Windex bigger than any I've ever seen before. Great.
Last week, in Raritan Bay we were heading for the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Winds were light. I noticed several sailboats overaking us. No problem. Then I noticed that they had their head sails up. I looked at our Windex. We were must too close to sailing into the wind to use the sail. I figured they were motor-sailing and ignored them. Then they passed me and I could see that they had full main and head sails up. Worse, they were heading 20 degrees closer to the wind than I was. WTF!!! I was only 20 degrees off the wind according to the Windex, how could they possibly sail directly into the wind? I squinted my eyes and peered up the mast. I could see the tip of the Windex arrow resting against our VHF antenna. Oh no! It wasn't pointing at the wind. How long had it been like that?
Earlier last week we were in the Great Dismal Swamp Canal. At one point I collided with an overhanging tree branch above. The result was a shower of leaves and twigs. Looking above I could see that another result was a section of the branch with leaves, stuck on our mast head. No problem, when we got to the welcome center, we fetched the boatswains chair and I climbed up the mast to inspect the damage. I cleared the branch. Nothing was missing and nothing seemed to be broken except that the Windex mounting bracked was bent. I straigtened it back out. That was my error -- the bracket wasn't bent by the branch, it was bent to prevent the Windex from bumping in to the VHF antenna and it must have been me who bent it two years ago.
Duh, joke's on me.
Yep, the Windex is a fine thing but delicate. As I took Lady J's mast down this winter for rewiring and stay replacement, the Windex had to come off. The VHF antenna also came off. It turns out the VHF was very deteriorated so it was replaced over the winter.
ReplyDeleteBut somewhere being moved back and forth during winter projects one of the indicator tabs got broken. Only good thing is that this seems the one "bargain" in the marine supply world, only about $5 for a replacement set (considering these are only plastic with red reflective tape maybe not such a great bargain).
What fries me about my summer yard when I used to winter there is that they require unstepping the mast (with associated charges). Then they started tacking on an extra $5 each for reinstalling windvane and antenna. Talk about penny anteing (sp?) your customers. My winter yard now is easier to deal with. No mandatory unstepping, hull props included in the winter storage price, and no stupid extra charge for windvanes or VHFs.
Putting it back on the mast before restepping, I did notice a small crack in the horizontal rear vane. Well, not going to hold up launching for that. Will keep an eye on the tail for the summer.
Jim R.