I'm hauling and painting next week and one of the tasks involved will be cleaning the Raymarine impeller for the log so that it will work a few minutes when launched until some stray molecule of some sort fouls it until the next haul out... an ongoing FUBAR situation.
Fact is, any paddle wheel sort of impeller is problematic at best and most of us rely on our GPS units for speed these days, So it goes!
Our racing brethern are lucky in that there is something of a war these days on who can come up with the best tactical instrument system for racing dinghies and not being tied to the same old same old. We are talking about some pretty neat stuff!
Rock City Marine (has a nice ring to it does it not?) has the aptly named "Rock Box" which is a battery powered big digit speed/log/VMG/Heading that seriously rocks for $599.
Velocitek on the other hand makes the SC-1 ($449) which pretty much does the same things and seriously rocks as well. Velocitek has also come out with the SpeedPuck which handles speed/compass/windshift for a mere $339!
Fact is,any of these offerings blow the standard log and VMG systems made by Raymarine (you know the folks that made mine that seldom works?) and all the ususal suspects, out of the water on everything from price to performance. My boat needs one of these and so does yours!
So why did I not buy one yesterday?
Well there is the rub... As these products fill a niche that the big boys thought unneedful to fill, they are oriented to the smaller boats and day sailers where double A batteries make sense. The problem with all of these is that none of them work on 12 volts! Bummer! Hacking the units would be fairly staight forward but it would be oh so much nicer if one of these products was available in 12v for us cruising type of folks who don't want to be bothered having to change batteries everyday or so...
HINT!!!
Plans Change, Martinique version
3 days ago
