Wind Instruments

[thaeni]

Has anyone had any experience with Clipper Wind Instruments?. They
are half the price of Raymarine. The only feature they don't have
is "apparent" wind speed which I could do without. I'm just concerned
about reliability.
Clipper Wind Instrument W/Masthead Transducer & Cover - CL-W - BoatersWorld.com

Thanks

[tommays]

FWIW my wife workd many years making wind Instruments for the miltary and Airports and its hard to make one that will last at any price


I have never seen one BUT at 325 dollars for a display and masthead unit i would like one BUT have a hard time beliving there will not be long term quality issues

[Padeen2]

With the amount of installation labor involved, I'd want to be relatively comfortable that the unit won't fail early.

[SEMIJim]

No experience with Clipper brand anything. Never heard of them before now.

If all you want is apparent wind angle, then ISTM a Davis Instruments Windex would be both a heckuva lot cheaper and, probably, a heckuva lot more reliable.

The advantage, to me, of a masthead-mounted wind instrument, such as those manufactured by Raymarine, Garmin or Tacktick, is in being able to get apparent and true wind angle and speed.

Heck, when our Windex got messed-up when stepping the mast, twice, we found we could get along without the apparent wind angle indicator altogether. When The Admiral and I were taking our ASA 101 and 103 classes, the instructor insisted we not look up at the Windex, instead going by the feel of the boat and the wind on our faces.

Now, if what you want is a fancy-looking bit of electronics to impress guests, that's another thing entirely . Tho, TBH, I'd question the robustness of even just an apparent wind direction indicator + display + cabling that costs only a few hundred bucks.

Jim