wind vane

[kadet]

Nothing on a moving boat will ever give you true wind

Then how come my electronic wind indicator connected to my GPS has an apparent and true button.

To avoid mast rotation I mounted the sensor on a pole attached to the mast crunch. It unscrews for trailering and only takes a minute to fit.
I was a bit concerned that turbulence from the main would affect the readings but so far this does not seem to be the case.

[kmclemore]

Nothing on a moving boat will ever give you true wind

Then how come my electronic wind indicator connected to my GPS has an apparent and true button.

Because it calculates it based on boat speed and wind direction. But there's no way of actually seeing the true wind with any kind of telltale or wind vane.

[Hardcrab]

The boat sails in and reacts to the apparent wind. The telltails show the changes.

[R Rae]

Audio tape works the best for me........Especially when it is removed from one of the kids most treasured, most horrible excuse for music known to mankind.

Secondly though. Why are the tell-tales on my main and jib placed up in the smallest top section of those sails.? Is that where the most power to move the boat comes from.......?

Thanks.....R

[Hardcrab]

If you have a sail up, you might as well try to get "full horsepower" from it. Those upper trailing edge telltails tell you when you have the right amount of twist in the sail. The wind is greater the higher above the water, therefore, the tops of the sails should be let out slightly more than the bottom of the sail. To set this twist on the main, let off some boom vang and some main sheet so the boom raises from the wind on it and the upper tails stream aft about 50% of the time. The mid tail can stream about 75% of the time, and the lower tail should stream almost all of the time. Then, the traveller is used to make any trim changes without disturbing the twist set by the vang/sheet.
Or the rudder, if you just want to sail the wind.
For the jib/genny, move the cars forward or aft on the tracks to change the angle of pull. Forward will pull at a more down angle, taking out twist, and aft will have less angle adding twist.
My genny did not come with trailing edge tales, just the leading edge "steering telltails".

If the mainsail is trimed to much in, the tales will curl around to the lee and stay there, showing a stalled sail. Pretty to look at, but drive is not what it could be.

I just wish I can get my main uppers to fly like they should, but usually can't quite get there. I have a post about this, but no suggestions yet.

Do a google on telltails and discover how to sail more efficently.

[c130king]

Are we talking about apples and oranges? The thread started about wind vanes and has migrated to tell tales on the sails.

The "wind vane" that I and apparently some other use are called "wind tell-tales" but these are not "tell tales" that are on the sail...they are wire and plastic and attach to the upper(outer) shrouds about 5-6' above the deck (depends on how high you push them up). Cost $30 from WM.

Of course I also have sail "tell tales" (red and green yarn) on my main and on my genoa. I use the plastic & wire "wind tell-tales" to figure out my angle to the wind using the TLAR method. I use the sail "tell tales" to attempt to judge the trim on my sails...once again using the TLAR method.

Are some of you actually attaching yarn or audio tape to your shrouds to gauage the wind angle?

Jim

!	Frank C:
	Actually Jim, you're referring to Wind-Tels, to which you linked on page one. Sometimes, the picture's worth "a thou!" DAVIS INSTRUMENTS Wind-Tels

[bastonjock]

ive fitted a windex to the top of my mast and ran a cable down through the coach roof and hooked it all up to a metioman read out,im a sucker for gadgets

[dennisneal]

My solution was to attach a one-foot-long strip of aluminum to the top of the mast. I made a hole near the top. I then tied a ten-inch piece of, red, fluffy polyester yarn to the aluminum strip. It works great and cost me about $2.00.

I also tied another piece of yarn to the top of my VHF antenna. Cost= two cents.

And, that's my two cents worth, which is about a penny's worth today.

[Kelly Hanson East]

Nothing on a moving boat will ever give you true wind.

You can spend about 2 boat bucks and get a nice computerised readout of true and apparent wind of course , but that could be considered a little extreme....