Jim, my primary reason is that a "real compass" is way salty!Jim Bunnell wrote:Forgive a newbe question, but since you are on the topic of compasses - I'm outfitting a 26M with the ST4000mkII (thanks to whoever pointed out the sail price a few weeks ago) and my question is; since the autopilot has a fluxgate compass that displays on the control head, why do we need a magnetic compass as well? Is it just a safety factor (loss of power) or are there other reasons?
Besides that, it's easier to see that you're veering when you watching the analog wheel instead of digital readout, and of course it's a cross-check to the GPS. Whe we cruised the Channel Islands last summer, my GPS quit. We were a group of five boats, out of sight of land. We stayed close to one buddy boat who wanted to sail, but the others quickly motored to indistinguishable specks on the horizon. I really did navigate back to our beginning waypoint strictly by reading a heading from the chart, then following the bubble. It really felt good to see our breakwater in the binocs just off the bow, about 4 hours later.
Finally, I recommend bulkhead mounting. My compass was on the bulkhead from day-one, and it helps both trimmer and helm to observe heading drift. At first, my chartplotter was always fouling the mainsheet at the pedestal. Worse yet, the sail trimmer could never see speed, which is very important to recognizing how minor trim changes affect the boat. As a general philosopy ... NAV stuff at the companionway permits all crew to observe heading, drift and plot. The pedestal is fine for engine instruments.
