ST60 Wind instrument

[willie]

Has any one considered or installed  the wind speed and direction sensor atop their radar pole so one would not have to remove mast?

[David Sanner]

I repaced my masthead transducer without removing the mast.

I would think the wind on the radar pole would be effected by mainsail.

[captran]

Not sure what caused it- probably laying on the ground for a few weeks after the yard removed the mast after Francis to put the boat upright? but just this year when we turned on the instruments the wind indicator was reading "---".  a call to raymarine said it is 99.9% the mast head unit.  Their price for that part was the same as West Marine so ordered thru West to save the shipping charge.  If I would have had access to the net I might have been able to fine it chaeaper thru sailnet or the like.  anyway, I went up the mast.  Attached a messenger line to the end of the old wiring.  Seemed to hang up somewhere at deck level, so had the first mate pull it back down and after a few tries we were finally able to get it through and I pulled the old wiring up, tied off the messenger to the new wiring and had the my mate pull the messinger line while feeding the wiring through, hooked it up and it worked great!. (we have the deck stepped mast.  I'm sure that wouldnt be difficult with the keel stepped mast).  Lessons learned: 1) I should have had 2 messenger lines, so that I could have left one in place as a back up.  When they restepped the mast they put one in but it had gotten hung up and was a small weak line that broke when I tried to use it.  I was very careful in my attachment of the line to the wiring.  I sewed it with dacron thru the wiring as well as taping it, a trick I learned from someone replacing halyards).   2) If using the windlass to raise and lower a 200 pound person(4 times), run a second block forward and down to the windlass.  we didnt, going direct from the block at the base of the mast to the windlass, which is below deck level.  The tension on the line wore a small groove in the gelcoat just above the windlass at the edge of the anchor well.  An alternative to the second block would be to have a piece of aluminium or an eye mounted on a board to protect the gelcoat.

As to radar arch mounted, I did see one this summer but didnt see the owner to ask.  It certainly would be easier, but I also would expect distortion of readings.  Now if you mounted it halfway up the mast on a radar unit, that might be OK but you still have the mast wiring to deal with, just not so far to go.

Hope that helps.

Randy Thies