[WWP] Got my SpeedTech Speedmate

From: Judith Franklin Blumhorst, DC (DrJudyB@pacbell.net)
Date: Tue May 02 2000 - 18:29:05 PDT


Ahoy,

They had them on sale at the Pacific Sail Expo last week and I got one for
Redwing, my P19.

(Yeah, I know somebody's gonna tease me... "If judy puts any more hardware
on that boat it's gonna sink under the sheer weight of it all..." <grin>...
did I tell you guys about the A/C my hubby asked for??? Whatever my sweetpie
wants, he gets....)

The speedo works without putting a hole thru the hull. A miniscule magnet
on the impeller spins, producing a magnetic field flux. A small "receiver"
on the other side of the hull picks up the fluctuations in the magnetic
field and transforms them into electical pulses and then to a speed reading.
It reads in hundreths of a knot!!

You're supposed to put the impeller behind the keel, but it would get
smooshed by a roller on my trailer, so I put it on the hull half way between
the keel rollerand the support bunk. I got a slip on bracket for the
impeller; I can remove it for trailering so the tiny thing doesn't get all
grimey.

The receiver is inside the boat behind the companionway ladder, up against
the quarterberth, and out of the way. The LED display goes anywhere I want
on the bulkhead (just had to decide where -- the temporary electric tape I
used didn't hold it very well)

It seems to work just fine. There wasn't much wind, and the top speed we
reached was about 4.8 knots using the lapper.

One thing about the knotmeter is weird. At first I thought the gedget was
broken. It picks up the magnetic fields from 60 cycle electircal systems,
so it reads 6.4 knots inside the house. However, as soon as you get the
impeller moving, the field from the impeller overpowered the ambient field
and it reads accurately.

It's a fun lil gadget. As soon as I see that dial read over 6 knots, I'm
gonna take a picture of it and post it for all the world to see! <big grin>

Fair breezes, Judy B
1985 WWP19 #266 Redwing
SF Bay, CA

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