gear test: Raymarine ST 40 Wind

For the last couple of years I have used the Raymarine ST40 Wind anemometer, after I got rid of the NASA Target Wind, see my earlier post. 

Needless to say I am very happy with it. It can display the following information:

• ·         apparent wind speed and direction,
• ·         true wind speed and direction,
• ·         and it is able to talk to your autopilot to steer your boat to a selected apparent wind angle. (If you use the Seatalk communication protocol. I don´t use an autopilot, so I´m not able to comment on this feature) 

The installation was quite easy, apart from having to pull a cable through your mast, but that is another topic...  You just need to drill a 55mm hole for the instrument, at the spot where you are planning to mount it. Build it in, wire it up, and it is ready to go. 

To set up the the correct wind direction, you have to drive a minimum of two full circles with your boat. Two turns, but how? You might be wondering. In this, the manual is a little bit unspecific. So here are my attempts:

• ·         Follow the indicator itself, doesn´t work
• ·         Drive 2 turns slowly, doesn´t work
• ·         Drive 2 turns quickly, doesn´t work
• ·         Start upwind, doesn´t work
• ·         Start on a reach, doesn´t work
• ·         …….

If someone has been able to figure this out and calibrate the instrument properly, please leave me a comment on how it works. 

But you have the option to set the wind direction manually. So I put Geronimo on a beam reach and gave the ST40 Wind the right angle. Done, it works.

Operating the ST 40 Wind is quite easy, you simply switch it on and you have all the information you need on the display. You can change the menu just by pressing the up or down arrow. So you can set the menu to display

• ·         apparent wind
• ·         true wind (only available if the instrument can get the boat speed through Seatalk)
• ·         high wind speed alarm

A nice function is the locked apparent wind function. I like it, because I sometimes sail with friends who haven´t had a lot of practice in steering a boat. So what I do is:-

• ·         adjust the sails so she is running nicely,
• ·         tell them how to steer
• ·         and lock in this function.

So my guests can sail quite properly, because the wind instrument shows them when they have to get up or down wind.  Perfect!

I also like the fact that you can switch on the backlight on the instrument. In my old instruments you have to use a separate fuse for this.

In my opinion, the ST40 series of Raymarine is perfect for small boats. The instrument is quite small and you just need one fuse to switch it on. 

I recently looked on the Raymarine website and they have brought out a new small instrument series, the i40 series. I think these follow on from the new design of the whole I series. It looks like they have the same features as the ST series.

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