VANCOUVER ISLAND WINDTALK

I remember using one of these units at Nitinat (Bobson's?) to measure speed. Does anyone still have one of these? I'd love to try it at Canal Beach on one of the flatter days. It might even be a fun gadget to invest in for the site to do some organized speed trials
Send me a PM if you have one I can borrow or even purchase.
Thanks.
Rob

Hey W247,

Yes, that was a good unit but it had it's problems. Got water inside twice. Both times because of high speed wipeouts. It was only waterproof to 3 meter or close to it, it was the foretrex 101 or something like that. Garmin sent me a new one each time so it was super great customer service on their part!! Kudo's to them. Basically why I would get another, gotta like a company that does that!! The newer ones sound much better for watersports. I tried the foretrex 305 cause it was cheap but didn't keep it. I'm thinking about getting the Foretrex 310xt. Supposedly, completely waterproof but is $295, has heart rate monitor (optional), GPS and a bunch of other handy little readouts. MEC is about as cheap as I've found them. They've come down $100 as they were $399 about a year ago.

Lemme know if you get one and what type. I think these could be perfect for speed competition.

you can use the GPS function of a smartphone and either never fall in, or use a waterproof bag. I know theLaw has experimented with these two methods for measuring distance/speed for SUP trips.

I returned two for water in them (had to point out the 'windsurfing' on the original box for them to honour it), and the last lies about 30 m off the end of the point at Nitinat camp (strap pin broke).

I was actually just thinking about taking along a GPS again to the Nat to see if I really can sail faster than 5 years ago, but I'd put a regular outdoor one (I have lots for work) in a waterproof bag and strap it to the mast or something; trying to read the current speed was always a recipe for disaster anyway. The log afterwards, along with 'max speed' is the most fun part.

Good call Morley. Never thought of using a regular GPS. I have an old Garmin Etrex that a friend gave me. It seems to have a speedometer function so I think I'll try the waterproof bag and give it a go today. Hopefully it does the trick

Before you put it in the bag, clear the vmax, trip average, odometer and other functions (its on a page you scroll though, hit 'menu' to bring up the delete options). If you want to be fancy, make sure the log recording option is set to '2 seconds' rather than a distance or time function. Gives more accurate track/speed through jibes, etc.

I've got a Garmin Forerunner 310XT - works great. No issues with water getting in:

http://thelazyrando.wordpress.com/2012/ ... xt-review/