Wind indicator

[Guy Rossey]

Hi, I introduce myself being another lucky owner of a BR ( # 48) since last June. Unless mistaken and as far as I can tell from the pics on this forum, I haven't seen wind indicators installed on the BR's. Is there a reason for this apart from the fact it could only be fitted on top of the mast and not of the main sail- after all windvanes in the shrouds are not higher- ?  I was used to sail with it on my previous keelboat and lack it here somehow. Has anyone experience of its use ? Thanks.
Guy
BR Catchando Bay

[Julian Swindell]

You could fit a simple burgee to the top of the yard and it would stick straight up into the clear wind when the sail was raised. Presumably you could fit a more sophisticated indicator in the same way, but it would be easy to damage it when raising or lowering the sail.

[Craic]

Hi Guy,
been there, done that: http://www.swallowboats.co.uk/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,52/expv,0/topic,258.0
Plus, stick-on wind indicators on the jib, main and mizzen sail.

[Anthony Huggett]

Quite often on yachts you see a wind indicator or instrument head mounted forward of the top of the mast. If you want something like a windex to indicate the tacking angles, rather than a simple burgee, I guess you could put one jutting out above the forestay on the main mast on a BR, thought it wouldn't be much use on a run or broad reach (not that you'd run if you could avoid it given the assymetric on a BR.

I'm some way from being able to try this out on my BR 17, so I'd also be interested in any shared experiences.

[Craic]

You could fit a simple burgee to the top of the yard and it would stick straight up into the clear wind when the sail was raised. Presumably you could fit a more sophisticated indicator in the same way, but it would be easy to damage it when raising or lowering the sail.

Julian is right there, in practice it has proved troublesome to have a delicate wind indicator atop the topmast. So we have the indicator -in the form of a swivelled long pennant- atop the mizzen mast mostly, for general information, and then watch the stick-on telltales in the sails for the fine tuning.
If you have mounted your indicator on a long wooden stick as proposed you can change position between topmast and mizzen mast anytime.

[steve jones]

I  use a 'little hawk windindicator mk2' mounted ,facing aft on the gunter yard. It can be seen from any usual helm position, I also fit a racing dinghy burgee on the mizzen.

Low tech' but effective for my style of sailing, single handed; slow;
but always trying to 'pinch' too much.

Steve

S17 (building BR17)