katysails wrote:

Also, I don't plan on making any extended ocean passages.

What does that have to do about whether you have instruments or not????

Well, If you are only going to take your boat out in Galveston Bay
within a few miles of land, wind speed and weather aren't as critical as
when you plan on sailing from Kemah to Galveston to Corpus, or to
Brownsville. In other words, if you are only interested in day sailing,
you might be willing to rely on hand-held instruments, or on
observations based on the Beaufort scale, when you know you can motor
back to port in 20 minutes. - Does that answer your question Katy?

Jim