cognisense wrote:
I am evaluating autopilots for my CnC Landfall 48 sailboat, and the
Simrad has a feature not found in other pilots, which they call
WindNav - the ability to steer the boat to an angle of wind with an
eye towards a destination waypoint. The Simrad will allow you to tack
upwind and will suggest the tack point for the final lay line.

My belief is that navigation / pilots should provide functionality
which allows me to increase the amount of time my eyes are on the
water, and this feature strikes me as a good idea. However, none of
the other pilots I'm looking at offer this feature, nor, as best I can
tell, do any of the pc navigation software products nor integrated
chartplotters.

This begs the question: how useful is this feature?

I'd love to hear from people who have a Simrad installed on a
sailboat, and whether or not anyone uses this feature...

Thanks,

Keith

I have a nav. program written in GWBasic which does the same thing. A
simple, easy-to-use program which allows inputs for course to windward mark,
tide, wind direction, pointing ability, leeway. etc., etc. but it is pretty
time-consuming to enter all the required data.

I have only use it once whilst racing, and in view of the ever-changing
parameters, found it less than useful.


Dennis.