I am considering buying a Suunto M9 but first I would like some first
hand feedback on the thing. I read the manual and I have a couple of
practical questions:

Setting True Wind direction and force as described in the manual is not
really practical or accurate is it? you are more likely to introduce the
True Wind direction and True Wind Speed from the boat instruments rather
than relying on the watch, no? The Wind Speed that sensor measures is it
reasonably close to what the boat instruments give you?
Although the manual says that can enter manually the direction nothing
is mentioned for the speed, can you enter the wind speed manually to?

The polars that the Sail manager provides are somewhere near the real
thing?
How useful the software is to perform some sort of post-race analysis?
Can you check wind direction, wind speed, speed over ground, heading,
etc at any point?
Does it support tidal info to derive boat speed figures throughout the
race?

Can you use scanned maps instead of the expensive ARCS charts?

Perhaps, more important than all the above does the data (transmitted by
the M9 to the PC) follow some standard sentence formats like NMEA or is
it completely proprietary?

I would appreciate your feedback, especially if you own a M9.

Cheers George