This is a wind vane that I made for my Goat Island Skiff sailing boat which hasn't been launched yet. It's made from a couple of 5.5mm plastic knitting needles, hot melt glue, and some odd scraps I found in my garage. You can easily make one in about 15 minutes, and if you don't have anything lying around, check out your craft store where you should be able to buy the bits for a couple of bucks.
For the joiner you can use a ball pen casing, while a plastic bead makes a nice low friction bearing. For the vane you can use any lightweight material. Plastic meat trays or ice cream containers are some ideas. You will need to saw a slot in the knitting needle to hold the vane, and fix it in place with some hot melt glue
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Whatever material you decide to use, make sure you balance it reasonably well. Mine needed a bit more weight at the front tip, so I used some black silicon insulation tape, but a few blobs of hot melt glue moulded around the tip would work well too.
Hey OZTAYLS -
ReplyDeleteLove the skiff!
I saw your post at The Laser Forum and saw that you were interested in wind indicators here and wanted to ensure that you did not miss my reply, hoping that it would be helpful with your Laser sailing. It read:
Welcome aboard the C-vane Sailing Team! Happy that you brought up the issue.
It is clear that your wire bracket is not spaced or aligned properly. First ensure that the wire is aligned vertically at the gap, then measure the gap itself, which should be 2.36mm (or about the thickness of the bracket's black clip in the middle). When the clip is attached just aft of the vane the upper portion of the wire bracket should not touch the vane itself. In fact the vane should rattle a bit if you were to shake it.
Also, the "needle" bearing of the C-vane is incorporated into the vane itself and rides with the lowest friction of any indicator on the smooth, flat surface of the lower arm of the bracket.
One of your countrymen just received his C-vane and let me know how pleased he was with the performance in light air (which I did not think was part of Aussie sailing) so your results should be similar.
Also, I was hoping that our C-vane for Sunfish might go well on your GI Skiff, but the gaff angle looks a bit too swept.
Let me know how you go please.
Sail fast and point the right way,
- Ryan
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