Another NASA Clipper wind instrument fail

[jellyellie]

So just the other day I was browsing these forums and a chap was asking where he could get a NASA wind instrument for that weekend. Everyone was very helpful but their links came with the caveat of 'Don't buy one, they break'.

I remember reading it and thinking, hmm, mine hasn't broken yet - bought in 2009.

And then just last night, I noticed that the wind scoops have disappeared from the masthead unit.

There's another to add to the list of unhappy customers.

I have emailed NASA and will see what they say.

 

[Jabs]

What is a reasonable life?

Just to put the cat among the pigeons...

It's done 26,000 hours spinning away.

Is that a fair life?

If it was your car, that would be, at 30mph, 788,000 miles?

What does the panel of learned ones think?

Three years sound too little but extrapolate it to 24/7/365 and it's a big number.

Tony

 

[Trundlebug]

Just to put the cat among the pigeons...

It's done 26,000 hours spinning away.

Is that a fair life?

If it was your car, that would be, at 30mph, 788,000 miles?

What does the panel of learned ones think?

Three years sound too little but extrapolate it to 24/7/365 and it's a big number.

Tony

I agree. Whilst it may be mildly inconvenient, they're not bad for the price - and aren't a fortune to replace after all.

Also, from what I've read on previous threads the problem is not confined solely to NASA wind cups, others fail too.

Service from NASA is also generally very good from what I've read, confirmed by my own experience.

 

[jellyellie]

Hmm, an interesting point about life hours. I'll see what NASA say. I think a replacement is £14 + P&P. Just annoying.

 

[Seajet]

The anoyance is getting up the mast for a start, and that's with later models, earlier ones were all in one with the cable.

For those who think the moans unjustified; years ago I was given a Clipper Wind, so felt I had to fit it, I wouldn't have bothered personally.

The display head lasted 11 months, and NASA wouldn't honour the guarantee.

This is years ago, I read their service is much better now.

I put up without it, then in a rare moment of having spare dosh I bought another, to be completely honest this was largely to fill the square hole on the cockpit bulkhead.

This one came with the direction vane bent from new, I got the impression this is / was standard; did my best to straighten it.

After about 14 months, the display froze on one direction, despite the vane turning.

Phoned NASA, 'definitely the masthead unit'.

Went to the boat show a week or so later and asked again face to face; 'definitely the display'.

By this time the cups were rattling like mad, the fact they're on a spindle rather than a bearing is probably relevant.

Then down to 2 cups.

One of the most enjoyable moments in my sailing career was removing the whole lot, putting a grp blank with a security light over the hole, and feeling the boat and my spirits lift without the embarassment and dead weight - which seems significant in the circumstances - of having the thing anywhere near ( I'm considering donating the bits to The London Dungeon but it may be illegal to inflict such things on a paying public ).

A windex at the masthead - illuminated at night by the masthead light - and wool telltales on the shrouds, is a system very hard to beat.

 

[davidej]

I have just had to perform surgery on my B&G MHU after 10 years.

It needed new bearings (fair enough after that long) but was informed they cost something like £70 from B&G. I got them from my local bearing shop for £10.

The plastic disintegrated on dismantling - a new unit was around £400 but an effective repair was done with a few penniesworth of epoxy.

 

[neilf39]

Had one of these on my last boat. As soon as you heel it starts to under read and if you get to about 30+ degrees you may as well ignore it. Turbulence around the unit at that angle had it registering all over the place, as well as the cups not being as effective. Use a hand held unit as you can orient that correctly at any angle. You can get handhelds that you can point to the apparent wind then point in direction of travel that then give you the true wind if you so wish (they have an electronic compass in too to do that so can be used for bearings/emergency compass). You can take hand helds between boats and don't have anything up the mast which may fail. Do you really need to know the exact windspeed all the time? For apparent direction, which you probably might want all the time, have a simple masthead indicator (unless you keep getting a stiff neck looking at the masthead). Racers probably take a different view but then they would have expensive quality stuff fitted wouldn't they?

 

[Norman_E]

Just to put the cat among the pigeons...

It's done 26,000 hours spinning away.

Is that a fair life?

If it was your car, that would be, at 30mph, 788,000 miles?

What does the panel of learned ones think?

Three years sound too little but extrapolate it to 24/7/365 and it's a big number.

Tony

My VDO Logic wind instrument suffered a stuck bearing this year, but it dates from 2000 according to the sticker under the masthead fitting. I make that over 100,000 hours. All it needed was standard stainless ball races costing £1.75 each to fix it. The wind cups were still available last year and I bought a spare.

 

[prv]

Given all these woes with spinny things, I'm surprised the solid-state ultrasonic ones aren't more popular. I looked into them because I didn't want the look of a spinner on KS's traditional masthead, but they ought to also avoid the hassle of mechanical systems. A little more pricy perhaps (I think about £400 for the sender only when I was looking, NMEA, use any display) but what price not having to drag yourself up the mast yet again? The specs (accuracy etc) for the one I looked at seemed comparable to spinner/vane units.

Pete

 

[nigelmercier]

I was considering buying some Nasa gear at the boat show. They had a display outside in the marina, two of them had broken!

 

[Heckler]

Hmm, an interesting point about life hours. I'll see what NASA say. I think a replacement is £14 + P&P. Just annoying.

what happens when the cups disappear is that the shaft that it spins on has snapped. They sell a complete bottom housing and you have to swop all the wiring bits. There was an article in PBO? about a guy removing the shaft and fitting a thicker one to avoid the prob recurring. I must say that the Other post about it spinning for a trilion times puts it all in to perspective.
Stu

 

[wotayottie]

why do you need a wind instrument anyway? you can tell when you need to heel by the stress the boat is under, and if in a marina deciding whether to go out or not, you can decide by using the weather forecast combined with Beaufort's excellent visual guide to sea state.

All an anemometer will give you is numbers that really arent much if any use. Its a bit like the boat's log - I've done a year now without replacing the blanking plug with the log because of the irritation of having to regularly clean an operating paddle wheel. But again the numbers dont matter - the number that is of use is the gps speed over the ground to the waypoint

And Jabs comment isnt really a fair comparison - it would be better to compare the masthead unit to the car's ventilation fan maybe. Except that the major Nasa issue seems to be UV degradation of the plastic cups and supports.

 

[cid]

Wind ins

what happens when the cups disappear is that the shaft that it spins on has snapped. They sell a complete bottom housing and you have to swop all the wiring bits. There was an article in PBO? about a guy removing the shaft and fitting a thicker one to avoid the prob recurring. I must say that the Other post about it spinning for a trilion times puts it all in to perspective.
Stu

Hi I did the repair as per the article over the winter. It was simple to do, I just got the cups online from algadgets and followed the guide. It's working well so far.

CID

 

[olam]

Nasa wind

I guess i'm tempting fate here.
My Nasa wind has been up since 2005 and still works perfectly with no matainence
apart from the odd squirt of wd if i'm up there.

 

[lenseman]

I guess i'm tempting fate here.
My Nasa wind has been up since 2005 and still works perfectly with no matainence . . . . .

On more than one occasion, I have watched two black crows settle on a mast top and one will quite happily peck away at the cups until they are broken off and stop spinning. When I first saw it, I was amazed. It was as if one crow was teaching the other what to do! ;eek;

As soon as one of the anemometer cups was falling into the marina, they flew off together onto another yacht.

They tend to stay on the inboard yachts and do not seem to visit the yachts towards the hammerhead.

 

[Jabs]

why do you need a wind instrument anyway? you can tell when you need to heel by the stress the boat is under, and if in a marina deciding whether to go out or not, you can decide by using the weather forecast combined with Beaufort's excellent visual guide to sea state.

All an anemometer will give you is numbers that really arent much if any use. Its a bit like the boat's log - I've done a year now without replacing the blanking plug with the log because of the irritation of having to regularly clean an operating paddle wheel. But again the numbers dont matter - the number that is of use is the gps speed over the ground to the waypoint

And Jabs comment isnt really a fair comparison - it would be better to compare the masthead unit to the car's ventilation fan maybe. Except that the major Nasa issue seems to be UV degradation of the plastic cups and supports.

Wow!

I use my wind direction to feed the autopilot! Pretty important if sleeping!

The log gives me a vector to take me where I want to go and VMG. Why wouldn't I be interested in that?

The cars ventilation fan only runs when the car runs. It doesn't run 24/7 so my comment stands.