2014-10-12

Cheap Wind Direction Indicator

Yarn tied to the shroud.

We went out for a sail. Nothing too different from many other times we have been out on the lake this season.

When sailing, it is useful to know what direction the wind is coming from. You can add expensive wind indicators to the top of the mast. We have plans to do that some time. Until then, we have a really cheap and easy way of finding the wind direction that works pretty well.

We acquired a skein of yarn, that had both blue and red at different points on the length. We cut off about 10 inches of each color and tied them to the rear shrouds about six feet off the deck. We put the red one on the port side and the blue on the starboard, to match the colors of the tell-tails the jib. You do not really need two different colors, but we like the correspondence.

Now we can just look at the yarn to tell the wind direction. It is useful to have more than one, because occasionally one will get stuck to the shroud for a little while.