Hello Horizon Owners

[yellowdog]

This is a great web site but I have seen very little activity under the Horizon tab. I am the new proud owner of Horizon hull #37. The boat is in great shape needing only to have the teak cleaned up a bit. Unfortunately, I picked up the boat in November and since I live in Illinois it will be awhile until I get to sail it. In the past my wife and I have sailed mostly on the Mississippi (when it wasn't flooding) but are looking forward to trailering to better waters throughout the Midwest. The primary reason for purchasing the Horizon was its ability to be trailered and set up quickly.
At the Strictly Sail Chicago show The Boathouse out of Madison, Wisconsin will have several Com Pacs on display and I hope to meet some other Com Pac owners there.

[Greene]

Welcome.  Check out the info on the CLR sail in Illinois.  We'd love to have a Horizon included in the fleet to check out.

Mike and Brenda

[CaptRon28]

Yellowdog -

Welcome to the forum. There hasn't been that much activity on the Horizon side because there aren't that many boats out there (less than 100?) and most of them are packed away for the winter. Mine is up in NJ (covered on the driveway), and we're down in Florida where I have a 28 foot trimaran to play with. If you have any questions about the boat, post them here and I'm sure it will wake some of us up.

[yellowdog]

Thank you for the welcome. I did notice the posts concerning the CIR event. I'm anxious to get that boat on the water. We test sailed it when we bought it and we were very pleased - a very simple boat. For now I have to be content with cleaning, polishing and refinishing the teak. The big discision for now is how to refinish the teak. Until I retire and relocate this boat will be stored in a large garage and exposed to the elements only when under sail. Practical Sailor has some interesting test results on varnishes and I'm considering Cetol inlieu of teak oil. As far as additional modifications, the boat already has lazy jacks, I don't think I want single line reefing (reef before you go out) and I'm looking at mounting a Hummingbird GPS/Depth finder on the wheel console. I welcome any other suggestions.

Fair winds and best wishes for your new year.

[Bremer Speck]

Hello Yellowdog and welcome! I joined this BB a few weeks ago, after I had bought a used 2004 Horizon in St. Petersburg, FL, where I spend some time during the winter months. She is equipped with the diesel option, so I have this little one-banger massaging my feet, when I start her up. I love to mess about boats and have already started to work on a couple of "improvements". They are all of the "not really needed but desirable (perhaps)" list.  I have replaced the Non-ST Harken winches with Lewmar 14STC. Next item on the list is a new "Windex" being an electronic Nasa Marine wind instruments with a readout mounted in the cockpit. Nasa Marine (www.nasamarine.com) is an unfamiliar name in the USA but has a huge following in Europe. Their line of instruments etc. competes with Raymarine but is priced significantly lower. Best deals can be had at US based www.cactusmarine.com - The wind instrument will be followed by a Nasa "Duet" display providing log, speed and depth information. I will continue dreaming about adding an autopilot.

[CaptRon28]

Bremer -

The nasa wind meter looks interesting, expecially at that price. Let me know how you make out.

Have you ever seen one in person? I'm curious about the accuracy of the display based on the lcd readout. The analog gauges with their mechanical pointers can point to the exact direction (assuming it's accurate in the first place). This one uses pixels to simulate the pointer, and there's got to be some sort of averaging involved for the various lcd pointer positions. Could be exact degrees, or perhaps 10 or even 20 degree intervals.

One other concern - with the gaf rig, the mast top mounted transducer would not always see clean air. The higher positioned sail would be re-directing it, affecting both speed and direction. It can't be mounted on the end of the gaf. I can live with that though.

[Shawn]

Bremer,

Thanks for the heads up about the Nasa Wind unit. Great price.

Only downside is its NMEA data output sentence is not what the Raymarine tillerpilots look for to operate in Windtrack mode. If I end up with the Nasa unit I'll have to write some custom software for a device I build to convert from the Nasa's MWV NMEA sentence to the VWR that the Raymarine looks for.

Shawn

[Bremer Speck]

Capt.Ron, yes, I have seen the Nasa unit. In fact, I have it sitting in my closet, awaiting installation. I have known about Nasa for a long time and have used their instruments on other boats. I think it is a quality product and a lot less expensive than other brands. You have got a good point about the gaff possibly interfering and causing faulty read-outs. But would that not also be the case with the regular mechanical Windex? Anyway, you have given me food for thought. Perhaps, i need to install a short pipe to raise the wind instrument above the gaff. Never dealt with a gaff before, so this is new territory for me.

[Bremer Speck]

Bremer,

Thanks for the heads up about the Nasa Wind unit. Great price.

Only downside is its NMEA data output sentence is not what the Raymarine tillerpilots look for to operate in Windtrack mode. If I end up with the Nasa unit I'll have to write some custom software for a device I build to convert from the Nasa's MWV NMEA sentence to the VWR that the Raymarine looks for.

Shawn

Shawn,

Thanks for pointing this out. Never crossed my mind. On the other hand, I will very likely not have an autopilot because the X-5 Sports Pilot costs about $1400 and for the limited amount of time I am going to spend on the Horizon, manual steering will do just fine.
However, I do look forward to being able to read the wind speed and direction off of the cockpit mounted instrument.