Raymarine i60 Close Hauled

[wheelerwbrian]

I'm replacing old nonfunctioning Datamarine instruments with Raymarine i50/60 Depth, Speed, Wind package. However I have four holes in the bulkhead to fill (one was for a Loran readout...), and I think it would be easier/cheaper to put another instrument in the hole rather than fix it. I was thinking of the i60 Close Hauled Wind instrument, but was wondering how useful it will be on my Ericson 39 1988. Thoughts?

Thanks.

 

[Christian Williams]

Well, it's better than a hole--and it matches. I think usefulness pretty much depends on how much you enjoy instrumentation. If racing, I'd find it handy. If not....

 

[Loren Beach]

I replaced the original three Datamarine bulkhead instrument faces quite a while ago.
I used Raymarine ST60 : speed, depth, and wind.
The original holes were 1/2" too wide for the new instruments.

Luckily the new ST60 bezels would cover my repair.... so I took some old round plate pieces of frp (that were cut outs from the install of instruments in our prior boat!) and sawed out a center in each one for the new instruments. This produced a ring with 1/4" sides. I epoxied those rings into the old openings.
The adaptation is invisible from the cockpit, being concealed by the instrument face.
This also proves that you should never discard stray pieces of frp material. Lacking such a source, you could source some G10 plate from McMaster Carr.

After some puzzlement over just how to "shrink" a hole, this was the solution I came up with, and it still looks good, i.e. invisible. Note that if no can can see your fix then it passes the test.


Regards,
Loren

 

[supersailor]

What is really nice if you don't have it is wind speed/relative direction.

 

[wheelerwbrian]

I replaced the original three Datamarine bulkhead instrument faces quite a while ago.
I used Raymarine ST60 : speed, depth, and wind.
The original holes were 1/2" too wide for the new instruments.

Luckily the new ST60 bezels would cover my repair.... so I took some old round plate pieces of frp (that were cut outs from the install of instruments in our prior boat!) and sawed out a center in each one for the new instruments. This produced a ring with 1/4" sides. I epoxied those rings into the old openings.
The adaptation is invisible from the cockpit, being concealed by the instrument face.
This also proves that you should never discard stray pieces of frp material. Lacking such a source, you could source some G10 plate from McMaster Carr.

After some puzzlement over just how to "shrink" a hole, this was the solution I came up with, and it still looks good, i.e. invisible. Note that if no can can see your fix then it passes the test.


Regards,
Loren

I don't have the old FRP material from the original install in 1988, but my plan is similar to yours. I hadn't heard of G-10 but it looks like the ticket. I was originally going to make a ring form and cast an insert out of epoxy.

 

[wheelerwbrian]

What is really nice if you don't have it is wind speed/relative direction.

Isn't that already a function in the i60 wind instrument?

Another alternative is to put in an i70 and use it for some other data point, such as rudder position. I'm always looking at my pilot readout to see how its canted. Price difference is about one boat unit. The bezels will still match.

 

[toddster]

I replaced two old 4-inch instruments with four new 2-inch (ST40) instruments. My fourth data point was heading.
Rather than mucking about repairin the old holes, then drilling new hole, I screwed down a piece of black StarBoard over the whole area and mounted the new instruments in that. Rounded off the edges with a router, and it looks pretty good IMHO. Easy.

I don't particularly like the way the RM units screw down with a flimsy friction ring. Hopefully they've improved on that. Anyhow, there hasn't been any leakage around them.