SpeedPuck: Who Has One ?

Karl Brogger, MikeReddy, and RokRaider seem to be satisifed users.

Others ?

What I am wondering is:

• Where do you mount it ?
  .
• What measures do you take to keep from losing it ?
  (the assumption being a SpeedPuck sinks like a rock - albeit
  an extremely-expensive rock....)
  .
• Does anybody have other solutions that they prefer?

I suspect that 90% of SpeedPuck's functionality will go right
over my head..... My main concerns are speed/accuracy of
updates, font size, and real-world mountability on an AI.

I have tried smartphone-in-a-bag in other on-water applications,
but my experience as been that eventually the bags leak and,
with salt water, that becomes muy expensivo.

One useful feature would seem to be the ability to record a
track that could easily be uploaded to GoogleEarth or some other
commonly-used mapping app.... So that might argue for a
throwaway mini-tablet.... but still beg the question of mounting....

_________________
2015 AI in "Dune" - "The Grey Pig"
2017 Trailex 450 Trailer
Pre-September 2015 cradles
(anybody want to buy a slightly-used AI SpinKit?)
eMail: [email protected]

Jeez Pete, you are seriously determined to spend your money! $389 to tell you speed and compass heading?

I would have trouble justifying that expense on a receational sailing kayak. I would be happy to dump the heading info (or just buy a basic dinghy deck compass and mount it on your hatch lid), and add the Navionics app to my smartphone.

eBay has dozens (hundreds?) of waterproof pouches for your phone, and I consider them consumables, even carrying spares. The Navionics app allows you to send your track to Google Earth, plus lots of other features.

Maybe I am just cheap...

_________________
Tony Stott
2012 Tandem Island "SIC EM" with Hobie spinnaker

The onboard read-outs are speed, heading, shifts and maximum speed or best average over a user input time setting. Downloading gives you a host of options and features per the Velocitool software (free) that almost boggles the mind.

The read-out on the display is large and easily read from a couple or three yards away. I can't imagine you could get far enough from it on a TI that you'd not be able to read it.

It's an outstanding piece of equipment. I mounted the "mount" with self adhesive velcro to an easily visible site on my boat. Three AA batteries will give you about 15 hours of use.

Don't feel like The Lone Ranger.... that was one ulterior motive behind my post.

OTOH, I don't want my survivors to have *too* much fun.... -)

I figure a throwaway smartphone for $100 plus a pouch for $10, plus Navionics for $15....... So now the price to beat is $125.... Assuming the smartphone/Navionics combo gives usable speed updates and not 3-second lag times like my Garmin does.

Update speed/accuracy aside, my chief concern becomes retaining the device and not watching it sink out of sight one day.

Now the Android phone has an edge... I know from experience that they float in those pouches.... and even in the worst case it's only $100 down the drain if the pouch leaks enough salt water to do the job...

So it is starting to sound like maybe SpeedPuck may be wretched excess - or, at least, $265 spent that did not need to be spent.... Possibly aggravated by the chances of being lost by going overboard....

Now it comes down to refresh speed and accuracy. I know that my Garmin sucks pretty badly in that respect and that's a dedicated device.... so my hopes for a smartphone are tempered by that experience.

Decisions, decisions......

_________________
2015 AI in "Dune" - "The Grey Pig"
2017 Trailex 450 Trailer
Pre-September 2015 cradles
(anybody want to buy a slightly-used AI SpinKit?)
eMail: [email protected]

If you check the Velocitek site you will likely gain some respect for the accuracy of the device, which you can increase on the maximum speed read-out by selecting the highest average over a specified time. I like to use 10 seconds, but you can choose longer times if you prefer.

The speed puck is one of the better devices I have purchased.

How do you keep from losing it ? ...... Looks to me like it sinks like a (very expensive...) stone.

_________________
2015 AI in "Dune" - "The Grey Pig"
2017 Trailex 450 Trailer
Pre-September 2015 cradles
(anybody want to buy a slightly-used AI SpinKit?)
eMail: [email protected]

It is contained in a mount which you can screw, glue, velcro, etc., to your boat. I suppose it might sink if you tossed it in, but I haven't done that (yet).

If you wanted to use it loose from the mount, you could easily glue a round piece of foam to the back to ensure it would float if you dropped it in.

If you feel the need to have a speedpuck and are worried about loosing it, simply drop it in a dry bag (as TonyStott has suggested), attach a tether to the dry bag, and attach the tether to the boat. It is pretty straight-forward. I've used small dry bag like aquapac for years and never lost anything, either to leakage or lost-over-board.

Keith

_________________
2015 AI 2, 2014 Tandem

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex ... It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." A. Einstein

"Less is more" Anon

I can do all of this (and a lot more) from my GPS enabled depth finder plus I obviously also get water depth. And it cost less. Other than the compact size I don't see the draw of a SpeedPuck.

Who has one? I do on my Hobie 21Se mounted to near the mast base. It is great!

My only issue is that it hard to read as the mast rotates and I am out in the trap....I think I need two...one for each side of the mast...or maybe one on each wing set............

_________________
Bill 404 21SE

I used the speedpuck when I was sailing a regatta with a Melges24 boat. It was attached at the base of the mast and very useful, with large characters and the two main infos that you need, especially when u race.
For my hobie I honestly would like something like that but 350$ or euros are really too much.
I think i could spend 100$ for such a tool.

I'm a cyclist and am thinking of trying a Garmin Edge 500 cycling computer for the same purpose. It has the benefit that it can do double-duty at about 1/2 the cost.

The Edge 500's GPS speedometer should as accurate as the Speedpuck. It addition, you can customize the fields displayed on the screen. Although it is waterproof (bikes do get caught in downpours), a phone bag is probably wise.

I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has used this unit in a kayak. Mounting options?

Gary

2014 Hobie TI
1984 Hobie Hawk RC Glider

I have Garmin's ForeRunner 310xt and find it's speed functionality totally inadequate for what I want to do - which is discover how changes in pedaling technique, sail trim, and/or centerboard setting affect speed..... The latency time is just too long - as in 5, 10 seconds sometimes.... enough that, when I try a sprint, sometimes I run out of gas before the numbers catch up.

Also, many times the numbers do not make sense - way too low or way too high for perceived speed..... There is just no way in hell that I have ever pedaled my AI above about 6.2 mph.... yet I saw 7.5 on the Garmin yesterday - with sail fully furled, pedaling into a slight headwind...... Likewise, on the same day, I was under sail and pedaling my brains out and, at one time, the Garmin seemed to be stuck on 3.8 mph.

Hopefully the 500 uses a different chipset or something.... but if it uses the same chipset as the 310x, I would avoid it unless somebody can give another explaination for the goofy and overly-latent numbers I see.

My main remaining interest in SpeedPuck is around that: how close the current speed readout is to actual speed.

Likewise, my main reservation about getting a throwaway smartphone or mini-tablet is latency...

I'm starting to see some sense in the Retro approach: getting a water-speed device for my particular application...... Had one years-and-years ago - before GPS - on my surf ski and it seemed to work pretty well ("Neilson"?)....... Only issue I can recall is distance from the little transmitter (glued to the rudder) to the readout device..... and that was a non-issue on my 21' surf ski.

And then there is Really Retro: a plain old hollow plastic rod with one end in the water bent to face forward and speed indicated by the height of the water column.... no need of an absolute number in this case... just watching to see what makes the column rise or fall..... Looks like the term-of-art is "Liquid Column Manometer".

_________________
2015 AI in "Dune" - "The Grey Pig"
2017 Trailex 450 Trailer
Pre-September 2015 cradles
(anybody want to buy a slightly-used AI SpinKit?)
eMail: [email protected]

Surprise!....in fresh water it floats - just barely awash.

Made a floating tether by stuffing uni-cell foam into red tubular webbing and sewing a snap connector to the hull-attachment end and a loop of spectra kite line to the SpeedPuck end.

Tomorrow we will assess the find-ability of that combo in the event that I manage to drop it in the water.

Now I am obsessing over where to attach it. First try will be velcro-ing to the amidships hatch. If that works out, I'll get some screws and do it right.

Anybody want to share their favored AI mounting location ?

Also: Is it safe to assume that SpeedPuck does NOT charge it's batteries when connected to a USP port ?

_________________
2015 AI in "Dune" - "The Grey Pig"
2017 Trailex 450 Trailer
Pre-September 2015 cradles
(anybody want to buy a slightly-used AI SpinKit?)
eMail: [email protected]

Tried out my new SpeedPuck for the first time today in flukey/shifty winds at the local lake.

Speed readout on a Garmin 310 was lagging the SpeedPuck's by 3-5 seconds. OTOH, an old Garmin Foretrex 201 was only lagging by .5-3 seconds....and most of the time only .5-1 seconds.

Seems to me like the killer features of the SpeedPuck are:

• Significantly more current speed - useful for immediate feedback on sail/dag changes on a sailboat and paddle technique on a surf ski
  .
• Huge readout - I expected big.... but this is beeeeeeeeg.
  .
• The relative heading indicator - seems useful for figuring out how much daggarboard is optimal on which headings and what sail over/under trim does - once I figure out how to use it, that is....
  .
• It floats - albeit barely awash - OK, not exactly "Killer"..... but a red floating lanyard makes it easily recoverable.

Either the SpeedPuck software is a bit rudimentary or I am too clueless to understand the functionalities presented.
.MAPS files ? Googled that one and came up...well.... confused.

I bought this thing mainly for the here-and-now feedback, not data analysis so I'm not all that spun up over the software.... Having said that, I think I will start groping around for something that renders .GPX. I'm exporting to .KML and opening up the tracks in GoogleEarth, no problem.... but I am guessing there are better apps out there that will, for instance, automagically render speeds and degrees between tacks....

??

_________________
2015 AI in "Dune" - "The Grey Pig"
2017 Trailex 450 Trailer
Pre-September 2015 cradles
(anybody want to buy a slightly-used AI SpinKit?)
eMail: [email protected]