Wind Indicator Solution

How do you fit a wind indicator to a mast that rotates?
Well here is one solution that has worked on the several outings I remembered to plug it in.
I purchased one of those plastic coupling fittings commonly used on life jackets.
Also a dingy wind indicator for about $20AU. Yes we are a land of innovators in Australia.
I cut off the mounting rod leaving the curve in place, cut away the coupling then filled with plastibond. I think that's a brand name but I guess anything that will fill the gap and go hard will do. Ended up with as below.
Next I heated a strip of plastic and bent it to a shape to fit under the sail strap on top of the mast and in the notch on top of the mast. The strip was about 12mm wide and about 1.5mm thick. You can see the edge of the plastic, under the webbing in the following photos. I then put two metal threads through the femal coupling and plastic strip with dome nuts and locktite as below.
Then all I have to remember to do is plug in as below. At least I don't have to take down a fully stayed mast with spreaders, like in my last yacht, when I forget on the TI.

I visited the hardware store and bought a PVC pipe joiner which fitted over the top of the mast, and secured it with a self tapper.

I then found some clear plastic hose to slip the dinghy wind indicator into, and screwing the bottom of the tube to the PVC fitting (after filling the bottom with some wooden dowel)

So when rigging the TI, I simply insert the Windex into the plastic tube. There is some merit to adding a rubber band for back up, as I have lost a Windex due to violent mast sway caused by boat wash!

Now that I have the Hobie spinnaker kit, my Windex is zip-tied to the little indicator mast (my eyesight was never good enough to see a 0.5mm thick piece of "flag" end on). I also added reflective tape on the under side of the Windex for night sailing

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