Raymarine Smart Wind brings pro sailing chops to cruising, club racing

The Raymarine Smart Wind (RSW) mast-top sensor was designed to bring more precise wind data to the skipper, reducing error and inaccuracy and ensuring the boat is always in its peak performance window.

According to Raymarine, it is the only wind sensor designed to produce results “exactly as you would from a calibrated precision instrument”.

RSW includes an integrated a 3D motion sensor as well as algorithms that Raymarine says “give every Skipper a new level of sailing information and intelligence”.

“The result is a highly accurate wind, wind speed and direction data that will fuel your sailing features,” it said. “Good wind data equals good sailing features and accurate sailing features all to make you a better sailor and have confidence in the decisions you make when it matters most,” it said.

“Raymarine smart wind technology delivers expert-level accuracy with no complicated and expensive black box processes or cumbersome calibration tables.”

The new RSW is a ground-up redesign of Raymarine’s mast-top transducer honed in a wind tunnel, with the level of detail coming down to the type of bearings the system uses. It integrates with Raymarine's Alpha Series 7.0- and 9.0-inch displays that were also launched at Cannes this week.

Key to the RSW is the introduction of the masthead 3D motion sensor that allows the software driving the system to account for a boat’s pitch and roll, particularly as it crests and comes off waves and less accurate windicators report a speed and heading shift.

The 3D sensor, integrated into the vane, is designed to sense if a gust of wind twists or bends the mast, and remove any error that it generates. That makes the system ideal for sailboats with rotating masts, with the RSW system able to account for changes to the mast angle from the cockpit.

Another big advance is using algorithms to automatically account for upwash, the wind directed up from the sail that can affect the windicator at the masthead – previously, skippers had to account for this as an error in the heading.

Raymarine has also thought about maintenance, with the RSW made up of only three components. Key to this is a quick-release system for the vane, so trips to the mast-top to change it are fast and efficient.

The RSW will also ship with a connector to attach to the wind vane at one end, and bare wire at the other so that the 30-metre cable to make it much easier to feed through masts, glands and conduits. The cable is then wired into an RSW gateway that provides a bridge between the windicator and the NMEA 2000 network.

Pricing for the Raymarine Smart Wind windicator is from $US850 ($A1320).