I have tried number of things to measure speed on my boat and most methods fall short for one reason or another.

The I tried both versions of the speedmate, the trailing wire and the non wired version. I mounted the trailing wire speedmate on the front crossbar but it was hard to read from the wire. The non-wire version has an impeller that mounts to the trailing edge of foil, so I mounted it on the rudder and put the display on the rudder arm. This worked well but you need 2 units, one for each rudder, plus the impeller is very fragile and it ends up getting clogged up with salt water.

Next I tried GPS. I went through 3 Garmin etrex GPS, but the waterproof claim wasnt real and they all stopped working after a couple of salt water dunkings.

Most recently I bought a Suunto M9 GPS watch. This thing is pretty cool and will tell you all kinds of sailing/racing data like laylines, favor end of start, headers, shifts, etc. However the GPS takes forever to acquire and if you are not careful it loses view of the satellites and the GPS function stops working. Plus the menus are cumbersome and the battery life is limited. Also, it is a big watch and the band isnt quite long enough to fit comfortably over a wetsuit, gloves, spray top,etc. Its probably better for a monohull tactician type that has time to navigate the menus and isnt wearing a wetsuit or moving around like we do.

Has anyone found a reliable, really waterproof GPS? I dont really want to put it in a plastic bag. And it should be small. Anyone tried out the new Garmin Geko? Garmin is also promising a handfree marine unit in March 2004.
http://www.garmin.com/products/foretrex201/#

I wish that Tactic would put a GPS receiver in their digital compass. The Tactic works great, its waterproof and solar powered and the compasss works great. They could make the display bigger and add GPS based speed readout. I bet the cat sailors would all buy one.

Anyone have a contact at Tactic?

Bill